New Arrivals - Early January 2015

An extraordinarily short post about new arrivals in 2015. It's been mostly Masterpiece, which has reminded me why I shy away from that line so often, it's left me penniless. Some Animated gaps got filled too. This post will cover the early part of January. What you see in the middle above is the 2014 TF Expo convention exclusive Masterpiece MP-12 Lambor (Sideswipe) featuring...nothing. Read on...

New Arrivals - October 2014

Mercifully haven't done one of these posts for a while as they were literally taking over the blog, and October has been much slower in terms of arrivals which again I am pleased with, but here's a quick run down of what's new. In this first picture you can see a number of figures already reviewed on this blog like Human Alliance Leadfoot, KO Animated Activators Lockdown and the wonderful die cast KO Activators Bumblebee, but also a sealed Takara Tomy Animated Electrostatic Soundwave, sealed Hasbro Animated Rodimus Minor and sealed Hasbro Animated Ironhide (none of which are sealed any more) and Hasbro Animated Skywarp.

TF Animated Activators Test Shots

In my former collecting life I had a lot of nice prototypes and test shots. They were from Generation 1, Generation 2, Alternators and reissues, pretty fantastic stuff and some of it completely unseen before and unreleased. I gave that up happily and concentrated on Diaclone. Now that I am buying modern lines again, I have slipped into old habits and decided to pay tribute to the best line of sub-deluxe Transformers I've seen for ages, the Animated Activators, by grabbing as many unpainted test shots as I can find. In this post you'll see Starscream, Bulkhead, Ratchet and Bumblebee. Of course I didn't find Lockdown, no, that would have been too convenient. But sod worrying about what I don't have, time to celebrate what I do!

Bootleg TF Animated Goodies

My infatuation with bootleg Transformers Animated toys from China continues, and a shopping spree on Taobao has lead to a number of choice - and mostly utterly garbage- purchases, but what they all have is character, charm and comedy value. They were also all pretty damn cheap, well they were before internal postage, international shipping and agent fees. Then they were more than official figures. Great. 

New Arrivals - Mid-September 2014 (Part 2)

Hmmm, lots of things still in the post and long past their estimated arrival date. But let's focus on what did arrive, and both of them were wonderful- and neither of them things that would have remotely registered on my radar even 6 months ago, let alone a year ago. Both arrivals take me one step further towards the full variant and mould completion of the sculpts in question, but at least they're both excellent items in their own right instead of just helping to make the whole more complete.

KO Oversized Animated Activators Bumblebee

You know full well that things have gotten out of hand when one starts buying bizarre over-sized/under-sized/wacky coloured variant bootlegs of any and all Transformers of a particular series. That's where I'm at with TF Animated now, and here's the over-sized knockoff Activators Bumblebee from China. There are tonnes of Activators KOs, different coloured and even different sizes. I've gone on a slight Taobao spree buying KOAnimated figures that really made me laugh, but this one came from eBay, listed bizarrely under "Custom Class Bumblebee". It came bagged in a packet labelled simply "Toys".

Mould Completion (New Arrivals - Late August 2014)

A superb weekend of deliveries, both postal and in person, from friends and strangers. The theme is most definitely mould completion and variants from Transformers Animated to Prime, FOC and Generation 1. Variety is what it's all about when it comes to keeping the hobby fresh, but the fact is I already own every mould featured in this post. A leopard cannot change its spots, eh?

Transformers Animated Exclusives - Pictorial

Here we have just a very short post with some photographs I took tonight of some of the more exclusive Transformers Animated figures in my collection, some older some brand new. The image above focuses on the tougher Activators class figures, Family Mart exclusive Ramjet, Skywarp and the unreleased Electromagnetic Soundwave. You'll also see the Tokyo Toy Show exclusive Elite Guard Prowl, the Million Publishing mailaway Elite Guard Optimus Prime voyager, the Activators seen above, Hyper Hobby exclusive Black Rodimus, Sons of Cybertron 2-set crystal Rodimus and Earth mode deluxe Optimus Prime, Black voyager Optimus prime and finally the mass release Japanese Activators Soundblaster.

