ALL THINGS TRANSFORMERS!!!!

[Wanderer]

Yip I'm getting him as I passed on him previously. Only doing it as the Dinobots look like they'll be completed. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of Takaras version.

 

[lerath666]

Whelp, some concern on the mp front. The guy wh did the datsuns and lambor is gone, and the guy who did megaton and hot rod is back in control.

 

[karamazov80]

Disappointing. In fairness though, Megatron was a lifetime ago. And surely there isn't just one guy making designs and decisions. Hot Rod seems a'aight to me, apart from the various QC issues he had. But yeah, the Nissans and Lamborghinis were pitch perfect.

 

[teemu]

Whelp, some concern on the mp front. The guy wh did the datsuns and lambor is gone, and the guy who did megaton and hot rod is back in control.

Well 3rd Party has been looking really good lately

Superion- Uranos is complete....an under-rated and fantastic combiner

Kronos- Cartoon Skyfire releases next month. Looks fantastic

Scoria- Slag! (another Dinobot,yes!)

plus Swoop is coming

Not too worried,Takara needs to release faster

 

[karamazov80]

Seems like they've been releasing them pretty dang quickly to me. MP-10 through MP-19 over the course of what, 2-3 years? It took 10 years or so to get the first 10 out, and most of those were Prime and Starscream repaints with extremely minimal re-sculpting if any was done at all. I'm fine with this pace so long as we're getting quality products as we have been. The 3rd party stuff either doesn't match the style or scale for the most part, and so my interest isn't there. That Huffer is damn tempting, though.

 

[Furyan]

Hi there buddies. I was wondering if you know how to determine a KO MP15 / MP16 (Soundwave tapes) or MP19 (Smokescreen) from the original?

I bought all 3 in Hong Kong, and they're very cheap, but can't tell if they're KO because I don't see any posts here about them.
Here are some photos:

Thanks for your feedback in advance.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

Hmm havent seen any KO smokescreens yet. As for your tapes only thing I question is the gold and silver paints on the chest,look different. Maybe its the lighting.

Whelp, some concern on the mp front. The guy wh did the datsuns and lambor is gone, and the guy who did megaton and hot rod is back in control.

Say what!?

 

[thecorsair]

Shogo Hasui's off the case eh?

No doubt the TFW boards are spontaneously combusting with a thousand BS theories on how this means the end of the Masterpiece line as we know it

There's no reason to worry, MP09 was fine in terms of recreating the cartoon aesthetic and if anything ushered in the new scale that Hasui stuck to from MP10-19 ( he didn't just do the cars ).

The only thing about Rodimus that sucked was the QC and we've already seen with the Lamborghini's that Takara are a lot quicker to rectify issues when they occur.

All the change means at the moment is that a "wait & see" approach should be taken until we see images of the other guys new designs.

If they suck or don't fit the scale then just don't buy them and use the cash towards something else, no big deal.

As far as release schedules go I think the Masterpiece line is fine as it is especially now we have Fans Toys and possibly Daca Toys & Cubex ( Skyfire and Huffer's designs are great but the jury's out until we know the build quality of their production pieces ) making stuff to fill in some of the gaps.

Speeding up production might increase the number of characters but more importantly it would also increase the risk of shortcuts being taken on the QC in order to keep to a speedier schedule.

I will take quality over quantity every single time.

 

[Furyan]

Shogo Hasui's off the case eh?

No doubt the TFW boards are spontaneously combusting with a thousand BS theories on how this means the end of the Masterpiece line as we know it

There's no reason to worry, MP09 was fine in terms of recreating the cartoon aesthetic and if anything ushered in the new scale that Hasui stuck to from MP10-19 ( he didn't just do the cars ).

The only thing about Rodimus that sucked was the QC and we've already seen with the Lamborghini's that Takara are a lot quicker to rectify issues when they occur.

All the change means at the moment is that a "wait & see" approach should be taken until we see images of the other guys new designs.

If they suck or don't fit the scale then just don't buy them and use the cash towards something else, no big deal.

As far as release schedules go I think the Masterpiece line is fine as it is especially now we have Fans Toys and possibly Daca Toys & Cubex ( Skyfire and Huffer's designs are great but the jury's out until we know the build quality of their production pieces ) making stuff to fill in some of the gaps.

Speeding up production might increase the number of characters but more importantly it would also increase the risk of shortcuts being taken on the QC in order to keep to a speedier schedule.

I will take quality over quantity every single time.

