The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

[CaptainMurdock]

Thanks Astra.
Your use of your decorations as lighting is a great substitute. I've often found myself needing to use one hand to take a picture while holding a light. (Luckily I got some new tap lights to balance out lighting for my scene work space.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Warning. This post contains minor Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoilers. Though, if you haven't seen the movie yet, why are you on the internet?

My hunt for a Rey has been fruitless, but I did pick up the Target two-pack with Poe Dameron and a Riot Trooper.

The trooper is the same exact figure as the regular release with a couple extra accessories. Poe has a new body, but the same head as the regular release. The paint is a bit better here. I felt the regular release kinda looked like a schlubby 50 year old man. This better captures Oscar Isaac's good looks.

Of course, I had to make a pic of one of my favorite moments from the movie:

(Pilot Luke is never getting his lightsaber back.)

 

[cooleddie74]

I love that two-pack. I recently picked it up myself and I really enjoy both figures, especially the Poe Dameron who has a much better head sculpt and facial paint apps than the X-Wing Poe Dameron figure.

 

[Unicron]

Some new pics of Combiner Wars Sky Lynx. I actually rather like Sky Lynx himself and it's nice that the mold apparently can duplicate his original forms, albeit no longer as separate ones. I don't have much interest in him as a gestalt body though, or any of repainted G1 characters in the set. Poor Wheeljack has no hands when he's posed like that!

 

[Gepard]

Despite being mostly remolds, Bruticus really is the best of the CW combiner teams. I see why they released him last – if he came out first, nobody would have bothered with any of the others. He's got the advantage of the Hot Spot torso mold – the best of the torsos, IMO – but with tweaks that allow for more custom transformations and thus a better look than Hot Spot has. The limb bots have a great variety of alt modes, and probably the best variety of transformation schemes: two with the feet at the front of the vehicle mode, two with the feet at the back; two that require a 180º waist rotation for transformation, two that don't; three where the bottom of the vehicle forms the chest, and one where the front does; one winged vehicle, one bladed vehicle, one wheeled vehicle, and one treaded vehicle. And so forth. And the colors coordinate really well; the earth tones blend nicely without being uniform like Devastator or crazy cartoon bright like Superion.

Point is, he's really nice.

I customized mine with back cannons from the CW Silverbolt/Cyclonus/Scattorshot mold, painted silver.

I can't wait for the Perfect Effect hand and foot upgrade set to come out. Then he'll be amazing.

 

[Unicron]

I've heard CW Brawl has some issues with the chest area due to the design. He and Swindle are the only molds I've had any potential interest in. I'm also curious why they colored Vortex's missiles yellow rather than a more G1 accurate gray.

I almost wonder if it would be worth buying an extra Sky Lynx so I could pretend to have two animal molds...

 

[Gepard]

I've heard CW Brawl has some issues with the chest area due to the design.

You're probably thinking of the complaints about his waist not tabbing together, which can cause his torso to flop backwards under its own weight. This seems to be a QC issue, as some people get Brawl's that don't hold together and others have figures that work as intended. Mine is fine, the clip isn't the tightest ever designed but he holds together well enough that his pelvis doesn't come untabbed even if I shake him around a bit.

One guy on TFW with one of the floppy Brawls applied Future to the waist tab and reported it fixed it right up. It may just be a matter of needing enough friction where the ridge on the pelvis hinge clips over the "lip" on the front of his waist.

 

[Unicron]

Yeah, that sounds about right. Speaking of that sort of issue, I need some advice. I picked up a CW Megatron the other day (the version based on G1 Megatron, not the Armada version), and overall I think it's a really nice figure. I've always been partial to G1's pistol form, in no small part because it's a highly unique alternate form. Tanks and aircraft certainly aren't bad, by any means, but I've steered away from many tank based Megatrons because I think tanks are more of a blander, less common alternative.

So after opening the figure today and transforming it to tank mode and back, I noticed something odd. The area where the upper torso meets the waist should be flush, and contains a rotational joint so you can move his upper body side to side. On mine, the upper torso seems to have gotten bent slightly to the right and isn't centered properly. It's not by a huge amount and it doesn't seem to interfere with either mode, but it's enough of a bend that you can tell it's not centered correctly by looking at him. This joint isn't used for the transformation itself so I know it can't be a result of the first transformation, but I'm not sure what could have caused it or whether I can fix it easily without potentially damaging Megatron.

The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that it's related to the packaging in some way, as there is a plastic tie that secures that area in the packing frame. I had to fiddle with mine because I had cut the left side and didn't realize that I also needed to cut the right side to get him out properly, but I don't think I put enough pressure to have caused such a bend (I could be wrong). If that were the case, it should be easy for me to correct it by a simple nudge to the left and I can't do that without putting a lot more stress on the figure.

Any advice would be welcome. I didn't notice it until I had reverted Megs to robot mode, so I can't judge if it might have been this way in the package. I'm also unsure if this has any potential to cause damage just by transformations (I'm guessing not, but I'm not sure).

