Manic ramblings and delerious ranting, re: Pretenders
Robert Edward Powers
Well, yesterday, via Sunstar's auction, I at long last joined the elite
ranks of those with a complete set of Monster Pretenders. I just gotta
babble on a little bit about these guys, as well as the four regular
Pretenders I got...
First, lemme say THANKS to Sunstar. He got the goods out FAST. I was
quite impressed.
Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
some names... Slog is the leader, right?... Almost immediately I broke
Bristleback's robot form -- his creature leg was very stiff, and when I
twisted it around to transform him, his robot feet cracked down the
middle. Nothing major, really; with a little Fun-tak, he'll still hold
Monstructor's fist. And now his feet move independently!...
When I got them all out, I spent several minutes putting Monstructor
together, no mean feat since I had no instructions for him. I like the
little guy -- he's as posable as the regular gestalts, and he looks cool.
The Slog-Birdbrain connection is rather clever; you have to get Birdbrain
just right, and the way Slog unfolds is neat... it took me a while to
figure it out.
Other impressions... Just what is so great about the Icepick-style
transformation that they had to use it *twice*?? (for Scowl) I guess the
obvious answer is that it makes a good Monstructor leg... Too bad Slog's
outer shell isn't as cute as it looks in US issue #67; it was his
appearance here that first got me interested in the MPs. Maybe some paint
would fix that to some degreee?... Bristlback, Icepick, and Scowl
definately have the coolest shells. Birdbrain is the nicest robot, I
think... Just what the hell are Icepick, Scowl, and Slog supposed to BE in
creature form?? It's too bad they don't look anything like they do on the
Tech-Spec art, neat-o slashing creatures instead of funky-looking block
thingys...
On to the regular Pretenders. Let me start by saying that Iguanis's shell
is COOL! I love the textured skin and the tail. OTOH, his robot form is a
bit of a let-down. I don't mind SOME add-on parts for a vehicle mode, like
Cloudburst's nosecone/gun, for example... But come on! You have to attach
his whole wheelbase, fer cryin' out loud! And the wheels aren't
free-rolling, either, just one big blocky piece o' plastic. So much for
the spiked tires or whatever it is they mentioned on his specs. The whole
motorcycle mode looks like a circus contraption, with tons of stuff
balanced on two little wheels... Decent posability as a robot, but his
head is frozen -- that drives me nuts in an otherwise mobile robot.
SplashDown: Another one I'd never seen before buying him. This guy hardly
even got an appearance in the comics; he was in maybe three frames of
issue 40. First thought, for those of you who have him: Doesn't his
shell's face look a hell of a lot like Fort Max's first binary bond
partner, Galan? Second thought: why do the shells get all the cool
weapons? Splashdown's shell is armed with a really complicated-looking gun
and a frakkin' HUGE pronged spear. Splashdown himself gets an ordinary
little gun... A pretty good robot inside a shell that's much cooler than
the typical Autobot Pretender. Again, decent posability, though like many
Pretender robots he needs some joint sanding to increase it. I had to sand
down the insides of his knees to get him to TF properly (his legs wouldn't
fold back all the way). IMO there are too many 'water' vehicles in the
pretender line -- hovercraft, subs, and the like. They're okay if they're
well-done, like Waverider, but in Splash Down's case, well... he just
looks like a hunk of machinery. If he was as streamlined as in the
tec-spec art, he'd be great. But, alas, he's not...
A friend of mine had Waverider and Cloudburst long ago, so I was already
familiar with them before getting them. Cloudburst looks funny in toy
form, being so skinny after I'd gotten used to his beefier appearance in
the comics. Still, he's a pretty cool jet. I like him. Shell is dull,
dull, dull. Me and my friend owned four Pretenders between us, and we
would just toss the shell in the closet, using only the robot. Now I
remember why. Waverider is a little stiff as a robot -- no knees, no neck
joint. And his head looks a little too humanoid for my tastes. But, as
mentioned above, he has a good vehicle form. Again, a boring shell. I
wonder if the Pretenders have to breath? Seems like it'd be difficult for
Cloudy and Waves, since their mouths and noses are buried inside those
space suits.
Okay, that's all, I'm done indulging myself at the group's expense. Or,
at least until Dreadwing, Road Pig, the McBeasties, Finback, and Chain
Claw arrive. :)
--
Robert Powers of the Ever-Roasting .sig
repo...@artsci.wustl.edu___________________________________________________
|...Then, during the second Rectification of the Newsgroup, they chose a new|
| form for him: that of a KILLFILE! Many trolls and flamers knew what it was|
|_to be roasted in the depths of the killfile that day, I can tell you!_____|
Kendrick Kerwin Chua
In article <4mdbep$h...@newsreader.wustl.edu>,
Robert Edward Powers <repo...@artsci.wustl.edu> wrote:
> Well, yesterday, via Sunstar's auction, I at long last joined the elite
>ranks of those with a complete set of Monster Pretenders. I just gotta
Welcome to the club, Rob. If you haven't already, once you see
Tranformers:Victory your appreciation of the Monster Pretenders will
skyrocket. Note for those of you keeping track, the MPs show up as
Galvatron's yesmen goons in US Comic #67.
> Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
>shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
>easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
>some names... Slog is the leader, right?... Almost immediately I broke
Slog, the combat artist extraordinaire, is indeed the commander of the
team in the US. His monologue in the above mentioned comic issue also
suggests that he has a Grimlock-like speech impediment which obscures a
highly developed intellect...
"Leave us where does that? Now, Pretender Shell phase out. End this way
all of us. Under the weight of Galvatron's insanity buried. When falls
tonight final darkness, another night will any of us see?"
BTW, in the Japanese continuity, Icepick is the leader, in the grand
tradition of Scrapper and left-leg-gestalt-part commanders. :)
>Bristleback's robot form -- his creature leg was very stiff, and when I
>twisted it around to transform him, his robot feet cracked down the
>middle. Nothing major, really; with a little Fun-tak, he'll still hold
>Monstructor's fist. And now his feet move independently!...
