Fancy Hands

Even with the great strides Takara has made with the Transformers Masterpiece line, one of the things that never really evolved along with the line were the hands of the figures. In fact, in a lot of ways, they've taken a step back. MP-01 Optimus Prime had individually articulated figures and thumb, though only at the first knuckle. In later figures in the line, the hands slowly gained a fixed thumb and fused middle through pinky fingers. While this works, it does limit posebility. Thankfully, unofficial, third-party companies have stepped up.

Original on the left. Replacement on the right.

Fused fingers on the left. Free moving on the right.

It's a bit of a wash when making a fist.

It's truly amazing that they can not only make hands with every joint, but at that scale. When balled up into a fist, those hands are about the same diameter as a penny.

Couldn't resist....

They provide a wide range of options for posing and really add a lot to the expressions of those poses.

In addition to the fully articulated hands, this set includes a larger, more cartoon-accurate rifle for Prime.

Original on top. Replacement on bottom.

One of the disappointments with this Optimus Prime release was the rather anemic rifle he came with. It's not without a purpose though, as it could fold up for storage.

Junk in the trunk

As nice as this set is, it's not without it's faults. It's a little hard to tell from the pictures, but the color match isn't exactly perfect. Another annoyance is that the finish on the plastic is a rougher, more matte finish compared to the smooth, glossy finish of the originals. Finally, the thumb on the replacement hands is shaped a little oddly. It tampers far too much, and seems almost like a talon, rather than a thumb.

Even with those issues, I'm really pleased with this set and will be picking up sets for other figures.

Very nice.

Masterpiece MP-01 Optimus Prime

In 2004, Hasbro and Takara celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Transformers brand by releasing an Optimus Prime figure that would be a perfect representation of the character.

The toy is highly articulated and with a great range of motion. Starting from the top, his head is on a ball joint that allows him to look up, down, and turn side to side.

Don't mind the dust...

His shoulders are universal joints that allow for front and back rotation, and outward movement. In addition, the shoulders can slide further out from the body to allow for greater outward movement.

It's like he's doing calisthenics 

His elbows are single hinges that allow about a 90 degree bend.

He can throw things

His wrists rotate and have a hinge that allows them to angle inward. Each of his fingers are individually articulated at the main knuckle and his thumb is on a ball joint.

Honestly not sure if those scratches are part of the mold or not

Moving on down, he has a ratcheted waist swivel. His thighs are are more universal joints, that allow for a 90 degree outward movement (he can pull off a full Van Damme), almost 180 degrees of front and back movement, and 360 degree rotation.

His knees are double hinges that allow for almost 180 degrees of movement, Finally, his ankles are ball joints and his toes are hinged.

Can climb stairs? Check!

Toe articulation is a huge deal

He can recreate some fairly dynamic poses, but his construction causes some issues. His chest and lower legs are made of die cast metal. He's fairly heavy, and unfortunately the ball joints in his ankles (at least on my copy) are not up to the task of holding him as soon as his center of gravity moves away from dead center. It's not uncommon for him to assume a "Smooth Criminal"-like front lean.

Tell us that you're okay

Surprisingly, because of the weight of his lower legs, he actually won't fall over. Another issue are his hands. While the articulation in the fingers is nice, they don't provide a tight enough grip to hold his large rifle very well. In certain positions, it's fine, but often it's a very limp-wristed looking grip. Future masterpiece figures would get around this by molding tabs into the handles of the weapons that sat in groove in the palm providing a much better grip.

Based heavily on the animation model from the original cartoon, the figure included as many callbacks to the cartoon as possible many of which only appeared in a single episode or in the animated movie.

First off, his energon ax. Used during a fight with Megatron in one episode very early in the series.

Flip up communicators in each forearm. One with Bumblebee and the other with Starscream... for some reason.

Ring Ring Ring. Banaphone!

Megatron in gun mode, which Prime wielded in a single episode.

Teamwork

Taken from the animated movie, his chest opens up to reveal the Matrix of Leadership. It even lights up when you push a button on his shoulder.

"You got the touch!"

