#sparkside

[painted-leap]

Quick sketches of Cityscape and Sparkside’s holoforms! Not sure if I’m going to keep them like this but tbh I’m really happy with Cityscapes!!

[fleur-de-leap]

TFA Team Cast Reunited

[optimusphillip]

OptimusPhillip Reviews 27: Studio Series 52 Chromia, Arcee, and Elita-1

Christmas is coming soon, and while I can’t be sure of what I’m getting, I’d like to review a recent acquisition beforehand just in case I end up getting more this year. This is the Studio Series 52 three-pack of Chromia, Arcee, and Elita-1 from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Motorcycle Modes

According to TFWiki, all three of these figures turn into their bike modes from the movie; Chromia is a Suzuki B-King, Arcee is a Ducati 848, and Elita-1 is an EV Agusta F4. However, I can’t say I agree with that statement. There’s no licensing information on the box, and there are some visible discrepancies between the toys and the real bikes. Chromia’s headlight is split up and her side lamps are the wrong shape, Arcee is missing her front fender and most of her side panels, and Elita-1 is missing her rearview mirrors and has two headlights instead of just one. Some of these changes could be sacrifices for the sake of making bikes this small transform, but most of them just feel like working around licensing.

Paint deco is kind off here, too. While the base colors are right, all three bikes in the movie had a lot of black accents along with Cybertronian writing on their bodywork. In addition, all three had rims color-coded to their main body colors. None of these details carry over, likely due to size and budget issues. Instead, all we have is some black on the seats, and some silver for the windshields, headlights, gas caps, rims, and tail pipes. However, I think they still look nice, even if they aren’t 1:1 movie accurate.

Now, I mentioned the size earlier, and I should probably address that more properly now. These girls are tiny, only about 2 3/4″ tip to tail in bike mode. They are the smallest figures in the Studio Series line, which is probably for scaling reasons. While I don’t presently have any of the vehicles these bikes were seen alongside in the movie, putting her next to Dropkick in car mode, the scale looks about right for a motorbike next to a car, which I very much approve of.

Conversions

Being as small as they are, these three figures have very simplistic conversions. This is especially true of Chromia, whose transformation consists of folding out the rear seat to form her arm, bringing out the other arm, flipping the front and rear wheels and bringing up the head. Probably the hardest part is trying to tab the rear wheel into place when going back to bike mode, since it doesn’t really fit into the specified slot.

Arcee and Elita are a little more involved. For Arcee, you need to unhinge the lower and upper halves of the bike. From here, the upper half transforms easily enough (just remember to flip up her shoulder spike). The lower half, however, does a double-twist to put the body stem the proper position, then folds in half to create Arcee’s double wheel-foot.

Elita-1′s transformation is slightly different from Arcee and Chromia, in that her front wheel forms one of her arms instead of the rear seat. Once her arms are out of the way, along with her rear wheel-spike, the side panels of the bike rotate down, exposing a similar body stem to Arcee’s. From here, disconnect the front and rear of the bike by un-tabbing the gas tank, do a similar double-twist to Arcee, and then straighten out the rear wheel to form her wheel-foot. Fold the handlebars up, and you’re done.

All three sisters get detachable bases to keep them standing in robot mode. They don’t mount super-securely, nor do they store anywhere in vehicle mode, but they do their job well enough.

Robot Modes

While limited by their small size, these three figures are very faithful renditions of their CGI models from the movie. Some of the finer details are missing, again likely owing to their small size, but the general body shapes are there, and even subtle details like Elita’s folded up handlebars are included.

Upon close inspection, it appears that these three share a surprising number of parts. Arcee shares Chromia’s left shoulder and right forearm, Elita-1′s right shoulder, chest, and head, and all three share the same waist tooling and... hip piece, I guess.

For articulation, all three sisters have ball-joints in their necks, shoulders, elbows, and waists, plus a mushroom peg swivel leftover from transformation, which allows you to tilt their upper bodies if that’s a thing you want to do. I will warn you, however, that some of their arm joints can be loose. In my case, both Arcee and Elita have loose left elbows, and Arcee’s bike front shoulder is loose as well. Also, I’ve occasionally popped parts off during transformation, though it’s not often enough to feel like anything besides a problem with my end.