Heh. Be careful of Bristleback's robot fists too. One wrong twist will
crack out the fists holes and leave you with his hands more open than
when you began. Bristle is probably the most fragile of the MPs, with
Birdbrain running a close second, if only because the poor guy has to
hold up the poor upper half of Monstructor all by his lonesome.
KKC, wonders if the MPs could ever appear in the BW continuity?
--
"When the ball which set the rest in motion falls, the entire game will end."
kend...@io.com - Kendrick Kerwin Chua - WTB: Hasbro/Takara Transformers toys
home webpage at http://www.io.com/~kendrick - also available at kc...@unf.edu
NOTscape Friendly! Use less graphics in web pages to speed up info retrieval!
Ivy Bohnlein
Kendrick Kerwin Chua (kend...@io.com) wrote:
: Slog, the combat artist extraordinaire, is indeed the commander of the
: team in the US. His monologue in the above mentioned comic issue also
: suggests that he has a Grimlock-like speech impediment which obscures a
: highly developed intellect...
: "Leave us where does that? Now, Pretender Shell phase out. End this way
: all of us. Under the weight of Galvatron's insanity buried. When falls
: tonight final darkness, another night will any of us see?"
Sounds almost like he's foreign. That's the same kind of sentence
construction you see in some romance languages, with a few differences.
Might it be a literal translation of something Japanese (don't know
Japanses grammar), or is it just a cockamamie exaggeration of how some
people speak when they are just learning to use English as a second
language?
ESL-bots, unite! Form Grammarsaurus!
(I'd like to sic him on some net-denizens, actually)
Ivy
--
===================== Bohn...@acmelabs.uhc.asu.edu =====================
If you put a hundred convertible purple gorillas in a
room with a hundred brains in a hundred vats,
would you eventually create our universe?
============= Philosophy is often stranger than fiction ================
SGK1000
In article <4mdbep$h...@newsreader.wustl.edu>, repo...@artsci.wustl.edu
(Robert Edward Powers) writes:
> On to the regular Pretenders. Let me start by saying that Iguanis's
shell
> is COOL! I love the textured skin and the tail. OTOH, his robot form is
a
> bit of a let-down. I don't mind SOME add-on parts for a vehicle mode,
like
> Cloudburst's nosecone/gun, for example... But come on! You have to
attach
> his whole wheelbase, fer cryin' out loud! And the wheels aren't
> free-rolling, either, just one big blocky piece o' plastic. So much for
> the spiked tires or whatever it is they mentioned on his specs. The
whole
> motorcycle mode looks like a circus contraption, with tons of stuff
> balanced on two little wheels... Decent posability as a robot, but his
> head is frozen -- that drives me nuts in an otherwise mobile robot.
Is Iguanus's shell purple? The reason I'm asking this is that I have a
Pretender that
fits this description. The robot inside is purple with maroon arms. It
turns into a
motorcycle too.
Kendrick Kerwin Chua
In article <4me3hg$2...@news.asu.edu>,
Ivy Bohnlein <bohn...@acmelabs.uhc.asu.edu> wrote:
>Kendrick Kerwin Chua (kend...@io.com) wrote:
>
>: Slog, the combat artist extraordinaire, is indeed the commander of the
>
>: all of us. Under the weight of Galvatron's insanity buried. When falls
>: tonight final darkness, another night will any of us see?"
>
>Sounds almost like he's foreign. That's the same kind of sentence
>construction you see in some romance languages, with a few differences.
You're right. Slog, Weirdwolf, the Dinobots, and a few other TFs have as
their personality 'hook' a mismatched, off-kilter speech pattern. Now
that you mention it, Slog DOES sound like a very romantic, aesthetic
Transformer, insofar as a Decepticon could be romantic and aesthetic. :)
>Might it be a literal translation of something Japanese (don't know
>Japanses grammar), or is it just a cockamamie exaggeration of how some
>people speak when they are just learning to use English as a second
>language?
Actually, the above is a direct quote from US comic issue #67. I don't
believe it's a translation of any sort, just the kind of out-of-the-blue
characterization which marks so much of Simon Furman's writing.
KKC, sadly enough, that quote was ALSO from memory :)
msipher
On 3 May 1996, Robert Edward Powers wrote:
> Well, yesterday, via Sunstar's auction, I at long last joined the elite
> ranks of those with a complete set of Monster Pretenders. I just gotta
> babble on a little bit about these guys, as well as the four regular
> Pretenders I got...
They're actually pretty cool as a complete set, aren't they? I picked up
all six of them MOC at last year's BotCon... I was already over the vague
self-imposed spending limit I had set, but hell.
> Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
> shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
> easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
> some names... Slog is the leader, right?
Well, Kendrick will say so, but I don't remember seeing any mention of an
actual team leader anywhere in the techs or comic... I like to think of
them as having no real leader, just a bunch of quibbling jerks who manage
to get their acts together once the anti-Autobot violence starts. (This
was before I caught the comedy-relief of DinoForce, too.)
> ... Almost immediately I broke
> Bristleback's robot form -- his creature leg was very stiff, and when I
> twisted it around to transform him, his robot feet cracked down the
> middle. Nothing major, really; with a little Fun-tak, he'll still hold
> Monstructor's fist. And now his feet move independently!...
Yeah, that gold plastic is rather brittle. I usually keep them in
Monstructor mode, or in their shells.
> When I got them all out, I spent several minutes putting Monstructor
> together, no mean feat since I had no instructions for him. I like the
> little guy -- he's as posable as the regular gestalts, and he looks cool.
Scrappy little guy.Actually, he's a little more posable... you can bend
him at Icepick & Scowl's knees.