All Stars

A very very short post dedicated to some of the most outstanding Transformers and 3rd Party toys I've had the pleasure of experiencing in the last 12 months, and posing them together as a rather spiffing group of marvels. If you could just imagine buying a collection, or receiving a package or lot containing all these figures, could it ever be topped?

New Arrivals - Mid August 2014 (Part 2)

When I started this blog I did not expect to be posting "Oh look what I just bought" segments every bloody day, and I still don't expect it to continue in that vein. For now though, it's what is dominating my hobby time, especially as I am constantly looking at moulds and toy lines I had ignored up to 2 months ago. Almost every direction my collection is going in right now is a result of toys people have placed in my hand and said "I dare you to hate that". This is the result. 

TF Animated - Off The Beaten Path

Have you missed the Transformers Animated posts recently? I hope so, because here's one collecting some of my favourite photographs from recent shoots involving TF Animated figures that are slight variations on the cartoon cast, or just brand new characters released as exclusives. There are some group shots, comparison shots and just plain old images that I thought came out very well. I love this toyline so very very much, few things are bringing me as much enjoyment right now, and while a lot of these pieces (if not all) have appeared already in my New Arrivals posts, it's nice (for me) to see them again and post more interesting images.

New Arrivals - Mid July 2014 (Part 3)

I don't know why my first instinct was to post a disclaimer about this not being a 100% Animated haul post, because you should feel privileged if it was! The best TRANSFORMERS TOY line ever deserves to be made tribute to every single day of the week. In actual fact this is quite a varied series of bots that make up the back end of Transformers-Arriving-Endlessly-July, but Animated Cheetor being the looker that he is, earns the headline image.

New Arrivals - Mid July 2014 (Part 2)

Yes, there's more Animated, but there's also considerable variety. A trip to see Paul "The Spacebridge" Hitchens for a family day out would not be complete without a look through his Transformers stock, and with my new ambition to complete Transformers Animated, I knew I'd find some modern specimens in his reserves. I also used the opportunity to pick up things I'd looked at briefly on line, but couldn't resist in the flesh.

New Arrivals - Mid July 2014 (Part 1)

Don't be fooled, this post is full of new Transformers Animated items that have been arriving steadily as the face of my collection changes again. However, top billing for this post belongs solely to a holy grail piece that I had in my possession on release 7 years ago, and foolishly sold immediately for massive profit, regretting it always. It gives me huge pleasure to take my biggest step yet towards completing something that lies very close to the heart and soul of my Transformers collection - Binaltech - with the arrival of BT-17 Wonderfest exclusive Black Convoy.

New Arrivals - Early July 2014 (Part 3)

That's right, another couple of boxes arrived. One was from TFSource containing my MP-18S Tokyo Toy Show exclusive Masterpiece Silverstreak, Hyper Hobby exclusive Animated Black Rodimus, a bunch of teeny tiny figures (thank you Jeremy!) and the Animated special edition "Cool" manga book that comes with a clear Activators Optimus Prime. And right at the back is the completely unsubtle show-stealer that came in its own special package, FansToys FT-04 Scoria. 

(Many) New Arrivals - Early July 2014

Writing to be kept to a minimum. Too many Transformers arrived in early July. Loads of photographs, no captions. Animated, Animated, Animated and even a reissue and a TF Prime toy. It's been an amazing/atrocious couple of weeks, have been well and truly jettisoned from the wagon and reversed over repeatedly. So without further ado, here's the first avalanche...

TF Animated Activators Lockdown Quickie

A flip-changer, essentially. Transformers Animated Lockdown, but the Activators release. Children's toys, silly little dodgy trinkets and not a hair on the proper deluxe or voyager class Transformers figures. Wow, was I wrong. It's completely my loss that I did not pick up all the Animated Activators when they were in stores, because after experiencing a few in person, I realised what marvels they are, and Lockdown is actually not one of the strongest, yet still marvellous.