Aside from their robot mode stands, this set includes three additional accessories: a large pink gun, a large blue blade, and a small blue piece with silver piping. According to the instructions, the gun goes over Arcee’s right forearm, the blade goes on Chromia’s left forearm, and the small blue piece goes on... Arcee’s left shoulder. Yeah, this feels odd to me. It’s obviously colored to go with Chromia, and seems to only work with Arcee due to them sharing a left shoulder part, but the instructions give it to Arcee. That said, all three of these accessories are interchangeable across the two, since not only do they share right forearms to fit the gun, but Arcee also has pegs for the blade on her left forearm. Unfortunately, Elita kind of gets left out of the accessory swapping, though she does have her character model’s arm-blade sculpted into her left arm. Also, the shoulder piece isn’t super secure, especially on Chromia, who has some clearance issues with her large elbow and blade.

Now, normally, that would be it for the figures themselves... but there’s one more undocumented feature to discuss.

Combined Mode

I’m going to say this right now: as of me writing this review, there are no official instructions for this combined mode. A combined mode is clearly intentional judging by the engineering involved, but there is no confirmed official configuration. As a result, I will be following the method used by SparkSide - YRQRM0 on YouTube, which has made the best use I’ve seen of all the unique engineering.

In essence, this is just Arcee with Elita-1 forming a rear wheel, and Chromia forming a large backpack. The idea of the three combining is based on a deleted scene from Revenge of the Fallen that only exists as concept art, but this configuration has very little in common with that concept art. SparkSide’s original combination idea, while using less of the dedicated engineering, did more closely resemble that concept design. Still, this isn’t really bad in comparison. I like the centaur shape she has going on, and I still enjoy how Chromia’s arm parts fuse onto Arcee’s. While Chromia herself kind of just forms a backpack, it is a nice way of integrating her design. That said, Arcee loses all torso articulation, and her arms are a little clunky in this configuration. Still, it’s a fun little bonus feature that I’m glad they included.

Backdrop

The backdrop included with this set is branded “Shanghai Pursuit”, and is based on the opening sequence from Revenge of the Fallen, where the three pursue Sideways through the streets of Shanghai. Specifically, it shows the building that they burst through after narrowly avoiding killing an old Chinese man eating noodles. While the shot from the movie is very busy, all of the details I saw in the movie are present here, and there’s nothing here that seems out of place. So I’ll say it’s a successful recreation.

But now the million dollar question: do the figures fit on the base? Yes. The figures are so small in robot mode and have such narrow footprints that all three of them can stand side by side without crowding the base. They even fit on it in combined mode... but only sideways. The combined robot is just too long front to back to fit on the stand facing forward, but the base is wide enough and the robot thin enough too fit when looking off to the side. So it’s possible, but it doesn’t look very good. They all still fit in motorcycle mode as well. It’s a little crowded, but you can get them to all fit on the stand side-by-side at an angle, showroom style.

Final Thoughts

Studio Series is not for everyone, and the Revenge of the Fallen designs are definitely not for everyone. That said, I think the motorcycle sisters are some of the better designs to come out of that movie, and I think they are captured very well in this three-pack. While small, they are fun to play around with, going from one mode to another and playing around with the combinations. Some of the connections are kind of loose, but not to the extent of being a dealbreaker. So if you’re into these designs, or are just looking for some fun desk toys, these are hard to go wrong with. Just make sure you play with them in an area where you won’t lose any dropped parts.

[miahdeas]

~~ UPDATED ~~ Ship Names. The Cover Story: Casey Davis

Mixed feelings over love interests for The Cover Storys’ EARS Agent, Casey Davis. Fans speculate on their favorite coupling. But hot handed, gun wielding Davis seems to stall out on relationship progress across the board! Love interests AND friendships.

Ship Names:

Casey Davis and Mark Clayton

Macy Dayton

Casey Davis and Kira Ashwood

💔 Dark Shadows 💔

Casey Davis and Nick Sparks

💥 Sparkside 💥

Casey Davis and MOM

🚬 Suits 🚬

Casey Davis and The Producer

The Produsey

Casey Davis and Tessa Jones

💕 Guns & Roses 💕

Casey Davis and Tiffany Torres

😈 Night Terror 😈

[tf-imagines]

Update: 4-16-19

OK SO! I promise that this blog is not dead! I’m just currently facing the end of the semester, meaning finals and essays and lots of last minute work. I haven’t had much time to work on personal stuff, but after May 3rd, I should be able to work on getting back into the groove of things. Hopefully. However, he’s a little update of what I’ve managed to do with whatever free time I’ve gotten my hands on:

I have more transformers OCs. 4 bots and a human, to be exact. Two of the bots were actually inspired by this ask from forever ago, asking what my alt-mode would be if I was Cybertronian (I was torn between Motorcycle, and Typewriter). So...I did both! I have:

- Cityscape the Motorcycle (Kawasaki Ninja 300)

- Typecast the Typewriter

- Sparkside the Thunderbird (1966 Thunderbird)

- Avalanche the Small Car (Ford Fiesta)

- Dawn the human (Her Bio is a WIP)

I actually have a blog for Team Cast (Typecast, Sparkside, and Cityscape), right over here! (It’s not entirely running yet, but it’s...there?)