> Other impressions... Just what is so great about the Icepick-style
> transformation that they had to use it *twice*?? (for Scowl) I guess the
> obvious answer is that it makes a good Monstructor leg...
That and it would make Birdbrain's jet-pack weird-looking if Scowl's feet
were different.
> think... Just what the hell are Icepick, Scowl, and Slog supposed to BE in
> creature form??
Well, Icepick looks vaguley like Squeezeplay... Scowl looks kinda
werewolfish... Slog I think some kind of anthropomorphic triceratops.
> It's too bad they don't look anything like they do on the
> Tech-Spec art, neat-o slashing creatures instead of funky-looking block
> thingys...
I love the package art for them... whoever did the package art for the
later-year TFs and Japanese series did an absolutely fantastic job. I
wouldn't be surprised if there was a book full o' TF package art floating
around Japan somewhere...
> On to the regular Pretenders. Let me start by saying that Iguanis's shell
> is COOL! I love the textured skin and the tail.
His shell is all I have. I finally gave up on the bid for a boxed
Iguanus. (See? It happens sometimes!)
> SplashDown: Another one I'd never seen before buying him. This guy hardly
> even got an appearance in the comics; he was in maybe three frames of
> issue 40. First thought, for those of you who have him: Doesn't his
> shell's face look a hell of a lot like Fort Max's first binary bond
> partner, Galan?
Yep.
> weapons? Splashdown's shell is armed with a really complicated-looking gun
> and a frakkin' HUGE pronged spear.
Really? I'm missing that...
> little gun... A pretty good robot inside a shell that's much cooler than
> the typical Autobot Pretender. Again, decent posability, though like many
> Pretender robots he needs some joint sanding to increase it.
One of the few Pretenders with waist articulation.
> fold back all the way). IMO there are too many 'water' vehicles in the
> pretender line -- hovercraft, subs, and the like. They're okay if they're
> well-done, like Waverider, but in Splash Down's case, well... he just
> looks like a hunk of machinery. If he was as streamlined as in the
> tec-spec art, he'd be great. But, alas, he's not...
Of the regular Pretenders, there's four water vehicles... and four land
vehicles, and four air vehicles.
> Okay, that's all, I'm done indulging myself at the group's expense. Or,
> at least until Dreadwing, Road Pig, the McBeasties, Finback, and Chain
> Claw arrive. :)
Oooh, Finback. I'll be getting him soon... I like the way he looks. Real
creepy and prehistoric.
M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
Stanley Lui
Kendrick Kerwin Chua (kend...@io.com) wrote:
:>Slog, the combat artist extraordinaire, is indeed the commander of the
:>highly developed intellect...
:>
:>tonight final darkness, another night will any of us see?"
Tisk tisk, Kendrick, shame on you for comparing Slog's Yoda-like
speech patterns to Grimlock's "Me Og." patterns? :) Slog sounds
like he has the same speech as Weirdwolf, namely in that the subject
and predicate portions of the sentence are reversed (with the
occasional exception when it sounds bad)
:>BTW, in the Japanese continuity, Icepick is the leader, in the grand
:>tradition of Scrapper and left-leg-gestalt-part commanders. :)
Er... YEAH! :)
:>Heh. Be careful of Bristleback's robot fists too. One wrong twist will
:>crack out the fists holes and leave you with his hands more open than
:>when you began. Bristle is probably the most fragile of the MPs, with
:>Birdbrain running a close second, if only because the poor guy has to
:>hold up the poor upper half of Monstructor all by his lonesome.
Hmmm, everytime I try to rotate Computron's right arm (Afterburner)
up, I fear AB's head is gonna twist right off....
Speaking of fragile TFs, does anyone else find their Fangrys to
be extremely uncooperative when transforming the legs?
:>KKC, wonders if the MPs could ever appear in the BW continuity?
I dunno, but me and a friend of mine just spent half a week drawing
and animating a computer-rendered G2 Brawl :) HE TRANSFORMS! WOOHOO! :)
Any requests? :)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanley Lui -----\-/----------- |~~~>
ex-Marauder @ex-TFMUSH -----/|\--WHAMMO!-- |()__\-----|
----- o ----------- /~\_/~\_/~\|L_
------------------- \_/-\_/-\_/|__\
Home Page: http://calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~sslui/
Andrew Crane
In article <4meelh$d...@xanadu.io.com>, Kendrick Kerwin Chua
<kend...@io.com> writes
>You're right. Slog, Weirdwolf, the Dinobots, and a few other TFs have as
>their personality 'hook' a mismatched, off-kilter speech pattern. Now
>that you mention it, Slog DOES sound like a very romantic, aesthetic
>Transformer, insofar as a Decepticon could be romantic and aesthetic. :)
quite intelligent... (By the way, he is the only Dinobot with speech
problems.)
--
Andrew C
Iggy Drougge
msipher (msi...@nando.net) wrote:
Sorry for breaking in, thought I'd add something...
: On 3 May 1996, Robert Edward Powers wrote:
: > Well, yesterday, via Sunstar's auction, I at long last joined the elite
: > ranks of those with a complete set of Monster Pretenders. I just gotta
: > babble on a little bit about these guys, as well as the four regular
: > Pretenders I got...
: They're actually pretty cool as a complete set, aren't they? I picked up
: all six of them MOC at last year's BotCon... I was already over the vague
: self-imposed spending limit I had set, but hell.
They're not very cool as a combined toy, IMO, but cool as a set of
Gakvatron's minions. =)
: > Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
: > shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
: > easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
: > some names... Slog is the leader, right?
: Well, Kendrick will say so, but I don't remember seeing any mention of an
: actual team leader anywhere in the techs or comic... I like to think of
: them as having no real leader, just a bunch of quibbling jerks who manage
: to get their acts together once the anti-Autobot violence starts. (This
: was before I caught the comedy-relief of DinoForce, too.)
Icepick seemed to be the leader, threatening to kill one of them, and
being smarter than the others.
