I've been quieter on the toy front these past few weeks not 'cuz I ain't gotten anything new, but because I've got some new stuff that's LEGO and that's different to talk about than Transformers stuff.  I've got a nice rhythm and/or rut with talking about Transformers stuff since I talk about it so often -- but LEGO's this entire different animal and so it's more intimidating.  (Also I'm not sure the big Batcave set I got will fit in my lighting studio, plus lifting it from the coffee table and putting it in the lighting studio is a Thing.)  I will have to get to it later.

MEANWHILE HERE'S A SIMPLE SWORD I GOT

It's not an official sword.  When we got Metalhawk last year at BotCon and he showed up in the comic, he was drawn with his original toy's sword because Metalhawks have swordses, but the toy didn't come with one.  It was just Thunderwing with a new head, after all, and so there was no sword in the tooling.  (And making a new sword means someone else doesn't get a new head, the way things are budgeted.)  But man, it'd be nice if he had a sword anyway, right?

Well, Venksta aka Renderform, the guy who made the Bumper head I talked about a while back, made one!  And so I bought it.  And now Metalhawk has a sword.

If it has a flaw, it's that it's a little heavy.  It's a solid chunk of plastic, seemingly without the gaps Hasbro puts in their stuff to save on plastic and shipping weights, so it's got some weight to it.  The only reason this would be a flaw is that it kind of upsets Metalhawk's balancing a bit and suddenly he's really topheavy on one side.  Otherwise, no probs.  It's a sharp sculpt.  There's even a second peg on the underside so you can store it in jet mode.

It completes him.   I got mine at Big Bad Toy Store!  You can buy it alone or with some original-toy-accurate rifles for BotCon Overlord.

Back in 1984, there was a strange yellow non-Bumblebee Mini Vehicle that was sold on Cliffjumper cards.  Years later, Transformers fandom would dub this dude "Bumblejumper" (or "Bumper" for short) by portmanteauing the two names together.  The Bumper name was later made official by appearances in Dreamwave comics.

Venksta, the guy behind Renderform.com, did some custom heads to replace your Classics Bumblebee heads to make other dudes.  Bumper, Hubcap, and Goldbug were among them.  This was a sweet idea, especially since getting the Bumblebee toy in yellow as some non-Bumblebee guy seemed like Not A Terribly Likely Occurrence.  I didn't want to do both Hubcap and Bumper (and didn't want to replace Bumblebee on my shelf with Goldbug... wait, why?  That's awesome, what's wrong with me?)  and so I had to choose between the two.  I settled on  Bumper because Hubcap is a more popular guy who's more likely to get his own official toy eventually.  Bumper?  Not so much.  He's a footnote's footnote.  If you're doing Yellow Bumblebee #2, it's gonna be Hubcap.

And so here he is!  His head comes in a baggy along with an assortment of 5mm-peg weaponry, 'cuz, y 'know, just a baggy with a single head in it feels a little empty.  So, hey, added value.  The head's of excellent quality and looks like it belongs on the toy.   I've always wanted to try out a Renderform head, and so scratch that off the bucket list!  Judging by this guy, I'll be happy to try out more.

(If you want to get a Goldbug head, BigBadToyStore.com has some in stock.)

My buddy Trent is making action figure weapons through Shapeways, and since one of them included a head on stick, I kind of had to get it.  Plus, y'know, my buddy Trent.  I've never bought anything from Shapeways before and so it would be fun to see what that's all about.  (As far as I understand, you can give them 3D models of stuff they download into reality, aka plastic.)

Trent is making a bunch of stuff that enhance your Transformers figures (or any other toy with 5mm pegholes) but not in a way that infringes on their intellectual property.  That's something I can get behind.  This one's called the "5mm MakeShift Weapons Set."  And so there's a car engine flail and some arm claws made out of garbage and, of course, the generic robot head impaled upon a smokestack so as to be used as a hammer.  As you do.

The accessories are "printed" on a to-order basis and mailed to you, and arrive unpainted.  So I painted mine!  It was fun to do, and I got to add lots of dribbling mech fluids.  I was a little worried that the paint would not survive interacting with the figure, but it seems to be resilient enough.  It doesn't scrape or make the accessory too wide for the grip.  So huzzah.

And now my toys can beat each other with heads on sticks, which is a noble goal.

I gave in to my chattering inner demons and got iGear's replacement Kup head.  It's the one that's colored to match the eHobby redeco of him that I prefer because of all the bright teal.  You actually get two heads, one with the cy-gar and one without, plus a tiny screwdriver.  These both are snug inside some foam inside of a plastic box that fits perfectly in Kup's truck bed.  A nice touch, but that feature probably won't ever be used by me.

