General update and a 3rd party Transformers info explosion!

It's no secret that unofficial Transformers products by various 3rd party companies have been fueling the fiery passion for many collectors for quite some time now.  This trend started ever so simple by being upgrade kits for existing Hasbro/Takara Tomy figures.  Then wholly new figures started to make their appearance.  Quality has been all over the place.  You've got BTS Toys and their average at best releases, and then you have the fan favorite like FansProject or Make Toys.  Like quality, prices too have been all over.  Is it just me or does every new 3rd party release seem to ring in a $100?  What does a collector on a non-existent budget do?  You walk away.

Earlier this year I called it quits...kind of.  I sold my set of FansProject "Stunticons" and "Insecticons".  I sold my one Mastermind Creations Feralcon, Bovis and cancelled any ideas for buying the rest of them or just about any other 3rd party TF.  I only own a few 3rd party items now...FansProject's G3 trailer, Assaulter and Revolver, the Function-X "Headmasters" and the Glacialbots, Mech Ideas' Demolition Crue, TFC Iron Army sets and ToyWorld's "Throttlebots".  It's easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new 'bot being announced.  Heck, I've been glued to my phone this weekend looking for the latest update from TFCon!  While I see a lot to be excited about, very few I'd say will ever grace these meat hooves I call hands.

I have to admit these last 6 months or so have been pleasant.  There has been little on the Transformers toy front that has enticed me, heck even got my attention if I'm being honest.  It's not like the Age of Extinction movie or toys has gotten me back into the scene.  I've been able to focus my time, energy and money on other things.  I spent some great time with my family camping at the beach, turned in some record breaking numbers at work and got caught up on some comic reading I had been putting off.  It's been nice.

Then TFCon happened this weekend.  All of these cool images started to invade my Facebook news feed, thanks in part to Daim Choc no less!  I have seen so many great things unveiled this weekend.  So what's a guy to do that had previously walked away?  That is the million dollar question that I have been pondering.  I'd like to think I could pick up just what I really like, but even with that mind set I have to be really selective.  After my latest collection purge, it just doesn't make sense to dive back in and buy stuff that doesn't fit my current focus...that being G1 and Masterpiece.  Besides, where would I put the stuff?  By jettison my Animated and Classics stuff I was able to spread out my near complete G1 collection across 4 1/2 shelves.  Only room I have left now is the very top shelf where my random stuff sits (eyeing Amazon Unicron, Galaxy Force Primus, Car Robots and Alternators/Binaltech stuff left over).

I've rambled enough.  Time for pictures.  I've posted a wall of text already.  Here we go!

Maketoys' Quantron (Computron) was shown off, this time in full color.  I was very intrigued about this set when it was first mentioned, but the more and more I look at these guys I think I can say pass.  I'm not sure what it is, but the combined form just doesn't do much for me.  Individually from what I've seen is impressive, but something is missing when they are all merged together.  I only have one release from Maketoys', the Hover and Bomber set of minibots they did a few years back.  Good stuff and I'm sure these will be well made, but in the end this is a big bot and a high price tag I can't justify.

Maketoys has been busy.  Have you heard of their new city bot subline?  If the recent Generations Metroplex from Hasbro didn't float your boat, then how about this big guy?  I shudder thinking at how much this very impressive toy will come in at.  Love the pictures I've seen thus far, but based on the price along this is an easy pass for me.  Oh, and they are doing a new Scorponok as well in this city bot series.

When I heard TFC was taking a stab at my favorite Autobot combiner I was excited.  I thought here is one I can make an exception and go after.  Then I remember I had the entire Uranos set and traded it away.  The first release was put up for pre-order, Gumball, and I just stared at the pictures and remember feeling unimpressed.  Well in typical 3rd party fashion it was soon announced that another Defensor would be coming soon, this time by Maketoys.  Up until TFCon this weekend, not much has been revealed about Maketoys' Guardia.  After seeing these slides however has me on cloud 9.  Well I guess my collection purge isn't quite over yet * eyes that aforementioned top shelf *.  I love what I'm seeing and if Green Giant is any indication of what Guardia will be like, then I'll be one happy camper...assuming I find a way to afford him.