[snip!]
: I love the package art for them... whoever did the package art for the
: later-year TFs and Japanese series did an absolutely fantastic job. I
: wouldn't be surprised if there was a book full o' TF package art floating
: around Japan somewhere...
It's droolin' cool! So soft, yet not like the G2 stuff... I don't like
the first years' worth of box art, they were painted quite badly and had
the most stupid poses, just look at OP.
: M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
: Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
You'll have to be careful with those femaxians...
--
=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=
__/\__ /// /// __/\__
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\/ \XX/ __/ __/ __/ __/ __/ ¯¯ \XX/ \/
=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=
Dirge
repo...@artsci.wustl.edu (Robert Edward Powers) writes:
-> Well, yesterday, via Sunstar's auction, I at long last joined the elite
-> ranks of those with a complete set of Monster Pretenders. I just gotta
-> babble on a little bit about these guys, as well as the four regular
-> Pretenders I got...
Wow. You think I'm elite? Thanks.
-> Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
-> shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
-> easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
-> some names... Slog is the leader, right?... Almost immediately I broke
-> Bristleback's robot form -- his creature leg was very stiff, and when I
-> twisted it around to transform him, his robot feet cracked down the
-> middle. Nothing major, really; with a little Fun-tak, he'll still hold
-> Monstructor's fist. And now his feet move independently!...
It helps that the catalogue has three of the shells matched to the wrong TF.
-> Other impressions... Just what is so great about the Icepick-style
-> transformation that they had to use it *twice*?? (for Scowl) I guess the
-> obvious answer is that it makes a good Monstructor leg... Too bad Slog's
-> outer shell isn't as cute as it looks in US issue #67; it was his
-> appearance here that first got me interested in the MPs. Maybe some paint
-> would fix that to some degreee?... Bristlback, Icepick, and Scowl
-> definately have the coolest shells. Birdbrain is the nicest robot, I
-> think... Just what the hell are Icepick, Scowl, and Slog supposed to BE in
-> creature form?? It's too bad they don't look anything like they do on the
-> Tech-Spec art, neat-o slashing creatures instead of funky-looking block
-> thingys...
Personally I think Wildfly is the coolest in both shell & robot.
Icepick's shell a close second. According to the packaging, I think Scowl
is soe dog of dog-monster.
-> SplashDown: Another one I'd never seen before buying him. This guy hardly
-> even got an appearance in the comics; he was in maybe three frames of
-> issue 40. First thought, for those of you who have him: Doesn't his
-> shell's face look a hell of a lot like Fort Max's first binary bond
-> partner, Galan? Second thought: why do the shells get all the cool
-> weapons? Splashdown's shell is armed with a really complicated-looking gun
-> and a frakkin' HUGE pronged spear. Splashdown himself gets an ordinary
-> little gun... A pretty good robot inside a shell that's much cooler than
-> the typical Autobot Pretender. Again, decent posability, though like many
-> Pretender robots he needs some joint sanding to increase it. I had to sand
-> down the insides of his knees to get him to TF properly (his legs wouldn't
-> fold back all the way). IMO there are too many 'water' vehicles in the
-> pretender line -- hovercraft, subs, and the like. They're okay if they're
-> well-done, like Waverider, but in Splash Down's case, well... he just
-> looks like a hunk of machinery. If he was as streamlined as in the
-> tec-spec art, he'd be great. But, alas, he's not...
He'd be much cooler if there was somewhere to put the grey shield on his
robot mode. The harpoon is indeed cool. I Guess the only drawback is that
it's so much bigger than many TFs.
-> A friend of mine had Waverider and Cloudburst long ago, so I was already
-> familiar with them before getting them. Cloudburst looks funny in toy
-> form, being so skinny after I'd gotten used to his beefier appearance in
-> the comics. Still, he's a pretty cool jet. I like him. Shell is dull,
-> dull, dull. Me and my friend owned four Pretenders between us, and we
-> would just toss the shell in the closet, using only the robot. Now I
-> remember why. Waverider is a little stiff as a robot -- no knees, no neck
-> joint. And his head looks a little too humanoid for my tastes. But, as
-> mentioned above, he has a good vehicle form. Again, a boring shell. I
-> wonder if the Pretenders have to breath? Seems like it'd be difficult for
-> Cloudy and Waves, since their mouths and noses are buried inside those
-> space suits.
The best thing about Cloudburst is the wings IMO. They can be switched
around to a cyclonus-style position, and can swing out rather nicely in
robot mode (although then you can move the arms).
-> Okay, that's all, I'm done indulging myself at the group's expense. Or,
-> at least until Dreadwing, Road Pig, the McBeasties, Finback, and Chain
-> Claw arrive. :)
McBeasties.. ohh you'll have fun with those.
Darren, who now has six McBeasts, and they haven't even been released in
this damn country!
Naomi Novik
On 3 May 1996, Kendrick Kerwin Chua wrote:
> Slog, the combat artist extraordinaire, is indeed the commander of the
> team in the US. His monologue in the above mentioned comic issue also
> suggests that he has a Grimlock-like speech impediment which obscures a
> highly developed intellect...
>
> "Leave us where does that? Now, Pretender Shell phase out. End this way
> all of us. Under the weight of Galvatron's insanity buried. When falls
> tonight final darkness, another night will any of us see?"
>
All I can say is...
Yoda!
:)
Naomi
msipher
On Mon, 6 May 1996, Stanley Lui wrote:
> :>BTW, in the Japanese continuity, Icepick is the leader, in the grand
> :>tradition of Scrapper and left-leg-gestalt-part commanders. :)
Scrapper's a left leg.
> Hmmm, everytime I try to rotate Computron's right arm (Afterburner)
> up, I fear AB's head is gonna twist right off....
I feel that way about a fair number of the Scramble Power gestalts... In
fact I HAVE a slingshot that got no head.
