Glacialord Part VI - Glacialord!

So one day, while checking out the great PaxCybertron site, I saw this picture:

PaxCybertron.com

Even with only 3/5 of him completed, Glacialord looked impressive.  I had to get him.  And I have.

Here he is completed.  Before I go any further, I'd like to point out one thing that I love about the combination process.  While the feet are part of Razorspike and Tailclub's animal modes, the fists are another matter.  The fists are actually hidden in Glacialord's top cannons.  Pretty nifty.

Glacialord is pretty impressive.  He's wide-bodied and I was instantly reminded of Defensor.

As you can see, they both have thick torsos.  Glacialord is taller, but both Defensor and Glacialord have very similar looks.  Even their heads are similar.

To create Glacialord's weapon, Fangro and Tailclub attach their weapons to Tuskor's.  It looks pretty neat.  Have I mentioned how tall Glacialord?

He's pretty much the same height as Superion, the tallest of the Scramble City combiners.  Which reminds me - Glacialord is based on the Scramble City techniques.  You can make any of the limbs whichever limb you so choose.  Neat.

I don't think I could have asked for a better entry into 3rd Party products than the RetroFuture project.  It sticks pretty closely to the G1 aesthetic while adding it's own little twist.  Maybe I'll try out another 3rd Party product.  Thanks to PaxCybertron and Arkvander for giving me my first glimpse of this wonderful figure. 

Adventures in Toy Hunting!

Has it been a couple of weeks since I last posted a non-review?  I need to slow down some.  The reality is that I dedicate like one day a week to working on the blog, and it's been pretty hectic so I haven't had a chance to sit down and write.  Enough of the excuses, it's rambling time!

As much as I love where I live, there have been a few times over the twenty years that I've lived here where I've contemplated moving.  The reason?  Lack of a collector community.  Let me explain.  We have two comic shops now.  When I first arrived, comic shops were like 7-11's (something else we don't have here) - one on every corner.  Now my options are limited to a guy at a flea market, or the awesome comic shop that I actually frequent.  And by frequent, I mean I show up when my Transformers comics come in.  If I actually want to buy a vintage Transformer?  I'm out of luck.  Seriously out of luck.  Still, I do like to try to find what I can locally and as such, I struck out a few weeks ago and did some looking around at places I rarely go.

First, I went to the flea market, of which I'm not a fan.  It's always crowded, everyone is smoking, and the only wares for sale are knock off designer clothes and handbags.  At any rate, there is a guy there that you could charitably call a vintage toy dealer.  He's more like a guy that finds toys on the side of the street and sells them.  I've talked about this guy before, and for some reason, I decided to give him another shot.

Here's a nice shot of his stall.  He actually cleaned up and organized!  Yes, this mess is actually organized.  At least he doesn't have the rack of figures that are zip tied to the rack anymore.

Feeling brave, I actually spent about 30 minutes digging around the place to see what I could find, Transformer-wise.  What I found was the same headless Warpath that he had the last time I was there like 2 years ago.  Price?  $10.  On to other ventures.

About a week ago, I had to buy a new headset for the 360.  I generally prefer the wired headsets, but I have kids and they've already broken 3 headsets, so I decided to go wireless.  I didn't feel like going to a GameStop, so I decided to try out a used game store by my house called "Play and Call" or something like that.  What I saw when I walked in was pretty impressive.  They had vintage games and systems!  Dreamcast!  Nintendo 64!  Old Sega!  NES!  They also had cheap game accessories that I wouldn't put near my 360.  As I wondered around place, I realized that they had a second room.