Lastly, a button on the back of his head allows his mouth plate to move up and down as if he was talking.

In addition to all of his gimmicks, Optimus has some nice "working" details, such as pistons in his elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles.

Of course, it wouldn't be a real "masterpiece" of a figure if it didn't actually transform right? He transforms into cab-over-engine semi, featuring working suspension in his wheels.

Unfortunately, where the original toys strive for accuracy in the vehicles at the expense of the robot modes, MP-01's reverses that with a great robot mode and a pretty iffy vehicle mode. It's not horrible, but the way the front lights are recessed is a pretty gregarious oversight.

MP-01 was released by Hasbro in the US and Takara in Japan. They are mostly identical, with the main exceptions being the US version has some "battle damage" paint applications and shortened smokestacks (due to toy safety laws. I replaced mine with some third-party replacements). In Japan, MP-01 was followed up in 2005 by MP-02 Ultra Magnus, a mostly white repaint of MP-01. This was a reference to the "inner robot" of the original Ultra Magnus being a white repaint of the original Optimus Prime figure, though in most variations of the Transformers fiction, the inner robot of Ultra Magnus is never shown. Instead it merely merges with the trailer to become Ultra Magnus.

In 2006, the next masterpiece mold was released: Masterpiece Starscream.

M.F.B.

Quick little post for the My First Blaster kit by MakeToys. This little kit allows you to make a gun for the character Swerve as seen in recent Transformers comic books.

Can we build it?!

What is the MFB? From the wiki article: "'My First Blaster' is a fun, safe way for Autobots with hands too little for normal guns to rain hot death on any and all potential targets."

Almost done

Such tiny pieces

All done

Overall it's a pretty nice representation of the gun from the comic, especially when paired with the unofficial Swerve figure also made by MakeToys.

From tfwiki.net. Copyright Hasbro

And why does one need a small gun for little hands?

Because accidents happen

Alternators

In the early 00's I really wasn't collecting much in the way of Transformers. I picked up a figure here and there, but overall the toyline didn't really grab me. In the back of the little catalog that came packed with the figures was an advertisement for the Alternators toyline. The focus of these figures were fully licensed 1:24 scale vehicles that were re-imaginings of characters from the original toyline and cartoon.

Smokescreen was the first toy they released. Based on a Subaru Impreza WRC rally car.

I'd love one these in real life

Fancy

Unfortunately the wheel doesn't work

They really went all out trying to make them appear to be models. In fact, I've had friends that thought they were. Of course they wouldn't be as much fun if that were the case.

It almost doesn't look like a folded up robot

An interesting side note on the underside of the car. While the steering will isn't tied to the wheels, the wheels are connected to each other. Each wheel has a magnet in it that ties it to a piece that runs the width of the car.

Classic car robot styling

Overall it's a pretty nice robot mode. Decently kibble free, that is, there's not a lot of car junk hanging off of it. One of my biggest issues with it is the feet. It's not necessarily that they're huge, which they are, it's that they don't provide the most solid base for the figure.

Those are big feet

One of the issues is that he doesn't have any toe swivel or ankle tilt. If you splay his legs, he only stands on the edges of his feet. Another issue is that the heel is a small rotating tab which has to work double duty to provide back support but also to keep the wheels off the ground. Finally, it can be awfully fiddly to get back into car mode. The legs have been bend at a fairly specific angle in order for the rear sections of the car to line up and tab correctly to minimize panel lines and gaps.

Little more car-like from behind

All in all, it was a great way to kick off a new toyline. They would eventually release figures based on the Mazda RX-8, which was an evolution of this basic design and fixed many of it's flaws.

The toyline itself saw the release of twenty-seven figures across thirteen car models. But those are other robots for other posts.

Birthday Robits!

For my birthday this year, Meg surprised me with five pretty awesome not-Transformers:

Love the packaging on these.

Now, I say "not-Transformers" because they're unlicensed toys made by Fansproject, a third-party company, and not Hasbro or Takara. I've really gotten into the third-party toys because they're making some awesome stuff that Hasbro/Takara never would due to cost.