> Speaking of fragile TFs, does anyone else find their Fangrys to
> be extremely uncooperative when transforming the legs?
Yes.
> I dunno, but me and a friend of mine just spent half a week drawing
> and animating a computer-rendered G2 Brawl :) HE TRANSFORMS! WOOHOO! :)
I've got a headless, handless 3-D Blaster that I haven't touched in
months. What I've got looks great, considering I had only been playing
around with the program for about a week beforehand.
> Any requests? :)
Yes. "Spiralling Shape" by They Might Be Giants.
Oh, wait, you mean for...
M "This Could Lead To Excellence Or Serious Injury" Sipher
Ratbat
On Mon, 6 May 1996, Andrew Crane wrote:
> In article <4meelh$d...@xanadu.io.com>, Kendrick Kerwin Chua
> <kend...@io.com> writes
> >You're right. Slog, Weirdwolf, the Dinobots, and a few other TFs have as
> >their personality 'hook' a mismatched, off-kilter speech pattern. Now
And Skullgrin. (I reckon Warpath, Wheelie and Wreck-Gar ain't exactly
on-kilter either.) Oh, and TV Omega. (Sorry, I'm fastidious.)
> >that you mention it, Slog DOES sound like a very romantic, aesthetic
> >Transformer, insofar as a Decepticon could be romantic and aesthetic. :)
> Apparently, although he has a speech problem, Grimlock is a actually
> quite intelligent... (By the way, he is the only Dinobot with speech
> problems.)
In the latter-day comic, anyway. I much prefer it that way. I've seen
occasionas where he's had articulate speech, and even though the
personality was right, it just wasn't *quite* big Grim. Actually, I like
it when he's seen as smart, yes, but occasionally some things go over his
head, whether its supposed to be a flub in his intelligence or just him
not paying attention. Can anyone imagine the geezer as intellectual? Not
here.
(OK, so I liked his Grim Grams personailty, but that's the exception that
proves the rules, OK?)
Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, Turquoise Grimlock! Turquoise Grimlock, answer me!
See this - good taste! I now possess that which you most fear!!
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 'Normal is what everyone else is, and you are not.' |
| - Dr Tolian Soran |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, E-mail me on u96...@student.canberra.edu.au |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Dan Campbell
> I dunno, but me and a friend of mine just spent half a week drawing
> and animating a computer-rendered G2 Brawl :) HE TRANSFORMS! WOOHOO!
Only half, and it transforms too? Wow.
> Any requests? :)
YES!! Quicktime or some such?
Dan Campbell
Stanley Lui
msipher (msi...@nando.net) wrote:
:>> Hmmm, everytime I try to rotate Computron's right arm (Afterburner)
:>> up, I fear AB's head is gonna twist right off....
:>
:>I feel that way about a fair number of the Scramble Power gestalts... In
:>fact I HAVE a slingshot that got no head.
Hmm, one of my Slingshots is missing both his arms (brrrr), and
G2 Swindle's head feels like I could rip it off with my bare hands.
Sorta on the topic of gestalts: I actually tried putting Aerialbots
onto Metroplex's joints like the instructions say. To the people who
thought that up: what were you on and is it habit-forming???
:>> Speaking of fragile TFs, does anyone else find their Fangrys to
:>> be extremely uncooperative when transforming the legs?
:>Yes.
I swear one day I'm gonna end up with Amputee Fangry (TM)
:>> I dunno, but me and a friend of mine just spent half a week drawing
:>> and animating a computer-rendered G2 Brawl :) HE TRANSFORMS! WOOHOO! :)
:>
:>I've got a headless, handless 3-D Blaster that I haven't touched in
:>months. What I've got looks great, considering I had only been playing
:>around with the program for about a week beforehand.
I'll say this for POV-Ray... It's a hell of a lot easier than Autocad :)
:>> Any requests? :)
:>
:>Yes. "Spiralling Shape" by They Might Be Giants.
:>Oh, wait, you mean for...
Stan wraps MSipher in a giant TMBG bag, and convinces Trypticon
to play fetch with it.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanley Lui -----\-/----------- |~~~>
ex-Marauder @TFMUSH -----/|\--WHAMMO!-- |()__\-----|
Stanley Lui
Dan Campbell (dcam...@ddt.occ.uc.edu) wrote:
:>> I dunno, but me and a friend of mine just spent half a week drawing
:>> and animating a computer-rendered G2 Brawl :) HE TRANSFORMS! WOOHOO!
:>
Hey, *I* was pretty damned impressed too :) To be fair, my
friend did most of the work... I was just the TF consultant :)
Also got a nice scene of Brawl rumbling across an alien landscape.
Will send to FTP or post to a binaries group or... well, something.
:>> Any requests? :)
:>YES!! Quicktime or some such?
Alas, it's AVI format, unless you know of a program that can make
a different format animation file given individual frames...
Robert Edward Powers
As threatened, more rambling... this time it's Finback and Chainclaw.
As Msipher promised, Finback's shell is pretty cool. The body is a
smooth, dark mix of black or dark purple or something, which complements
the yellow highlights well. It looks very much like the rubbery skin of a
whale or a shark. His head is rather funny looking; he looks like he's
wearing some sort of shell or fish skull for a helmet. But it's pretty
cool. Further evidence (if we needed it) of the poor design quality of
the Pretenders: Finback's lower jaw could easily have been articulated
with a simple hing, but it's not. Finback is yet another case of the
shell getting the cool weapons - the shell's gun is HUGE, and one arm
ends in a bladed instrument. Pretty cool.
The inner robot looks good in robot form, fairly good in sub form. Like
Waverider and Submarauder, he suffers from having his thighs and knees
articulated to the side rather than to the back. He can do the splits (and
does, when he transforms) but he can't take a step forward. Standard
Pretender articulation outside the legs; the head turns and the arms
swivel from the shoulder, and can angle back (from the joint made to him
in his shell). I wonder what it is about G1 toy designers... even the most
poorly made figure has to have at least one arm joint. Many have
completely static legs, but only a rare few designs (Battlechargers,
Throttlebots) don't have movable arms.