In this second room were quite a few long boxes of comics.  A lot of the comics that they had were Marvel Transformer issues.  And a lot of early 1990's Image.  I mean a lot.  Like Darker Image?   They had it.  Same thing for a lot of Youngblood.  However, they did have a wall that had this:

They had a ton of 1990's Star Wars figures, which aren't pictured, but they had quite a bit of MISB M.A.S.K. and Go-Bots.  I don't know how well everything will show up in the above pic, since I took it with my phone, but there are some deluxe Go-Bots on the middle shelf.  The prices were a bit high for me, the deluxes were $50, when I think they should be around $30.  I didn't bother talking to the guy working there since he was pretty swamped, but if I were so inclined, I'm sure I could haggle the prices down. 

So that's what I have available to me if I want to shop locally for vintage toys.  A disgusting flea market stall or an overpriced video game shop.  I wonder if my wife would want to move to Singapore just so I can buy Transformers locally?  Whelp, guess it's time to stalk eBay and the forums again...

Glacialord Part V - Tuskor!

Ah, the majestic wooly mammoth.  The titan of the frozen tundra.  The owner of the biggest pair of tusks ever.  The leader of a disparate group of prehistoric mammals?

Tuskor was released last summer as a sort of early bird special at TFCon along with Tailclub and Fangro.  Since I don't keep tabs on the goings on of 3rd party companies, I had no idea about them until I read some reviews about them from Arkvander's Mostly Transformers Redux and Pax Cybertron.  After reading these, my curiosity was piqued, but I couldn't find the three that had been released for less than $500.  There was no way I was going to pay that price.  Thankfully, Fansproject released everyone later in the year.  Tuskor was part of my shipment of Megazero and Razorspike.

Having a mammoth isn't anything new.  In Beast Wars Neo, there was Big Convoy, who was a Mammoth, and then there was the TFCC exclusive Ultra Magnus which was a repaint of that figure.

Big Convoy TFWiki.net

 The mammoth mode is pretty bulky, as befitting a creature of this stature.

Sadly, Tuskor's legs don't move while in this mode.  There is articulation with the trunk, but I would have liked some leg articulation.  However, this is a very majestic looking figure.  Let's see how the trainer looks while mounted on Tuskor.

Safari, anyone?

Transformation is pretty straightforward, and after a few twists and some folding, you have a robot.

Wait, something doesn't look right.  Oh, I forgot a step.

That's better.  I'm not really sure why the trainer is needed if there's a head readily available for use.  At any rate, the mammoth's back forms a shoulder mounted shield.  I'm still not a fan of the idea of a shoulder mounted shield, but at least I don't have to worry about misplacing it.  Tuskor's gun is his trunk.

While not going to Big Convoy extremes, Tuskor does have some considerable back kibble.  Still, it looks good.  Articulation is pretty limited, but that's the point of this subgroup.  There are a few nice features about the figure that really come in to play when forming Glacialord, but we'll discuss those when we get to him.  Coincidentally, that's the next post!  See you next time!

Glacialord Part IV - Megazero

www.fpcore.com

Imagine my surprise when, anxiously expecting word on when the last three components would ship, that I log on to Facebook and saw the above picture on the Charticon page.  To go with the picture, was a little story about how the shipment that contained Megazero had been damaged by the Chinese shippers and was now lost at the bottom of the ocean.  Gullible me, I didn't even consider for a moment that this was some sort of prank from the Fansproject people.  Word soon spread that Fansproject had secured a second shipment from a Korean warehouse.  Again, gullible me.  The point of the Retrofuture project was to make it seem as though these were old figures that had been unearthed only recently.  Sometimes, sometimes I just don't think well.  That's what I get for trying to relax while at work.

Thanks to the "Korean warehouse find", my Megazero shipped on January 20th, and arrived at my door two days later.  Gotta love two day shipping.  So, was Megazero worth the imagined anguish?

Whoops!  Antlers are transformed incorrectly!

Megazero is an Irish Elk, which died out around 8,000 years ago, but newer studies seem to suggest that they may have died out more recently.  At any rate, I like this alt mode, it's unique.  Off the top of my head, I can't think of any actual Transformers that have had a deer or elk alt mode.  Also, I can't think of any other Technobot to compare him to, so that's pretty nifty.

