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!