0145B: Quality Time With Transformers

This past stay-at-home weekend was definitely something I needed. Work has been rather crazy as of late and I know that I've been cracking at the seams, even if just for a wee bit. I can manage work stress pretty well for the most part, but sometimes slightly more "extreme" measures are called for, such as staying home instead of going out. And while others out there will argue that activities away from the home are a heck of a lot more fun or something, but frankly I'm always happy recharging at the Sietch. And yes, the "extreme" modifier tends to refer to not really wanting to socialize with larger groups of people - that will always be something that tires me out.

Apart from playing a heck of a lot of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, I also spent some time in recent days unboxing various Transformers figures that I've purchased recently. As discussed before, spending time with my Transformers is one of the things that I do to unwind and a weekend of rest wouldn't have been the same without some robot time.

And given how trigger-happy I've been in terms of my recent Transformer purchases, I have to admit that I've added quite a number of figures to my unboxing queue. I certainly have my "work" cut out for me, especially since I do my best to unbox all figures that I buy within the same calendar year or purchase, which is yet another quirk of the strange collection of impulse that is my OCD-like brain.

The Encore Minibots Team was certainly a fun release as far as G1 reissues go. Not only did they include some of the more "classic" Transformers from the G1 era, but they made little improvements to make them more accurate with respect to the cartoon series. Thus they had much brighter and better detailed faces including a cartoon-accurate head for Bumblebee. And by some coincidence, I also have the "modern" updates for some of these guys including Bumblebee, Outback and Swerve. This now has me wanting to find the Transformers Collection Vol. 12, which again features a collection of minibots. But this time they're the more "exotic" ones including Cosmos, Powerglide and Warpath. Must find!

The next figures that I finally worked on were the Transformers Animated pairing for Jetfire and Jetstorm. They're twin figures that were supposed to transform into a quaint paint of space fighters and eventually a sort of dual-gestalt type figure. However the transformations were less than fun in the final product. Their vehicle modes ended up being rather crude and difficult to position precisely right. And then their various gestalt forms weren't too great either. The vehicle gestalt just involves connecting the two via pegs built into their nose and chest sections, leading to a weird figure that can't land well. Then their robot gestalt (horribly named as SAFEGUARD) is even quirkier since it's supposed to be the two robots formed into something that looks like a doble-kara type mega-robot. But the pegs are a big weak in terms of holding him together and the last peg at the hip really have a hard time staying in the right place.

Today I woke up too early and so I ended up finally addressing some of the Asia-exclusive Transformers Generations figures. The first up to the plate was Generations Wheelie, who is actually a repaint of RTS Special Ops Jazz with a new head. And while this does not exactly sound like a fun robot, the end result is even more enjoyable than I thought. We can ignore the fact that he still has the built-in speaker accessories that were designed for the Jazz figure or the odd weak ball joint he seems to have. Instead we can focus on how cool his face mold is (he looks sooo like movie-era Wheelie!), but even better that he comes with a slingshot, which has remained to be his signature weapon in various incarnations across television and even in the comics.

Together with some of my other 1986 movie-era figures, I feel that I'm getting closer and closer to being able to recreate scenes from that movie. It's a shame that we still don't have a good revised version of Ultra Magnus to complete the round-up, but I suppose I can rely on the Transformers Animated version for now.

The last figure for the day (and pretty much my "weekend") was Generations Swerve. He's based on the Generations Sergeant Kup, including his rather long rifle. Apart from the new paint job and the revised head sculpt, I have to admit that he wasn't that much of an innovative figure. Then again, it's not like Swerve had that much of a compelling back story in the G1 universe given how infrequently he appeared in stories. I think it's only in recent years that he's started to see more action, at least in the IDW Generation 1 comics, but that's neither here nor there. Still, I'm a bit of a fan of the Kup mold, even though getting him back in robot mode is a bit tricky. He's a nicely solid figure with good articulation and a gun that wonderfully ridiculous.

I still haven't gotten around to opening up my Fall of Cybertron toys for one reason or another. Maybe because I'm still not quite sure where I'm going to store the completed FoC Bruticus figure once I have him fully assembled. He still won't be big as my G1 Fortress Maximus, but I suspect that he'll be taller than my Takara 2010 Predaking, who remains to be the tallest of the original G1 combiners (as far as I know).

Outside of this, I've also read quite a number of my Transformers comics over the weekend as well. Hence the frequent panels posted to Facebook - a new hobby of mine given how easy it is to post directly from my tablet. And now I'm starting to feel sleep again, so perhaps a pre-shift nap is in order...