eBay Store!

To help me clear out all of the clutter that I need to get rid of, I've opened an eBay store.  Please check it out.  There are some Transformers items there, but as of now, it's mainly G.I. Joe stuff.  I'll be updating it frequently, so keep checking it out!

http://stores.ebay.com/kremziekstoystore

Masterpiece MP-18S

Hey you, yeah you.  The person collecting Transformers.  What are your thoughts on repaints?  Like them?  Great.  Don't like them and wish that they'd go away?  Tough.  Like them or not, repainted Transformers are always going to be in the offing.  It simply costs too much money to design and tool a figure for Takara and Hasbro to not try to recoup their costs by offering repaints.  For the most part, I have a rule about repaints: buy the ones that I like and that make sense.  I have broken that rule a couple of times, like with YOTH Optimus Prime, but I've pretty much stuck with it.  With Masterpiece figures, it gets hard to turn down certain repaints because of the history of what they represent.  Tigertrack is beautiful and represents an old Diaclone variant of the Sideswipe figure.  Another beautiful repaint?  MP-18S Silverstreak.

While MP-18 Bluestreak is a wonderful figure, Silverstreak just endeared itself to me as soon as I opened the box.  Upon seeing that gorgeous silver Datsun, I was transported back to Christmas of 1984.  It felt like I was 7 again, and getting my first Bluestreak.  The colors aren't exactly spot on to the G1 figure, but they're pretty freaking close.  The lighter shade of silver is amazing when comparing MP-18 to MP-18S.

While MP-18 is, like all regular Masterpiece releases, as cartoon accurate as possible, Silverstreak is toy accurate.  The darker colors on Blustreak are great, but they're not something I'm accustomed to after 30 years.  Sure, I recently purchased the Anime Streak eHobby figure, but that's only been in the past few months.  While I grew up watching a black hooded Bluestreak on TV, I played with a silver one on a daily basis. 

One thing my G1 Bluestreak cannot do?  Drive around with missile launchers mounted on his sides.  MP-18S comes with two outstanding red and silver launchers.  My MP-18 only came with one, and I have yet to get off my duff and buy a second one.  Having a second launcher really adds to Bluestreak's look.

Once Silverstreak is put into robot mode, with the launchers added, he's wonderful.  I'm confusing myself with all of the switching between Silverstreak and Bluestreak.  They're the same freaking guy, right?  But I don't really like doing the MP-18 and MP-18S thing.  Conundrum time.

One thing that I learned when I got ol' Silvertreak is that I apparently have a stock pose when placing the Datsun Brothers into my Detolf.  Smokescreen, Prowl, Bluestreak, and Silverstreak all have the same pose.  I know what I like, it seems. 

Here's a little closeup of the 'Streaks.  The lighter silver really makes the reds pop on Silverstreak.  Of course, the addition of the launchers really make the look complete.  Bluestreak is by no means a lackluster figure, but I'm very partial to Silverstreak.  Typing this up and thinking about Masterpiece really has me looking forward to Wheeljack.

Jettison some weight, or I'll never make it to Cybertron!

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I have another kid coming.  That's kid number 4.  He's due in a month, and no, I don't have a name for him yet.  Due to the newest addition coming, coupled with the general malaise over Transformers that I experienced over the last 6 months, I've been trying to clear out some of the clutter in my collection.  Most of it was junk that I was holding on to for various reasons: childhood attachment, the need to have multiples, even in horrible condition, and just plain collection padding. 

I sold stuff like this on eBay.

And this.  As you can see, it's all broken stuff.  Amazingly enough, it all sold at good prices, well, good prices for me.  Simple auctions starting off at $0.99 resulted in some nice pocket change.  More than that, it cleared some space.  Selling all of this on eBay taught me a couple of things that I hadn't realized before.  First, lots like this:

Seem to inspire a ton of bidding.  I sold a couple of lots of just parts and weapons and made a veritable killing.  I was going to just put lots containing weapons up for a Buy It Now of like $15.  I have really underestimated to market for parts.  Now I know, and am much wiser for it.  Still, I have to confess to not understanding the notion of paying so much for parts that aren't in great condition, but whatever.

I also learned that I have no clue on what to charge for shipping.  Afraid of overcharging, I wound up shelling out more for shipping.  After the first few auctions, I kind of over-corrected and just went with USPS flat rate shipping.  It cost a lot more, but it did get the items to the customers faster, had built in insurance, and tracking.  I'm certain that it affected some of the final auction prices and I could've gotten more for what I sold, but I never once got a negative feedback on shipping prices, so there's that. 

 I'm also going to confess to getting a little sell-happy.  At first, I was sure that it would be hard to part with any part of my collection, but that hasn't been the case.  Now I'm looking at other things to sell to clear clutter: boxes, paperwork, my entire G.I. Joe collection.  My wife thinks I've been bitten by a bug., which she is way too happy about.  Happy wife, happy life.