Wish it were that easy for me as I pretty much live for this line. But I guess to worry about this now would be jumping the gun. Wonder who designed/is designing Wheeljack because his silhouette looks liek its going to be great.

 

[thecorsair]

Wish it were that easy for me as I pretty much live for this line. But I guess to worry about this now would be jumping the gun. Wonder who designed/is designing Wheeljack because his silhouette looks liek its going to be great.

Let's examine his past work,

MP01 is still a great design, it's problems were caused by the overuse of diecast.

This was Hironori Kobayashi's prototype for MP03, before Shoji Kawamori screwed it up,


Nothing wrong there, the problem was the other guy's decision to add the stupid hip kibble and the bizarre coloring of the initial release.

Grimlock had a couple of silly gimmicks and was slightly too small by the newer scale that's being used but was otherwise fine.

Rodimus looked great but was let down by bad QC and a fiddly transformation but some of the latter can be put down to the decision to make it both Hot Rod and Rodimus.

If they'd made the two as seperate molds I think it would have been more like the recent MP transformations, just enough to get the braincells working but not frustrating.

The only real mess he's made was MP05 which was a failure on pretty much all counts except the gun mode.

It'll be intresting to see who's designed WJ, it depends if the 2014 date mentioned in the hobby magazine means that's when we'll see Kobayashi's first new designs released or if that's when he starts working on Masterpieces again.

If it's the latter then we won't see any of his new designs for over a year so Hasui's influence will be seen for some time yet.

 

[Ra88]

Whelp, some concern on the mp front. The guy wh did the datsuns and lambor is gone, and the guy who did megaton and hot rod is back in control.

That same guy also did the original Seeker design (which was reused for v2), MP-01 and 10, and Grimlock, along with all the Binaltech and Alternity toys. This while the line is going to continue with it's current design philosophy of cartoon-accurate MPs that are in (cartoon) scale with each other.

I don't think we really have that much to worry about.

Hasui is working on Wheeljack, he just tweeted a first look at the silhouette of the toy proper:

https://twitter.com/Hasui_TF/status/418033852313919492/photo/1

 

[Gakken85]

The feet look hollow in the back, or the potential to be hollow.

 

[Ra88]

Yeah, but with how big they are I don't think he'll have any trouble standing.

 

[MegaPrime33]

I really don't care for the fact that they've scaled down the MPs. I mean the first Prime was/is great. Why scale him down for mp10?

 

[newshoryuken]

I heard MP 10 and on is from a different designer.

 

[thecorsair]

To clarify,

MP01-09 were designed by Hironori Kobayashi except for the reworking of the original MP03 design which was done by Shoji Kawamori.

Shogo Hasui designed everything from MP10-20 except for MP11 which was a reworking of Kobayashi's original MP03 prototype.

A 3rd designer called Hishashi Yuki is doing Masterpiece Star Saber.

Kobayashi is doing another stint on Masterpieces either starting in 2014 or has already designed some of the others scheduled for release after Wheeljack.

 

[lerath666]

I really don't care for the fact that they've scaled down the MPs. I mean the first Prime was/is great. Why scale him down for mp10?

They were too big, unwieldy, and expensive to produce.

 

[DPrime]

They were too big, unwieldy, and expensive to produce.

Not to mention, the new scale didn't start with MP-10. It started all the way back to MP-03, Starscream. MP-10 was more of a "soft reboot", since the new scale was more or less established with the Seekers, Grimlock and Rodimus Prime. We just needed a Prime to go along with them. If anything, Hasui made the new scale "official"; hopefully that continues to be the case.

I'm not too worried about Hasui leaving, but I have to admit, it makes me a little sad. I'm sure Kobayashi will give us some great MPs, but for now, it looks like the Hasui era is coming to an end.

 

[Niltusk]

I don't have an MP01 and never did, but I think the current scale is perfect and plenty large. Dunno, maybe I'd think bigger = better if I had one, but I'm pretty happy with what they are doing currently.

 

[lerath666]

I've got both mp01 and Mp10.

Ten is the superior figure, hands down.

 

[soundwave]

I've got both mp01 and Mp10.

Ten is the superior figure, hands down.

^^^ This

I have both too & while 01will always be special to me it re-ignited the buying bug that had been missing & it looks great on it's own when you put it withany if the others it just doesnt look right

10 on the other hand is utterly perfect & does everything right, looks amazing, scales perfectly & is just everything the line deserved

Sad news definitely but I think we wont notice the loss too much as it will no doubtbe business as usual & the releases will still keep coming...they would be stupid to change the formula again

Neil