I’m still working on the 100 follower special (almost 500 followers late, I’m so so sorry ;-;), but I am HOPING to FINALLY get it out before I go to MomoCon at the end of May. I only have a few more prompts that I’m kind of stumped on...but don’t fret! I’ll get to them eventually!

[painted-leap]

Team Cast!

Sparkside (Purple Mech) - the ‘brute force’ of the team, his alt. mode is a ‘66 Thunderbird. He’s very protective of his teammates and will take every mission seriously, struggling to relax around other bots.

Cityscape (Blue and Pink Femme) - the scout of the team, her alt. mode is a Kawasaki Ninja Motorcycle. She’s outgoing and optimistic, wanting to learn as much as she can. She’s welcoming of strangers, leading to her teammates having to remind her to be more careful. 

Typecast (Red Femme Minibot) - the team leader, her alt. mode is a Typewriter. A critical thinker with a way with words, she takes careful notes of their missions and excursions. She cares deeply for her teammates, doing her best to ensure their safety despite being unable to fight herself. 

[painted-leap]

Wanted to do some shippy doodles so I brainstormed ships I could use with poses I have saved. Somehow thought of Knockout and Sparkside (Now dubbed SparKO), and instantly fell in love with it XD. Two racers who love sass and care about their appearances (Though to very different levels). Then I thought about Sparky comforting Knockout post-Breakdown, and THEN I thought about KO worrying about him during the time skip when the Autobots scatter, and he hasn’t shown up to their usual racing area for a long time. And they finally meet up again and Sparky has changed his frame color to hide and they have a moment of ‘we match’. 

TL;DR: I have a new ship and even less self-control. And need more sleep. :P

[fleur-de-leap]

...I just realized that Cityscape as a human is the type of person who would tie a rope to a car/motorcycle/golf cart / whatever motorized device she can get her hands on, and hold on to the rope and be pulled behind it in roller skates. Typecast tries to stop her and Sparkside has the first aid kit ready. 

[painted-leap]

Team Cast’s line art done! Now to play with colors!

[fleur-de-leap]

Bio: Sparkside

[fleur-de-leap]

Hey, which characters would say this?: Character A: "I say this with all due respect... Have you lost your damn mind!?" Character B: "That was with respect?"

Character A: “I say this with all due respect…Have you lost your damn mind!?” - Sparkside (TF), Nell (VLD), Mahdi (VLD), Dawn (TF)

Character B: “That was with respect?” - Typecast (TF), Cityscape (TF), Layla (VLD), Yorak (VLD)

[fleur-de-leap]

*Drops something embarrassing* "No one will believe you."

Send me a sentence and I’ll tell you which of my OCs would be most likely to say it!*Drops something embarrassing* “No one will believe you.” - Mahdi (VLD), Yorak (VLD), Esah (VLD), Sparkside (TF), Avalanche (TF)

[painted-leap]

Toying around with giving Sparkside gold optics, and worked on a few other doodles because why not!

[fleur-de-leap]

"Why? Why did I survive? Why didn't they?"

Send me a sentence and I’ll tell you which of my OCs would be most likely to say it!

“Why? Why did I survive? Why didn’t they?” - Deserted City! Sparkside (TF) , Deserted City!Typecast (TF) , Nell (VLD)

Yesss bring on the pain, I love angsty ideas~

[fleur-de-leap]

"What the hell is wrong with you to think I could possibly LIKE you?"

Send me a sentence and I’ll tell you which of my OCs would be most likely to say it!

“What the hell is wrong with you to think I could possibly LIKE you?” -  Mahdi  (VLD) , Nell (VLD) , Sparkside (TF) , Typecast (TF) 

[painted-leap]

WIP of more ocs, Cityscape’s teammates! Sparkside and Typecast! I’m still not good at designing bots, but I like how Cityscape is going so far