Still waiting to get more information on PerfectEffect's take on LioConvoy, Leonidas, but man does that rendering look nice.  This is a perfect example of something I'd like to have it money and space weren't an issue.  PerfectEffect seems to have upped their game lately and I'm sure this release will very nice.

FansProject started the excitement a few days before TFCon actually with their surprise announcement of yet another subline called Lost Exo-Realm.  With the Dinobot characters already being made in Masterpiece scale by various companies, I can't say I'm surprised to see FP (and other companies) releasing smaller scaled versions of the very popular Dinobots.  Columpio here looks great.  This is the regular version slated for release next month I believe.  TFCon had their own exclusive version where the gold paint is replaced wit gold chrome, the smaller robot is replaced with a Diaclone style pilot and the packaging is also done up with a Diaclone flavor.  Check eBay now and you'll see the TFCon version is already fetching $200+!

I'm getting ready to part ways with one set of Dinosaur TFs (that is a whole separate post for another day), so it'd be nice to replace those dinos with these.  Glad to see they are starting off w/ Sludge.  I never had his G1 toy as a kid and only recently have I acquired one thanks to a fellow blogger, but boy does Columpio look every bit as cool as people say he is.  By the way, I'm told his name is Spanish for swinging.  Not sure if that is true, but cool if it is.

Oh yeah.  Swoop!  And he's done up in his Diaclone / cartoon colors!  Swoop has always been a favorite of mine and this looks phenomenal.  This makes passing up Planet X's version of the character feel a little better now.

Slag looks just as impressive as the other two so far.  Nice to see FP is keeping with the red robot head as others (Fans Toys' Scoria) has done.  While Slag was the one Dinobot I never cared for in Generation 1, this take on the character has me wanting more.

Sticking with FansProject, the next entry in their Function X line was made known.  X5 is obviously the Decepticon Headmaster, Skullcruncher.  I'm not sure what FP will be calling this guy, but wow what I marvelous job they did.  Quadruple U (Weirdwolf) was a valiant effort, but the wolf just looked a little odd to me.  This guy however looks so nice in gator mode.  So nice in fact I've already forgotten about the ToyWorld version of this character...Swamper who?

It also appears that Highbrow will soon be joining FP's Function X line.  He is my favorite of the four Autobot Headmasters so this is very much nice to see happening.  No other information that I know of has been released yet.

A TFCon exclusive, Kar Krash by FansProject I'm sure took a lot of people bu surprise.  This Generation 2 homage looks excellent seems fitting seeing how a set of unreleased G2 Stunticons just sold on eBay for a earth staggering amount of money.  This is a great idea and well executed from what I can tell, but in the end not something for me.  Next.

Mastermind Creations shared these pictures of Commotus.  What?  You don't know who this is?  Yeah, me neither.  While I did mention earlier I've gotten myself caught up a bit with some comic reading, that did't include any of the current TF comics.  I think I'm one of the few fans out there that isn't up to date with what IDW is going with all of these characters.  So, who can tell me who Commotus is supposed to be?

I'm not sure who is behind what they are calling the Before and After Clone Twins, but these look pretty cool.  I never had the G1 Autobot Clones growing up, but I loved the mess out of Pounce and Wingspan.  Glad to see some characters that aren't as mainstream getting some attention.  Now if someone would just make a new version of Flywheels already!!

Unique Toys just released a GoBots homage to the Renegades leader, Cy-Kill.  Now it seems like he won't be the only modern day GoBot as a new version of Crasher is in the works.  I've already seen a few guys in a GoBots Facebook group go nuts over this picture.

Even Cy-Kill's black and green redeco from GoBots is getting the updated treatment...surprise, surprise.

Wreck-Gar too?  I thought the Hasbro release was pretty darn perfect.  I wonder how they can improve upon that?  I guess only time will tell.

So as you can see there was a lot of cool stuff revealed at TFCon this past weekend.  I had . in the forums at TFW2005.com as well as on Facebook.  Now that this "distraction" is over, I can get back to my Transformers project I'm working on.