The bio card shows the trend toward less characterization as the toy
line got older... Finback's card just mumbles something about him being a
wheezing wreck, and says that his shell is a case for his spare parts.
Then it goes on about how well he can blow stuff up :/. If he's in such
bad repair, how's he going to go underwater in sub mode? Won't he leak?
Chainclaw was something of a letdown, although from the pictures in the
catalogue, I knew what I was gettin' into. :) The inner robot is Glo-bot
Soundwave yellow with grey highlights. It's ironic that the instructions
call the robot a "bear", but the shell a "beast". The shell looks a lot
more like a bear than the robot does! Shoulder articulation only on the
creature-mode robot. Transform is annoyingly simple; for such an easy
design, they could have made the robot form more posable. But his robot
feet are one big fused block, leaving him as yet another guy stuck in
place waving his arms around.
What makes this guy worth having is the outer shell. Of course, it's a
frozen statue, like all Pretender shells; more so, in fact, since there
are no arms to have a single joint on at the shoulders. But, what a
statue! He *looks* like a real bear, and a BIG one, too... big, heavyset,
and vicious. The only problem is, there's all this equipment strapped to
his back. Come ON!! "Hmm, what's that? Oh, it's just a bear with an
electronic backpack... HEY! Where'd that robot come from?"... I don't
think so! Interesting that his shell splits down the middle, as almost all
Pretender shells did in the comics. It's the only such shell I've found,
though I imagine the other beasts are the same way.
Funny thing about his tech spec... first line is, "A ferocious warrior."
But everything after that is about what a fanatical worry wart he is, and
how he is often too busy fussing over non-problems to fight! Sounds like
that first line might have been some sort of editing mistake...
Alright, that's it for now... I'm rather proud of this thread! After
less than 10 posts, it no longer has anything to do with Pretenders! :)
--
Robert Powers of the Ever-Changing .sig
repo...@artsci.wustl.edu _____________________________________
| "Give me a ruler and a place to stand and I'll saw the earth |
| in half. Yes, kids, onward to freedom." --- Anthro-man |
|______________________________________________________________|
Milo Sharp
On Thu, 9 May 1996, Stanley Lui wrote:
> :>> Any requests? :)
> :>YES!! Quicktime or some such?
>
> Alas, it's AVI format, unless you know of a program that can make
> a different format animation file given individual frames...
There is a program to convert AVI files to QuickTime format, at
least for the Macintosh. Don't remember the exact name, but I found it
at one of the info-mac mirrors.
---
Milo (Michael) Sharp
mi...@somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu
http://www.asuaf.alaska.edu/~fxmcs/
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
Dirge
opt...@canit.se (Iggy Drougge) writes:
-> msipher (msi...@nando.net) wrote:
-> : They're actually pretty cool as a complete set, aren't they? I picked up
-> : all six of them MOC at last year's BotCon... I was already over the vague
-> : self-imposed spending limit I had set, but hell.
-> They're not very cool as a combined toy, IMO, but cool as a set of
-> Gakvatron's minions. =)
'cept that Monstructor's got knees.
-> : > Now then... First thing I did was to pop the little guys out of their
-> : > shells. I managed to keep marginal track of who went with what shell, not
-> : > easy since I've never seen four of these guys before. Sorry if I mix up
-> : > some names... Slog is the leader, right?
-> : Well, Kendrick will say so, but I don't remember seeing any mention of an
-> : actual team leader anywhere in the techs or comic... I like to think of
-> : them as having no real leader, just a bunch of quibbling jerks who manage
-> : to get their acts together once the anti-Autobot violence starts. (This
-> : was before I caught the comedy-relief of DinoForce, too.)
-> Icepick seemed to be the leader, threatening to kill one of them, and
-> being smarter than the others.
Actually, according to the specs, Slog is the leader. He has a rank of 7,
Icepick & Wildfly have 6, the other three 5.
-> : I love the package art for them... whoever did the package art for the
-> : later-year TFs and Japanese series did an absolutely fantastic job. I
-> : wouldn't be surprised if there was a book full o' TF package art floating
-> : around Japan somewhere...
You'd be wrong cos it's sitting on my bookshelf (I'm joking people!)
-> It's droolin' cool! So soft, yet not like the G2 stuff... I don't like
-> the first years' worth of box art, they were painted quite badly and had
-> the most stupid poses, just look at OP.
They weren't very stylised were they? I hate Blaster's boxart.
-> : M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
-> : Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
You'd be a good basketballer.. don't women (I know that might be seen as
sexist, but MSipher's supposedly male, right?) go for sporty types,
especially rich ones?
Darren, wouldn't mind having that book (:
msipher
On 12 May 1996, Dirge wrote:
> -> : They're actually pretty cool as a complete set, aren't they? I picked up
> -> : all six of them MOC at last year's BotCon... I was already over the vague
> -> : self-imposed spending limit I had set, but hell.
>
> -> They're not very cool as a combined toy, IMO, but cool as a set of
> -> Gakvatron's minions. =)
>
> 'cept that Monstructor's got knees.
Knees that bend in the proper direction. Menasor, Superion... owie.
> -> : Well, Kendrick will say so, but I don't remember seeing any mention of an
> -> : actual team leader anywhere in the techs or comic... I like to think of
> -> : them as having no real leader, just a bunch of quibbling jerks who manage
> -> : to get their acts together once the anti-Autobot violence starts. (This
> -> : was before I caught the comedy-relief of DinoForce, too.)
>
> -> Icepick seemed to be the leader, threatening to kill one of them, and
> -> being smarter than the others.
>
> Actually, according to the specs, Slog is the leader. He has a rank of 7,
> Icepick & Wildfly have 6, the other three 5.
