Recon Ironhide

Here’s a figure I’ve got for a while but didn’t mention it all this while as he didn’t fit in with any of the new stuff I have. He’s from the movie line & I haven’t bought anything else for the movie line since. I’ve been thinking of getting a movie Ironhide figure ever since the 1st movie, but just didn’t like the crazy sized guns. Now the 2nd movie figure is based exactly on the 1st movie but they fixed the ridiculous guns. Unfortunately they had to give him a dull repaint. So I passed again. Then finally, they gave Ironhide a facelift & slight remould, resulting in this figure. The most bad ass looking Ironhide to date. 

You feeling lucky punk??

You want a piece of me???

Display Cabinet

Below I’ll break down each level in the display cabinet. I’ll just be listing the names of the figures & not be doing any explaination. Feel free to ask in the comments though.

Level 1

The back: Powermaster Optimus Prime Apex Armor, Gen 1 Jazz, ROTF Skids, ROTF Sideswipe.

The front: Disney Mickey, Disney Donald, Beast Wars Dinobot, Beast Wars Rattrap, Beast Wars Cheetor, ROTF Legends Jetfire, ROTF Legends The Fallen, ROTF Legends Skids, ROTF Legends Ironhide, ROTF Legends Optimus (Takara Battle Damage ver).

Level 2

The back: Masterpiece Starscream, ROTF Starscream, ROTF Bludgeon, ROTF Bumblebee.

The front: ROTF Recon Ironhide, ROTF Leader Optimus, Henkei Convoy.

Level 3

The back: BT Bluestreak, Classics/Universe Smokescreen, Alternity Bumblebee, BT Argent Meister.

The front: Alternators Wheeljack, Sideswipe, Tracks, Mirage & Hound.

Level 4

The back: Beast Wars Megatron, Tarantulas, Terrorsaur, Optimus Primal & Silverbolt.

The front: Beast Wars Air Hammer, Lazorbeak & Quickstrike

Full Cabinet

All the stuff you see from the Beast Wars line except Megatron belongs to my bro. He’s starting his own collection now, collecting more Beast Wars & his new found craze, Cybertron/Galaxy Force line. The display you see in the pics above was how it looked in May 2010. It has since changed a lot as my bro has taken back all the Beast Wars stuff so that I have more space for my new stuff.

So that’s it for this round of Transformers update. I’ll do another round in a month or 2 after I’ve more stuff & my cabinet is full again.

Here are some pics of my collection that I did along the way. Enjoy!

UPDATE 21/06/2010: OK here’s a short update on Ironhide. This is just to show the difference between the older Ironhide compared to the new kick ass version that I have. Credits for the images goes to Seibertron.com

1st movie Ironhide & Recon Ironhide

Here you have the 1st movie Ironhide showing the big ugly guns beneath the truck. Paint scheme wise it’s more accurate of course to the movie but those guns were a turn off for me.

Recon Ironhide & 2nd movie Ironhide

OK I guess I was wrong about the oversized guns being fixed in the 2nd movie Ironhide. So instead of an ugly bottom, you get an ugly top now. Together with the less than interesting paint scheme, it’s easy to see why I skipped this Ironhide as well.

All 3 together in robot mode

So here they are, all 3 in robot mode & battle gears equipped. So which one looks most bad ass?

Wow a month has passed since my last post. I actually planned to do weekly posts about my collection but was too busy at work & didn’t have the energy at home. Ok enough ranting, on with rest of the collection. This will be a mixture of different lines so you might get a surprise or 2.

Alternity A03 – Bumblebee

The Alternity line is the follow up to Alternators/Binaltech line which I’m crazy about. There are differences though to the Alternators/Binaltech line.  It’s smaller to begin with, using a 1:32 scale instead of the bigger 1:24 scale. It’s also exclusively modeled on Japanese made cars, for now. Lastly, it’s a Takara exclusive, which means higher prices. Hasbro doesn’t seem to have any plans to bring this line out for the rest of the world but I suspect it’s more to do with the cars licenses acquired by Takara to make these figures. They are still super detailed, but smaller.

Bumblebee requires no introduction. The car model chosen for him actually suits him well & he retains his old animated series transformation style where the car front section becomes the legs & the car cab section becomes his body. Neat eh?

* This figure belongs to my bro.

Masterpiece

MP-2 Ultra Magnus

The Masterpiece line is meant for collectors so it means 2 things, the figure is huge & detailed, but it’s also freaking expensive. But price wise it’s only expensive depending on the model & how scarce it is to find. Price can range from RM250 to RM800.

Ultra Magnus is the commander of the Autobot City on earth, well, at least in the G1 series if you watched the animated movie. Some other storylines have him as the brother of Optimus Prime. I guess this is where the idea for this masterpiece came from, that he’s exactly the same like Optimus, but in different colours. Besides, Takara had to reuse the mould for Masterpiece Optimus Prime to sell more figures & the most simple way was to repaint it.