Edit: I've noticed what seems to be a tiny bump of plastic on the affected side, almost as though a portion of it wasn't flattened properly before the upper torso was assembled. I wonder if this could be the problem, as the bump isn't tall enough to prevent his torso from twisting but does look like it has enough height to cause the "lean." Not sure how I could fix it though. :/

 

[Astra]

Despite all the trouble in Trekland (it subdued me a bit during the past few days I admit), let's not lose our fun! I got a shuttle craft! It's from Playmates and comes with one of the smaller more plastic looking figures.





This is how it looks straight out of the package:



I had to add all the stickers myself!



The door can slide open and the ramp put down:



The front opens up. The cannon from the first pic that shoots the rocket is supposed to go onto that knob from the hood but I didn't manage:



I had to put more stickers onto the console, not an easy task for thick fingers and also it was not marked with side was up and which down, although they were numbered. I lost one sticker completely but it flying off to nowhere. Please holler if you note any mistakes but then again I don't think the whole thing is very screen accurate anyway?



I managed to put Kirk into his seat, but due to his weird hip joints he sits like a cowboy



The backside opens up as well:





Another figure is supposed to go into the backseat but I didn't try:



These panels open as well:





I mainly got it to stand around in the background and look pretty, as it does not really fit with my kind of figures, but I still like it a lot! It's much smaller than the package, a lot was empty air and cardboard.

 

[cooleddie74]

That's some very impressive detail for a TOS shuttlecraft of that size, and it's interesting that the packaging shows Kirk and the others in their regular TOS uniform shirts with the black collars but the figure included with the shuttlecraft is Kirk in his pilot episode uniform. Cool!

 

[LordMudd]

I had that. That was an exclusive Kirk. The box set had the right uniforms.


CCC.

 

[cooleddie74]

I guess it still makes sense if the Enterprise's shuttlecraft looked the same before the Starfleet uniform changes were implemented in 2266.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

I bet those new reaction, retro Star Trek figures would fit nicely in that Shuttle and be to scale with it.

I have 2 of those shuttles myself. I got one used and one new. The used one was sun faded on one side so I'm currently repainting it. Might make it a new type of shuttle.

 

[cooleddie74]

Those figures are Wave 2 of the Star Trek line if I'm not mistaken? I haven't seen any of those and the last wave assortment I saw in stores was the one with Kirk and Scotty.

Is there any word about more figures being released after these? We still don't have Chekov, Nurse Chapel or Yeoman Rand and they could easily release Khan and some of the more famous aliens from the series.

 

[CaptainMurdock]

That's wave one actually. Wave two had Kirk, Scotty, Vina and the Gorn. And Entertainment Earth has 2 exclusive Kirk and Spock figures that are half transparent for a beaming effect.

 

[LordMudd]

If you remember the layout of the shuttle (and you should), it was never a single seater, and since that seat fills the front of the shuttle, I would imagine if you gutted it and put in proper scale seating, those figures would be scale.

On a side note, I was at Space Center in Houston and they now have the original Galileo 7 fully restored and on display.


CCC.

 

[cooleddie74]

Ah, that's right. Thanks for clarifying! Spock, McCoy, Sulu and Uhura were indeed Wave 1. I'd completely forgotten the order of their release and yes, I now remember having seen them at Target.

 

[Astra]

How big are those Retro figures? Even smaller than the Playmates ones?

I must say I am not too keen on those. I first encountered them in the Arrow and Flash universe and something (especially the faces) feels off to me. Why doing something looking retro (which equals bad for me) on purpose? The Dark Archer looks like a small kid in his father's clothes. Maybe I get him for that purpose LOL

If you look at the package of the shuttlecraft, it actually says "Authentic Replica of the original Galileo Shuttlecraft from "Where no man has gone before".
In that way, the uniform makes sense. Was it made so early that they didn't know it was not included in this episode?

I also plan to get the Innerspace shuttlecraft which comes with a tiny Kirk and Scotty. Sadly it seems to be the only TOS figures in that size, all the others from that wave are TNG. They even have a tiny bridge and everything.

Can anyone tell me why there were these NASA mission pieces included in this Innerspace line? I wondered if they actually ever played a role in an episode I hadn't seen, or were just general NASA toys. I can't seem to find pictures of them at the moment and don't remember the exact names, something with Apollo and Lunar? They even were able to connect each other, and I think the whole line was for an anniversary. I may get them even without the Star Trek connection, as they are rather cute. Just wondering.

 

[Kira's Mom]

Sherlock and John Funko Pops!

The mini version of American Girl's Girl of the Year, Lea.

 

[cooleddie74]

ReAction figures are about the same size as both Vintage and Modern 3.75" Star Wars action figures and come packaged on standard blister cards. They'd easily fit in with any 3.75-inch figure collection you have and not look too big or too tiny.