To the Isle of Misfit Toys!

Once you slide the tab on his back, the trainer can ride.  I actually had trouble getting the trainer out after I took this picture.  I pushed him in way too far, but luckily, nothing broke or got scratched.  Megazero is constructed well.  With the way that the trainer is on Megazero's back, I keep wanting to make reindeer jokes.  No clue as to why, but they keep popping in my head.  Perhaps the trainer is working with Megazero so he can join in on the reindeer games?  I'll stop now.

Here we have Megazero in robot mode.  There really isn't anything exceptional about him, but I like the way the colors work on him.  The elk head turns into a sword.  I'm not really keen on it, since the sword isn't really held correctly; the edge should be facing out.  I suppose I could turn the handle, but these things only occur to me as I type up the review, not during the photo shoot.

Here's Megazero from a different angle so everyone can get a better look at the sword.  Megazero's elbow joints are amazing to me, for some reason.  They're the only point of articulation on him, and I'm fascinated by them.  I'm a weird guy.

Overall, Megazero isn't anything to write home about.  His robot mode is what I've come to expect for a figure that is trying to mimic G1 style figures, albeit slightly updated.  The sword could have used more work, but it serves it's purpose, I suppose.  The most interesting aspect to Megazero is the elk mode - it's a mode I've never seen before.  I think that if I wasn't displaying Glacialord in his combined form, Megazero would be the one that I'd keep in alt mode. 

Coming soon to a computer screen near you: a giant beast lumbers across the frozen tundra, desperately searching for sustenance.  In the distance, he spots another of his species, but something's off.  This beast doesn't have a scent.  The mammoth charges at the interloper, only to discover something amazing.  The scentless mammoth before him changes shape before his very eyes revealing a metallic warrior - Tuskor!  Tune in next week for "Not Without My Tusks!" starring Sally Field and Tuskor!

Glacialord Part III - Razorspike

So after the initial shipment of Fangro and Tailclub back in November, I had to wait an entire two months for the rest of the team.  It was a long two months; so long that I had actually forgot about the order until someone posted on Facebook that they had gotten confirmation of their shipment.  Thankfully, once Razorspike and the gang shipped, it only took two days for them to arrive.  What's Razorspike like?  Let's take a look, shall we?

"You smell somethin'?"

Razorspike's alt-mode is that of a wooly rhinoceros.  Like the Fangro and Tailclub, he's very G1-esque.  The shield on his back has a slot that can be pushed back to allow the trainer to ride.

Beastmaster

I don't know why, but I get a chuckle out of the trainers for the Retrofuture set.  The idea of these guys riding robotic prehistoric creatures just screams '80's to me. 

Here's Razorspike in robot mode.  To stick with a theme from the last couple of reviews, Razorspike reminds me of Nosecone from the Technobots.  The body types are similar - they're both wide bodied. 

So I've copped a couple of poses from the magnificent photographer brr-icy.  While pouring over his blog and Flickr account, I just realized how much better the figures look when posed like this.  You can get a better sense of the detail on the figure.  Hopefully, he's ok with that.  I hope. 

Overall, I'm very impressed with how Razorspike turned out, even if I put on a sticker or two at a crooked angle.  I couldn't find the tweezers that I use for applying decals.  Guess I'll need to buy another one.  One thing that I didn't do while shooting pics was to show the shield.  Like Tailclub, the foot for Glacialord can mount on a shoulder as a shield.  I'm still not a fan of that, as it looks odd to me.

That's it for Razorspike,  Next up - the odd saga that is Megazero!

Glacialord Part II - Tailclub

Ah, the Doedicurus.  As a kid, I always wished that I could have a toy Doedicurus.  Sadly, it never happened.  Thankfully, Fansproject has answered my prayers and made this a reality.

Who wouldn't want to play with this?

