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Press event announcing the recipients of the 2010 Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants. The Small Watershed Grants Program is funded by the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program and administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. (Image courtesy Baltimore County.)
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Byte reprint 1989: The Next Step. About Object-oriented programming with the NeXT compurer and NextStep
Kinky Friedman's hot pink trailer. You gotta love the the giant cowboy hat & cigar. If you look in the small thumbnail up top, you'll see what the cigar says.
Surprise, surprise - I've been sitting on a bunch of figures, including the BT-02 Windgirl from Bingo Toys.
Besides being a strikingly good looking Fembot, the BT-02 caught the attention of the third party collectors market (or at least the ones that like T&A) not so much because of what she looks like, but rather, because of the fact the former front runner, BigFirebird Toys, seemed to have cancelled their own plans for a Windblade homage, rumoured due to a desire to avoid the ever watching gaze of Hasbro.
I'd never heard of Bingo Toys before, but I was told their previous release, a Shockwave figure I believe, fell into the "good value" territory, so with expectations adjusted I ordered one.
It's an interesting release to say the very least. Finishing up the aesthetics discussion, descriptions say this is their take on the IDW (comics) version. I've not read the comics, but I do own the original Windblade figure when she was more Geisha assassin than Magical Girl, so yes, I can see where that description is coming from.
Furthermore, Windgirl definitely has this very strong "mecha" aesthetic, very sleek and futuristic, relying on strong angular lines for most of the body. While there are obvious fantasized female characteristics, lets be honest, we've all seen much, much worse. Hell, I own some of the them.
For whatever reason, Flickr deleted my entire blurb, so I'm going to summarize my thoughts as follows - this is the product that I wish Bigfirebird Toy made. Not just Windblade per se, but rather, a figure with better QC and Engineering decisions.
Accessory wise, she's got several pairs of hands, including two pairs with questionable posing use, four faceplates ranging from neutral to "I'm laughing at your penis size", and a stand that I can't figure out how to use. There is no manual, just a stop motion video... which also doesn't cover the stand.
The figure holds together quite well and features very similar articulation to Nicee, including the fact that her every pose is basically hampered by the backpack. Joints, overall, appear to be under better control here, though to be fair Mocha wasn't bad - everything before her, on the other hand, was terrible. There's also better posing options for her hands as there's an additional forearm joint. Wing joints are tad on the loose side, whereas body joints are all fine.
Engineering wise, it's not bad. Some props need to be given as at least they didn't take the easy way out and simply make this a frame that you pop panels back on for the transformation. However, you will likely need to readjust some parts upon completion of said transformation, as misaligned limbs will result in a warped jet mode.
I just wish I could understand why the hip joints pivot at the upper corners of the cavity rather than the traditional positions.
For the $118 CAD I paid, Windgirl is a very solid product. Is it as good as Eris? Definitely not, but it's also not that expensive. Windgirl is, however, a better first impression than several other third party figures have given me, and for that I think I'd be willing to see where they go from here.
Another quick dive into the world of Third Party Transformers. This time we have an entry from TransArts BWM8: Metal Jungle - Metal Spider Queen. Long, fancy name for effectively Transmetal 2 Black Arachnia.
The difference between TransArt and most other Third Party companies I've run into is that these products are very much influenced by the original toys. In general, it appears they're retooled versions of the OG toys to increase some functionality here and there. In the cast of Black Arachnia, she was also shrunk down in size, though I'm not sure if it was to match her MP counterpart, or because scale dictated it..
TransArt wisely got rid of her spin Kick gimmick, which has helped the figure stand better, as well as improve the overall body silhouette (no longer does she have a frame around her upper torso), Her legs are also slimmer now.
Sadly, the spring recoiling launcher is gone, replaced with just a plug in projectile (which looks nicer), and of course, so is the vacuum sealed chromed plastic finish, though their paint isn't bad. Her bra is once again removable, and is actually required for the transformation.
Speaking of which, I hope you like watching videos because there is once again no printed manual or pdf download.
There's also some parts forming required now, which I get. The original toy had some crazy big shoulder pads because in the show, her spider components would mass shift to something a bit more reasonable. So, they just made the rear spider section removable, and gave her small pads to use in robot mode. You can still attach the shell in robot mode, but it just makes things seem a bit awkward.
Now for all the improvements they made on the figure, you'd think they could have given the figure some actual wrist articulation so that she could do more than the "I'm going to grab your balls" hand motion when her elbows are positioned normally.
So, balance is improved, and articulation, despite the aforementioned quirks, is generally better than the OG toy.