This figure is definitely one of the most complicated to transform, even though it doesn’t look like it. But I still think the Leader Class Revenge of the Fallen Optimus Prime is still harder.

* This figure belongs to my bro. Because of the size of this figure (stands 12″ tall), I’ve decided to give it back to my bro to display at his place.

MP-3 Starscream

You must be thinking, hey I have another Starscream, I must be a Starscream fan. Truth is, he IS my favourite Decepticon character. Besides, he’s a jet & i LOVE jets. This masterpiece looks absolutely amazing, both in jet form & in robot form. 

My biggest gallery by far!

Henkei Convoy

The Henkei line or more known as Henkei! Henkei! Transformers in Japan, is the Japanese version of the Classics/Universe line from Hasbro. So what is that? Well, long story short, it’s a series that takes mostly Generation 1 characters & updates it with more modern forms. So instead of the ugly Gen 1 figures from 1980s, you get sleek updated versions that you can still recognise. Oh ya, Convoy is just the Japanese name for Optimus Prime.

Since I’m a Gen 1 nut, this is the new line I’m collecting.

Disney Label

Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck

The Disney Label line is something interesting where they took Disney characters & matched them to a character, loosely. They are darn cute & my kids love them.

With so many new figures, you must be wondering where do I keep all these? Here’s a hint.

Transformers Display

More details in the next post!

Wow, it’s been 3 months since my last Transformers post, Transformers! Final Part. Time really flies. My Transformers collection has also grown in a scary manner. Somehow, when you’re obsessed, you tend to be able to find $$$ to fuel the obsession somehow. It’s a dangerous addiction that I’ve also passed to my brother. Thankfully, we are obsessed with different range of the Transformers line. I’m more of a Generation 1/Alternators freak while he is a Beast Wars freak. So it’s becomes a complimentary effect instead. But my bro blames me of course for passing the addiction to him again.

For this post, I’ll concentrate on my obsession, the Alternators series. Back in my last post, I had only ONE Alternator figure, Wheeljack. 3 months later, I have 7. Scary? Haha. Let me introduce the rest of the crew.

Alternators

02 – Sideswipe

Sideswipe is another classic character from the G1 cartoon series. He has a twin brother, Sunstreaker. Both these 2 characters were among my favourites because they transformed into bad-ass sports cars. For the Alternators line, he’s a cool Dodge Viper SRT-10!

03 – Hound

Hound is another instantly recognisable character from the G1 cartoon. He’s a Jeep Wrangler Sport & looks amazing. This guy fetches one of the highest prices in the second hand market nowadays, as shown in this BigBadToyStore listing.

06 – Tracks

I didn’t really recognise Tracks initially. Reading his bio in TFWiki confirms it, I quote, ‘Tracks was one of several Autobots who appeared out of nowhere one day.“.  But upon seeing his pic I knew who he was. He’s a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 & it’s one of the nicest looking car in the Alternator line. The figure in car mode shows the least amount of transformation lines that might give him away away as a Transformer.

22 – Mirage

Mirage is known as the Mr Invisible in the G1 cartoon since that’s his main power. He’s a freaking cool Ford GT & I really like his colours. Unfortunately his car mode shows one too many transformation lines which spoils his car look a bit & his doors are a pain to open & close properly. But I still like him.

Binaltech

BT-19 – Bluestreak

This figure is a bit on the weird side. Takara calls him Bluestreak but he looks way more like a de-sponsored Smokescreen. There never was a ‘blue’ Bluestreak, he was always silver in the G1 cartoon & later on, he was renamed Silverstreak (this was for trademark reasons). Anyway, for this figure, I prefer to call him Smokescreen instead. He’s a Subaru Impreza WRX, one of my personal favourite real life sports car. Oh ya, the key difference between the Alternators & Binaltech figures is the use of die-cast metal and the plastics are painted, usually in metallic, for the Binaltech line. This make the Binaltech figures look amazing & heavy as well so their prices are always higher.

BT-20 – Argent Meister

The name of the figure will make most people wonder who the heck is this. Meister is actually the Japanese name for the character Jazz, my favourite character in the G1 cartoon. The word “argent” is Latin  for “silver”.  The original Alternator figure for Jazz was white in colour, this is a redeco of the original with an upgraded chassis & silver metallic paint, as homage to the live action movie Jazz in terms of colour. This is a Mazda RX-8 Mazdaspeed Version II & the paintjob makes it look amazing.

That concludes the Alternators/Binaltech line. I actually still have Sunstreaker sitting in the ‘Pile of Loot’ in BigBadToyStore. I’ll update my blog when that arrives somewhere in July or August. Stay tuned for more updates to my collection. Hope you all enjoyed this post.