Well... I see that as more of an "unofficial" leader, like Scrapper.
> -> : I love the package art for them... whoever did the package art for the
> -> : later-year TFs and Japanese series did an absolutely fantastic job. I
> -> : wouldn't be surprised if there was a book full o' TF package art floating
> -> : around Japan somewhere...
>
> You'd be wrong cos it's sitting on my bookshelf (I'm joking people!)
Hell, they've got artwork books for virtually EVERYTHING... (I've got a
book full of artwork for Capcom of Japan's arcade games from Final Fight
up to Darkstalkers 2, plus lots of stuff I've never seen in my life...)
I know I'D buy a book full of Japanese TF box art.
> They weren't very stylised were they? I hate Blaster's boxart.
The minibots were especially bad.
> -> : M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
> -> : Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
>
> You'd be a good basketballer.. don't women (I know that might be seen as
> sexist, but MSipher's supposedly male, right?)
Yeah, but I have to be careful not to come in contact with cold water.
> go for sporty types,
> especially rich ones?
No, they act like they want us to be dangerous and daring, because
they're trying to kill us for our stuff.
KIDDING!!! JUST KIDDING!!! DON'T HIT!!!
> Darren, wouldn't mind having that book (:
You know it. I gotta scan in all my Japanese TF boxes...
M "I Don't Know What Women On The Whole Go For. I'll Just Wait Until One
Goes For Something Like Me" Sipher
Robert A. Jung
In article <Pine.LNX.3.91.960511...@Somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu> Milo Sharp <mi...@Somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu> writes:
>On Thu, 9 May 1996, Stanley Lui wrote:
>>>> Any requests? :)
>>>YES!! Quicktime or some such?
>>
>>Alas, it's AVI format, unless you know of a program that can make
>>a different format animation file given individual frames...
>
> There is a program to convert AVI files to QuickTime format, at
>least for the Macintosh. Don't remember the exact name, but I found it
>at one of the info-mac mirrors.
Probably "AVI to Quicktime". Not the best program out there; you have to
install an AVI interpreter in your Mac's extensions folder, if I remember
right, and scaling movies is dicey.
Ideally, everyone should use "flattened Quicktime," or MooV, as that is
playable on both Macs and PCs. But that's for a comp.sys.* group, not for
alt.toys.transformers, is it? B-)
--R.J.
B-)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I write because I am personally amused by what I do, and if other people are
amused by it, then it's fine. If they're not, then that's also fine."
Send mail to rj...@netcom.com --Frank Zappa
Ratbat
On Sun, 12 May 1996, msipher wrote:
>
> On 12 May 1996, Dirge wrote:
>
> > -> : They're actually pretty cool as a complete set, aren't they? I picked up
> > -> : all six of them MOC at last year's BotCon... I was already over the vague
> > -> : self-imposed spending limit I had set, but hell.
> >
> > -> They're not very cool as a combined toy, IMO, but cool as a set of
> > -> Gakvatron's minions. =)
> >
> > 'cept that Monstructor's got knees.
>
> Knees that bend in the proper direction. Menasor, Superion... owie.
Think how the poor little gestalt members' necks must feel...
> > -> : Well, Kendrick will say so, but I don't remember seeing any mention of an
> > -> : actual team leader anywhere in the techs or comic... I like to think of
> > -> : them as having no real leader, just a bunch of quibbling jerks who manage
> > -> : to get their acts together once the anti-Autobot violence starts. (This
> > -> : was before I caught the comedy-relief of DinoForce, too.)
MMMmmmm...Dinoforce...
> > -> Icepick seemed to be the leader, threatening to kill one of them, and
> > -> being smarter than the others.
> >
> > Actually, according to the specs, Slog is the leader. He has a rank of 7,
> > Icepick & Wildfly have 6, the other three 5.
>
> Well... I see that as more of an "unofficial" leader, like Scrapper.
I always thought Scrapper was the leader was the leader was the leader.
It's just that he doesn't like heights, so he lets Hook ride up top. :)
> > -> : I love the package art for them... whoever did the package art for the
> > -> : later-year TFs and Japanese series did an absolutely fantastic job. I
> > -> : wouldn't be surprised if there was a book full o' TF package art floating
> > -> : around Japan somewhere...
> >
> > You'd be wrong cos it's sitting on my bookshelf (I'm joking people!)
>
> Hell, they've got artwork books for virtually EVERYTHING... (I've got a
> book full of artwork for Capcom of Japan's arcade games from Final Fight
> up to Darkstalkers 2, plus lots of stuff I've never seen in my life...)
>
> I know I'D buy a book full of Japanese TF box art.
I've seen a fair few I wouldn't mind as posters. Counterpunch/Punch, for
example. Did the Actionmasters have boxart and is it on the Web?
> > They weren't very stylised were they? I hate Blaster's boxart.
>
> The minibots were especially bad.
Because they were taken too much from the toys, and showed the figure
representations bending in impossible ways. I liked them when they were
almost Romita.
> > -> : M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
> > -> : Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
But what if your SO is also a six-metre tall robot posing as a human
being? (I don't know where you'd go to meet them, but there's a club I
know which must have a few as regulars.)
> > You'd be a good basketballer.. don't women (I know that might be seen as
> > sexist, but MSipher's supposedly male, right?)
>
> Yeah, but I have to be careful not to come in contact with cold water.
ATT 1/2? Just a thought.
> > go for sporty types,
> > especially rich ones?
I think we've been mixing with different sets of women.
> No, they act like they want us to be dangerous and daring, because
> they're trying to kill us for our stuff.
>
> KIDDING!!! JUST KIDDING!!! DON'T HIT!!!
I wasn't hitting for the joke - I was hitting to kill to try to get your
stuff! :)
> > Darren, wouldn't mind having that book (:
Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, notices that a lot of people these days sign off
like Kendrick.