It's not that the original head was offensive to me.  Some folks think it looked terrible, but I never minded it too much.  It looked like Kup and it matched the body well.  But having the cy-gar in his mouth trumps everything.  For serious.  (It doesn't hurt that the new head looks like Guido Guidi's art, though, that's for sure.)  I just like cy-gars.  They're great props that can add personality to Transformers.  I made sure that Commissioner Garboil had one, for example.  I mean, can you even BE a head of law enforcement without a stogie?  I'm pretty sure you can't.

It's a Christmas post!

This is my new Fansproject Sidearm.  He's a "third party product," or "we pretend Hasbro doesn't own this intellectual property" toy.  So I'm kind of a jerk for owning one, but him just being an accessory to a Hasbro product I already own makes me feel a little better.

He's nominally an add-on to the "Not Rodimus Prime" trailer upgrade for the Classics Rodimus toy, but I didn't care about that.  Thankfully, you could buy this fake Firebolt toy all by himself.  What's crucial is that he's designed to fit into Rodimus's hands (sorta, more on this later), which have non-standard pegholes.  His fist pegholes are way too small to accommodate the usual 5mm weaponry.  That was always annoying, and kept me from just using the original Firebolt with my newer toy.  So, hey, woo, something fits.

...but as I said, sorta.  I have no idea why they did this, but riiiight behind the right-size-for-Rodimus peg is the right-size-for-the-Rodimus-Prime-add-on peg.  Right behind!  What the hell!  So, really, Rodimus can't hold it at all.  ...unless you tuck his hands inwards at the wrist, at a half-transformed placement, so his other peg can have room to go.  whyyyyy

So that was a major disappointment.  At least the rest of him was pretty neat.  I mean, he transforms into a gun, and in a different way than in the character he's pretending not to be.  Plus he clips onto the spoiler while Rodimus is in car mode, which is appreciated.

He also comes with some other "intended for use with the bigger Rodimus Prime upgrade" parts, some chrome spoiler pieces.  These are not pictured.  They're also supposed to be able to clip onto the side of Sidearm to make a sort of crossbow thing, but this does not actually seem to be feasible.  The parts won't clip on.  So oh well.  Not a big deal to me.  Those parts can go in a baggy up in the attic somewhere and I'll never care about them again.

The "third-party" add-on products that I purchase are few and far between.  Not a lot of them appeal to me, even the ones that are entirely new toys like not-Springer and not-half-of-Bruticus.  I'm more in favor of new heads for redecoes that would have benefited by them.  (This is something that will probably happen less and less as Hasbro themselves have started putting in multiple heads in the original toolings of their toys.)

Case in point... I am totally for Headrobots Hothead, aka Duro-5.  It's a new transforming head for Hardhead, whose Headmaster's name was Duros.  Eh?  Eh?  See what they did there?  Ehhh?

Yeah, it's pretty crafty.  No one will see through their ruse!

Anyway, this add-on set got my attention in a number of ways.  First, dude, it's a Headmaster.  The head transforms from head to robot/Nebulan and back.  And, yeah, sure, that's neat, but what makes it even cooler is that the "stock" Universe Hardhead toy has a cockpit area for "Duros" to sit in vehicle mode, just like the original G1 Hardhead toy.  It's like a perfect storm of awesomeness.

Of less interest to me are the weapon add-ons.  The "Hothead/Duro-5" pack comes with recreations of the original Hardhead toy's weapons plus a few parts to help you attach them to the toy.  In vehicle mode, the two attachment parts plug together and you can attach the three guns to it in several configurations.  In robot mode, the two attachment parts unplug -- one attaches behind Hardhead's head so you can rig his shoulder cannon there, and the other plugs into his ass and stores one of the other extra pieces, though not as securely as I'd like.

(This extra piece is a "converter" piece that allows you to use the new head with the original Hardhead.  It plugs up into the neck socket and provides the same Headmaster tech-spec plug that the original head did.)

"Duro-5" is a little looser in humanoid mode than I'd prefer, but he's a solid toy, especially for a third-party product.  One bit of warning... his hands appear to be compatible with the new snap-on weaponry that current Transformers have built into them, and so I tried to have him operate Straxus in weapon-emplacement mode.  Do not try this!  They are not actually compatible, and now my Duro-5 has a nasty stretch mark inside of his palm.  This did, however, prove the durability of the toy.  I pushed like a motherfucker on this thing trying to get him attached, and he's not broken.

All you have to do to get the new head to replace the old head is to remove the three screws in the back of the old head, the old head will basically fall off at that point, and then you push the new head down onto the neck joint.  The easiest!  The electronic lights and sounds even still work, as the middle of the new head is translucent blue plastic, so when you press the electronics button the lights will still flash through the visor.

To sum up, this is a great set that immensely pleases me.  I like Hardhead and I also like his pantsless headbuddy Duros, so giving him a more-accurate noggin makes the toy come alive for me.  Plus, hey, somebody has to shut up my new Blurr toy.

I got my Hothead/Duro-5 set from TFSource.com, who are a major sponsor of the Transformers Wiki.  Go check them out!