I don't recall chest rotation on the original toy, which is present here (sadly no waist joint).
Because of the way the leg transformation works, this figure actually has some decent leg posing options, which combined with the metal toes and included display stand, means you can do some pretty fun things. Having said that, because of the way the arms are arranged, those cool poses are still going to look kind of weird because of limitations.
Transformation into Spider mode is reminiscent of the OG toy, but, as mentioned, no longer requires the frame that was around her torso, but there is a frame involved that flips her backpack into the right position. Arms are the same, and the rest of the body will definitely remind you of back in the day.
Presuming you didn't snap your Spider Legs (heat those things up in water and pre exercise them please) you'll be left with a pretty sweet looking Spider, though once again it's not one that can actually support itself on the legs.
Paint Wise, as mentioned, beautifully done. Yeah there's no chrome, but everything else is visually more impressive that the first toy. Build Quality, surprisingly, is actually quite impressive. There are quite a few places where weaker QC would have resulted in some noticeable visual flaws or large gaps, and this figure nails those. The bigger issue with Build is the need to properly pre treat those legs, and the fact that the magnet that holds her bra in place is kind of weak.
Overall, it's a nice glow up but man that lack of wrist articulation really hurts. Now that I know what they're all about, it's not rally likely that I'll get another TransArt product, considering their entire catalogue appears to be BW related. But hey, I guess if they do something to make Airrazor actually look female, I might be back for another round.
Doesn't this look kind of like a crocodile swimming in a swampy river? :D
First picture taken with my brand new Tamron 90mm f/2.8 :) It was taken in a hotel room so had to bump up to ISO 3200.
Another quick dive into the world of Third Party Transformers. This time we have an entry from TransArts BWM8: Metal Jungle - Metal Spider Queen. Long, fancy name for effectively Transmetal 2 Black Arachnia.
The difference between TransArt and most other Third Party companies I've run into is that these products are very much influenced by the original toys. In general, it appears they're retooled versions of the OG toys to increase some functionality here and there. In the cast of Black Arachnia, she was also shrunk down in size, though I'm not sure if it was to match her MP counterpart, or because scale dictated it..
TransArt wisely got rid of her spin Kick gimmick, which has helped the figure stand better, as well as improve the overall body silhouette (no longer does she have a frame around her upper torso), Her legs are also slimmer now.
Sadly, the spring recoiling launcher is gone, replaced with just a plug in projectile (which looks nicer), and of course, so is the vacuum sealed chromed plastic finish, though their paint isn't bad. Her bra is once again removable, and is actually required for the transformation.
Speaking of which, I hope you like watching videos because there is once again no printed manual or pdf download.
There's also some parts forming required now, which I get. The original toy had some crazy big shoulder pads because in the show, her spider components would mass shift to something a bit more reasonable. So, they just made the rear spider section removable, and gave her small pads to use in robot mode. You can still attach the shell in robot mode, but it just makes things seem a bit awkward.
Now for all the improvements they made on the figure, you'd think they could have given the figure some actual wrist articulation so that she could do more than the "I'm going to grab your balls" hand motion when her elbows are positioned normally.
So, balance is improved, and articulation, despite the aforementioned quirks, is generally better than the OG toy.
I don't recall chest rotation on the original toy, which is present here (sadly no waist joint).
Because of the way the leg transformation works, this figure actually has some decent leg posing options, which combined with the metal toes and included display stand, means you can do some pretty fun things. Having said that, because of the way the arms are arranged, those cool poses are still going to look kind of weird because of limitations.
Transformation into Spider mode is reminiscent of the OG toy, but, as mentioned, no longer requires the frame that was around her torso, but there is a frame involved that flips her backpack into the right position. Arms are the same, and the rest of the body will definitely remind you of back in the day.
Presuming you didn't snap your Spider Legs (heat those things up in water and pre exercise them please) you'll be left with a pretty sweet looking Spider, though once again it's not one that can actually support itself on the legs.
Paint Wise, as mentioned, beautifully done. Yeah there's no chrome, but everything else is visually more impressive that the first toy. Build Quality, surprisingly, is actually quite impressive. There are quite a few places where weaker QC would have resulted in some noticeable visual flaws or large gaps, and this figure nails those. The bigger issue with Build is the need to properly pre treat those legs, and the fact that the magnet that holds her bra in place is kind of weak.
Overall, it's a nice glow up but man that lack of wrist articulation really hurts. Now that I know what they're all about, it's not rally likely that I'll get another TransArt product, considering their entire catalogue appears to be BW related. But hey, I guess if they do something to make Airrazor actually look female, I might be back for another round.