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 'Normal is what everyone else is, and you are not.' |
| - Dr Tolian Soran |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, E-mail me on u96...@student.canberra.edu.au |
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
I've got that change-my-.sig itch again.
msipher
On Mon, 13 May 1996, Ratbat wrote:
> > > -> They're not very cool as a combined toy, IMO, but cool as a set of
> > > -> Gakvatron's minions. =)
> > >
> > > 'cept that Monstructor's got knees.
> >
> > Knees that bend in the proper direction. Menasor, Superion... owie.
>
> Think how the poor little gestalt members' necks must feel...
You know, a lot of the mechanics of the combiners, especially the
Scramble Power combiners, bug me. Namely, the fact that individuals'
kness become elbow joints for the gestalt, even though technically they
shouldn't bend like that... I figure they just swap out their knee joints
for different joints to give the elbow bend. (Subspace has so many
usefull uses.)
> MMMmmmm...Dinoforce...
Heeheehee...
> > > Actually, according to the specs, Slog is the leader. He has a rank of 7,
> > > Icepick & Wildfly have 6, the other three 5.
> >
> > Well... I see that as more of an "unofficial" leader, like Scrapper.
>
> I always thought Scrapper was the leader was the leader was the leader.
> It's just that he doesn't like heights, so he lets Hook ride up top. :)
Again, it's a matter of more the rank score, as Scrapper's techs list him
as a mechanical engineer (I think. Gimme a sec...) No, Construction
Engineer. My mistake.
> I've seen a fair few I wouldn't mind as posters. Counterpunch/Punch, for
> example. Did the Actionmasters have boxart and is it on the Web?
Oh yeah, the AM package art is pretty good. Not quite as good as the
previous year's art, but still good. I don't know if there's any on the
Web... besides, the only time there's a full-body pic on the carded guys
is on the tech card, and that's tiny. I suppose I *could* attempt to scan
it in and blow it up...
> > > They weren't very stylised were they? I hate Blaster's boxart.
> >
> > The minibots were especially bad.
>
> Because they were taken too much from the toys, and showed the figure
> representations bending in impossible ways. I liked them when they were
> almost Romita.
Yep.
> > > -> : M "Actually, I'm A Twenty-Foot Tall Robot Posing As A Human Being. That
> > > -> : Might Put A Crimp In A Relationship" Sipher
>
> But what if your SO is also a six-metre tall robot posing as a human
> being? (I don't know where you'd go to meet them, but there's a club I
> know which must have a few as regulars.)
Depends on your opinion of TFs and sex.
> > Yeah, but I have to be careful not to come in contact with cold water.
>
> ATT 1/2? Just a thought.
Bingo. Immediately after I posted that, I realized the *other* way of
interpreting that...
> > No, they act like they want us to be dangerous and daring, because
> > they're trying to kill us for our stuff.
> >
> > KIDDING!!! JUST KIDDING!!! DON'T HIT!!!
>
> I wasn't hitting for the joke - I was hitting to kill to try to get your
> stuff! :)
Good luck. I'm no fighter, but I can dodge like a mofo.
> > > Darren, wouldn't mind having that book (:
>
> Urac 'Ratbat' Sigma, notices that a lot of people these days sign off
> like Kendrick.
M "This Is Also A Popular Sign Off Method... I'd Be Cheesed That More
People Are Doing This, But I Kinda Picked This Up Elsewhere Myself"
Sipher
JKierst920
In article
<Pine.LNX.3.91.960511...@Somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu>, Milo
Sharp <mi...@Somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu> writes:
>On Thu, 9 May 1996, Stanley Lui wrote:
>
>> :>> Any requests? :)
>> :>YES!! Quicktime or some such?
>>
>> Alas, it's AVI format, unless you know of a program that can make
>> a different format animation file given individual frames...
>
> There is a program to convert AVI files to QuickTime format, at
>least for the Macintosh. Don't remember the exact name, but I found it
>at one of the info-mac mirrors.
>
>
I don't about MAC, but I have one that'll do it for IBM.
+-------------------------------------------+
| John Kierstead |
| JKier...@aol.com |
| http://users.aol.com/JKierst920/1985.html |
| Transformer Collector! |
+===========================================+
Stanley Lui
Milo Sharp (mi...@Somunix.uafsom.alaska.edu) wrote:
:>On Thu, 9 May 1996, Stanley Lui wrote:
:>
:>> Alas, it's AVI format, unless you know of a program that can make
:>> a different format animation file given individual frames...
:>
:> There is a program to convert AVI files to QuickTime format, at
:>least for the Macintosh. Don't remember the exact name, but I found it
:>at one of the info-mac mirrors.
Now, if I can get that in PC format (DOS, Win31, Win95) or even UNIX...
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stanley Lui -----\-/----------- |~~~>
ex-Marauder @TFMUSH -----/|\--WHAMMO!-- |()__\-----|
Drop Zone @TF2005 ----- o ----------- /~\_/~\_/~\|L_
Dan Campbell
> Sorta on the topic of gestalts: I actually tried putting Aerialbots
> onto Metroplex's joints like the instructions say. To the people who
> thought that up: what were you on and is it habit-forming???
I always wondered that, too...
> :>> Any requests? :)
Oh hey, how about Cyberjet Jetfire?
Dan Campbell
Dirge
Dan Campbell <dcam...@ddt.occ.uc.edu> writes:
-> > Sorta on the topic of gestalts: I actually tried putting Aerialbots
-> > onto Metroplex's joints like the instructions say. To the people who
-> > thought that up: what were you on and is it habit-forming???
-> I always wondered that, too...
-> > :>> Any requests? :)
-> Oh hey, how about Cyberjet Jetfire?
This one reminds me of a posting I just put up on another newsgroup, in
terms of how stupid some professional people can be. (Basically, they
forgot that my part of the country existed)
CyberJetfire is a much better phrase, I feel.
Darren, but CyberAir Raid looks goofy.