37th Birthday Present - Carnivac!

I turned 37 a couple of months ago, which makes me closer to 40 than I care to think about.  According to my wife, I'm hard to shop for.  However, I think I'm pretty easy since there are only like three things that I'm interested in.  At any rate, I was given the task of buying my own present - a task I readily accepted.  My choice of present?  Carnivac!

Look, I'm a big fan of Pretenders, and I know that they aren't very popular, but I've loved them since they were first introduced.  The Pretender Beasts were figures that I never got around to as a kid, but I'm working on getting them.  What better place to start than with a sorely needed boost to my Decepticon ranks.

Carnivac's outer shell is a wolf, and he looks pretty vicious.  Just look at those teeth and the spike-filled shoulder pads!  Even without the cannon mounted on his back, I'd give Carivac a wide berth.

Hiding inside that wolf shell is a robotic wolf, or as people where I live like to say "wulf".  I'm not really sure who decided on Carnivac's color scheme, but I'm not really digging the combination.  Black or grey would have been a nice touch for the body.

Carnivac's anti-thermal cannon mounts to his back, for an attack mode.  As if running into a giant robotic wolf in the forest wasn't distressing enough, now you have to worry about being blown to smithereens in the process.  This is a look I don't think will ever be used much in my display. 

Flip a couple of parts, and we go from wolf to very short robot.  I think that Carnivac's rifle is almost as tall as he is!  Carnivac's look in robot mode is decent, but I kind of wish that something could be done with the wolf snout.  It just adds an odd silhouette.  

Overall, Carnivac is a fine addition to my display, and a nice addition to my finally growing ranks of Decepticons and Pretenders.  Very nice looking stuff.

Malaise

I just realized that I haven't posted in a couple of weeks.  Looks like my buffer ran out, which is my fault, I suppose.  Eventually, I'll get around to finishing up all of the reviews I have, but not for a bit.  I'm in a bit of a malaise, truth be told.  There isn't one thing that I can put my finger on, but I'm just kind of worn out right now.  I've been spending the summer hanging out with the family and just trying to find that spark again.  I've been so apathetic lately that I haven't even bothered to look at news from Botcon.  I imagine that there's all sorts of new things that I'm sure will be great. 

Don't think that I'm done with Transformers, because I'm not.  As a matter of fact, I've been having a blast rearranging and playing with my figures.  Then again, I'm currently sitting on unopened figures.  There are actually figures sitting in my room and in the trunk of my car that I have yet to pry open.  As of now, I'm just enjoying my summer.  See you soon!

Seaspray!

www.botchthecrab.com

I decided to upgrade my Seaspray because it was time.  My original Seaspray had been dismantled a few times over the years and as a result, he was missing his wheels.  There's also the fact that his joints were super loose; Seaspray's head wouldn't stay up in robot mode and wouldn't stay down in hovercraft mode.  Definitely not good.

I think that everyone has a Seaspray.  Maybe he was issued to every kid during Halloween, I'm not sure.  Thanks to a good purchase on eBay, I got this Seaspray with tech specs.  I'm not really into collecting the specs anymore, but it's cool to have. 

I'm not going to go into any kind of background detail or give any back story on my love of the character.  Instead, I'm just going to show off a few kind of decent shots of him.

Seaspray - Autobot.  Seaspray - sounds like he's drowning.  Seaspray - cool 'bot.

Generations Cosmos

I don't have a lot of flowery things to preamble this review with, so we'll just dive right into it.

Between Cosmos and Swerve, I would have to say that Cosmos is my favorite.  While both are great figures, Cosmos is able to do what Swerve cannot: turn his head.  It's a relatively simple thing, but it really makes a difference.  Growing up with G1, a head that can turn left and right is a marvel of engineering.  Cosmos definitely looks a lot more beefy than his G1 incarnation.  Look at those fists!  He's practically ham-fisted. 

Cosmos uses those giant mitts to hold his partner Payload in gun form.  Swerve got the better gun, I have to say.  The space shuttle as gun look just doesn't work for me.

Here's Payload in his shuttle mode.  It's a Micromaster shuttle!

Payload actually looks pretty nice in robot mode.  I'm not too familiar with Mini-cons, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but this mode is killer.  The arms look fantastic.

The updated UFO mode is spectacular.  This thing looks like some real effort was put into it.  The thrusters on the back and the guns on the front make this a standout mode while still retaining a very G1 feel.

I do find it odd that Payload isn't able to mount onto Cosmos' UFO mode.  Of what I own so far, Cosmos is the odd man out in this regard.  Then again, I only own Cosmos, Swerve, and Tailgate.