Extinct animals.

Back when elbows were a luxury.

They're designed to look like toys from the heyday of the original Transformers toyline: chunky, limited articulation, and fairly simple designs. Here's a shot of one next to an official Transformer of similar design.

These were the pinnacle of design in the late '80s.

The real hook for these is that Fansproject went whole hog in giving them a very retro feel - like they were toys that you must have missed when they were on shelves in the '80s. Even though they're brand-new, the packaging is designed to look like it's faded, torn, and taped.

Notice the stains, taped rip, and scuffed edges; all printed detail.

Even the sticker sheet is partially applied.

The marketing for these was incredible. You've got the retro designs, the retro boxes, heck, they even drew up fake animation cels for the packaging. But this is far from the best part.

They were even in the cartoon? Must have been episode from overseas...

You may have noticed in the first picture in this post, one of the boxes didn't match (hint, it's the lower left box). As I mentioned early, the idea was that these were found toys from the '80s. They were shipped out one at a time to people that ordered them online. When it came time to ship out the last figure, Fansproject posted on their blog that, unfortunately, the entire shipment of that figure had fallen off the boat and was lost.

A few days later, Fansproject made another post claiming that all hope wasn't lost. During the closing of an old warehouse overseas, workers found unopened cases of the Korean version of the figure. Luckily, everyone would get the figures they ordered!

This is why you want all five!

Roku

I've decided to take a small break from posting about changes to the HART website to talk about something else for a bit.

After watching Apple's keynote a while back about the AppleTV, I wanted to get one; specifically the latest one. Most people who know Meg and I know that Apple products tend to cause an unnecessary lust in us. Having something that allows us to easily watch Netflix streaming on the bedroom TV without costing us extra subscription fees (looking at you, Xbox 360) sounded like a little bit of heaven. After doing some research though, I decided to go with a Roku player instead of the AppleTV.

If Apple products give Meg and I such boners*, why would we go with Roku? Was it the fact that the Roku was cheaper? No, but it helped. Was it the fact that the Roku provides a lot more functionality out of the box? Not really. So what was it? Cloth Tag.

It's like a stuffed animal I can't comfortably cuddle with!

It should arrive soon, and I'll probably post something about it.

* For some reason when Meg says that something gives her a boner it sounds funny; for me it sounds all kinds of creepy.

The Rough Cut

Fun Fact: When I was in high school, I made a website that
was basically nothing but beveled/embossed images. It's
apparently an addiction I've never kicked.

After taking Meg's initial sketch, we came up with.... this. I don't even know what to say about it; not one of our better designs. You can see the actual current layout in there, if in a rough state. The header is obviously completely different; a bit newsletter-y in all honesty. It has the upper and lower bars, Bob & Bonnie, links to GoodSearch, etc., the United Way & CFC banner, and the links to other adoption websites that we post our pets to. We wanted to have a solid header and footer that would appear on every page, and this is a start. We were trying to produce a glass-like effect on the two red bars, which we didn't manage to accomplish. From this version, the only things that made it onto the final website were Bob & Bonnie and the United Way/CFC banner.

As far as the content is concerned, the featured pets column may as well be empty. The announcements section is pretty close to finished. It's mostly just missing some of the coloring. The Events section isn't even a section at this point, just a banner and links to the adoption schedules.

Fun Fact: The Bob & Bonnie images were extracted pretty roughly
and have never been cleaned up. Why? Laziness mostly.

Here we cleaned up the header a little bit. Lost the ridiculous font and added some more base navigation. The significant change is the addition of the content to the Feature Pets column. We liked the idea of a short blurb stating what HART actually does. That text was part of the About HART section on the previous website, but it seems appropriate to not make a user click through to figure out what you're about. Since most people are visiting the website to actually adopt a dog or cat, we wanted to feature links to our major sections. You may notice a link to a "Precious Pets Ad." HART used to feature a pet in a local newspaper for a while, until it became incredibly expensive. We eventually replaced this link with one to a page listing our pets that have special needs. Seemed like a better use of the space.