Keith’s Fantasy Club: Transistor
Release Date: 4th quarter 2014
Masterpiece Scaled/ Styled
Based: Autobot Blaster
So – this is an in-hand test shot of KFC’s Transistor. I’m not a big MP collector, so doing this review was a bit of an eye opener for me. This figure from KFC is definitely a step up from their usual offerings. There’s a lot more pegs and clips with this figure that need to be observed. The figure has a lot of panels - for lack of a better term, but they are well designed so that they fold into each other well. I’m not going to do my usual format of reviewing figures, as this is really only a test shot. KFC has already stated that there will be some tweaks and paint apps that will go with this figure.
My first impression of the figure was I remembered how much I hated Blaster. I just disliked the character on the show. That being stated, when I unwrapped him he reminded me exactly how the G1 styled Blaster looked. It looked very similar to the G1, so bonus points for capturing it’s essence.
As I started transforming him, I was very impressed with the arms as there are quite a lot of panels – and they fold nicely into the forearms. The hands have jointed fingers, but the thumb is static. The answer is ‘No’ to the question,
‘Did the fingers pop off?’ Transistors fingers were not popping off – they are well engineered and the plastic for them is sturdy. My only wish for the hands is for them to be a bit more creative in the way they were designed. They could have used a little bit of something to break up the solid black hands.
The legs, I was a little bit confused as to how they went, and no I didn’t watch anyone’s reviews. The feet are designed so that they have a nice little ankle joint that allows for it to roll around. This way in whatever poses you put him in; Transistor should be able to have both feet planted on the ground. There are some limitations to the joint but overall, it does allow for a good amount of poses. Again more liberties with the feet could have been used. They could have been given more flair -as they are, they’re a little too plain for my personal liking, but they do keep in line with the G1 look.
Face sculpt is very comic book/ cartoon like. Most people should enjoy it, although personally I always found him to be too human. Because I have a test-shot, it’s a bit up in the air as to what his final look will be. KFC has stated there will likely be an alternate head with this figure. They were kind enough to provide some photos of the potential alternated head, as well as the potential paint application for the current head. The silver app really does remove the fish lips, that quite a few people have noted. His features look very neat.
The torso and chest can hold 2 cassettes. There’s a button you can push to pop open his chest, and a little lever in the back can help push the tapes forward and out. Personally I don’t mind the way it is -but I would have loved it had they made the figure fire out his cassettes- loads of fun.
Transistor has a lot of joints and swivels. It does have hip, bicep, wrists, upper thigh, shoulders and neck rotations. I have advised KFC to tighten up some of their joints, as I’d hate to see them have the same shoulder issue as FanToys had with Scoria.
Transformation – I was able to transform him into his robot mode (mostly) fairly easily. Like I wrote earlier – he’s got a lot of tabs, so you just have to keep an eye out for them and figure what goes where. I will refrain from transforming him back to blaster mode, because it’ll be a bit more difficult. He’s got all the panel things and it would cause an endless amount of stress. (Again, no I don’t want to watch someone’s video on it.)
Plastic quality is definitely nice. Its not FansToys Quakewave nice, but its not terrible. The plastic is sturdy enough that you can muck around with it. Yes die cast could have been thrown in, but then again, I think most people want to have cheap figures rather than collector grade figures. Yes it does cost more $$ to get die cast parts people, I’m sorry if you don’t think so.
Transistor comes with two G1 styled blasters. I can’t figure them out yet…they can come apart and the stock can fold down. I don’t know if they do anything other than that. I may have to look at a video after all. What I did like and I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, there are two pegs on his back that the blasters can peg onto. I’m not sure why he was given two blasters, but I’m not really going to complain about them either.
Overall, I’m definitely curious as to how this figure will look in the end. KFC has battled with their cassettes, they’ve had decent ones, bad ones and recently rebounded with their cool Haymaker and Overslay. So far I don’t see anything wrong with the MP styled Transistor. Some nice paint apps will definitely distinguish the figure more, and I’m sure
Reprolabels can do something for him to make him look more G1.
I will state, that this offering from KFC is a good one. They’ve put together a nice version of Blaster, and he is solid overall. Aside from not having a whole lot of detail in the hands and feet, I am impressed with the figure. Collectors should give this figure some serious consideration if they collect the MP scaled figures. This Transistor figure should fit in nicely in any collection.
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