The idea to create prehistoric mammals as robots is really a stoke of genius.  Dinobots are pretty nifty and all, but we could always use more. 

Being a Doedicurus, Tailclub has an appropriately squat alt-mode.  I really like the gray and orange colors; they're really striking together.  He looks so adorable.  Definitely G1-styled, I feel as though I could've picked him up at a Roses or something.  It would've been nice to only pay $3.99 for him...

As with Fangro, the pilot is able to stand up in the slot on the beast's back.  I'm not really sure how I feel about this functionality, to be honest.  I think that it would look better if they had designed a way for the figure to actually sit.  The standing looks tedious.

Heres is Tailclub in robot mode.  The foot/backpack attaches to his shoulder as a shield and the tail and head combine to form a club.  I'm not really sure how a shoulder mounted shield is helpful in a battle, but it's nice to not have to worry about finding somewhere to store it while he's in robot mode.  Since he's G1-styled, articulation is limited to his arms at the elbows and the shoulders.  He is truly a combiner limb.

The shield can also be held in his free hand, which gives a better look, to me.  Now he looks like a Roman warrior.  If I had more of them, I'd do a Phalanx. 

Here's Tailclub in his limb mode.  As you can see, he forms a leg.  It looks sturdy and it's reminiscent of one of Predaking's limb, with the animal head facing out. 

Glacialord Part I - Fangro

I know that I did this whole treatise about how I would never own a 3rd party figure, but that was written with the full knowledge that I'd be a hypocrite.  I'm gonna blame this one on paxcybertron.  To me, he's the 3rd party king and every time I check out his site, I'm bombarded by pictures and reviews of some great looking 3rd party figures.  Low and behold, I finally broke down and decided to get Glacialord after reading his review of the first three figures that were released.  He just weakened me, man.

As many have pointed out, the whole concept of the Glacialbots is to have a figure with today's modern tooling and technology feel as if it was plucked straight out of the G1 era.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail with Fangro, or Tailclub for that matter, since these were released last summer at TFCon as a little early bird special and everyone has covered them already.  I'm going to give some quick thoughts on the Fangro and show you some pics.

I love the style of the box, as it is appropriately retro.  It certainly feels as though it could have been released around 1986 or so.  The worn edges are a nice touch.  Once you open up the box, you're greeted with Styrofoam.  I really can't remember owning too many figures that came with Styrofoam save for Metroplex, Skylynx, Omega Supreme, and Fort Max.  I can't remember if Scorponok was packed in Styrofoam or not.  At any rate, it's a very nice touch.

 

I'm not sure on the reasoning behind the the partial decal placement.  Maybe so it seems as though it once belonged to someone else?  No clue.  I'm actually not terribly fond of this.  Coupled with the lack of a sticker map in the instructions, I wound up with a decal that I couldn't place.  One unplaced decal does not diminish my love of this guy.

Fangro's sabre-toothed cat mode is awesome.  For some reason, it feels as though he should have been released in exactly 1987, when the Technobots were released.  It seems like a product of that year.

Here is Fangro's trainer?  Head?  Brain?  I don't know what to call it.  He doesn't have a name that I'm aware of.  Maybe he's Fangro and the sabre-toothed tiger is just a transector?  I don't know, but whatever the case, he's pretty detailed.  His articulation is on par with an actual Headmaster, so that's pretty nifty.

Here is Fangro...riding Fangro?  I'm still not sure on how to parse all of this.  At any rate, this looks awesome.  Who wouldn't want to ride a sabre-toothed tiger?  Communists, that's who.

The simplistic transformation actually works in Fangro's favor.  Fansproject has completely captured the G1 feel with this figure.  The cat's head and tail form his gun, and it looks pretty sweet. 

Side shot

I'm glad that I got turned on to the Glacialord project, and I can't wait for the rest of them to be released.  Hopefully, this isn't the start of a trend.  Next up, Tailclub.