Deliberate Mistransformations

Does anyone deliberately mis-transform any of their toys? This could refer to just one small placing of a body part to achieve a preferred look in contrast to what instructions say. In some cases it could even have been intended by the designers but never documented for consumers. It however tends to fall short of a full desire to invent a fan mode.

Here are a few I or my brother did over the years (our collections were once in effect one collection so some of the toys I refer to I do not myself own).

G1 Optimus Prime (1984): Placing Roller on back of robot as a kind of low-slung backpack.

G1 Jazz (1984): Swinging doors back behind robot, as per cartoon look. Nowadays, I have to resist the desire to do this with mold-mate Stepper.

G1 Ratchet (1984): We used to combine both modules to achieve a taller robot mode. The rear tracks would be angled to form the feet of a vertically oriented medical bay and the smaller robot legs would fit in around the area of the front track. This would give Ratchet a huge bustle-like skirt out behind with the launcher emerging from it. We did a similar thing with Rodimus Prime. I've never seen images of this online, but surely others must have done something like this too.

G1 Grimlock (1985): Would sometimes angle his leg-hip parts to make the robot mode a tad taller.

G1 Megatron (1984): Sometimes positioned his gun barrel in robot mode like it is in the cartoon. This can be done but always feels a little awkward.

G1 'Coneheads' (1985): You know what we did. I think it would be more interesting to find fans who (a) did not or (b) gave the Conehead treatment to the other Seekers.

G1 Onslaught (1986): Would not fully extend his legs, because it did not seem fair that he was taller than Hotspot. :)

And now moving onto more recent times and a live-action toy...

Scorponox (as Michael Bay apparently spells it): I rarely put this live-action 'Zoid in all but name' into robot mode, but when I do I give it an ape-like posture, with all four limbs touching the ground. It just looks less naff.

And finally some Generations...

Victorion: One kind of kibble I quite like is wheels, so Rust Dust as breast plate has those half back wheels showing.

Overlord: I place the jet plane nose-cockpit piece on the robot's chest, pointing downward, rather than on the arm. I just feel this achieves a more 'Transformerly' look.

Trypticon: Not sure if this is a mis-transformation, but I've deliberately not placed those golden stickers on his eyes. Admittedly, I've used very few of those stickers because my patience and hand-eye coordination refused. But even if I could be bothered, I would not cover those lovely trans-orange peepers. ;)

Over to you.

I don't mistransform the 2nd Year Decepticon jets and I know of other collectors who don't either. I generally avoid deliberately mistransforming toys, at least when they're on display. One exception would be Apeface. Because the back kibble on mine has become so loose I deliberately swing the ape mode legs all the way down towards the back. I also angle the ape arms towards the front of the robot and then clip the ape arms and legs together to hold them in position. I also flip out the ape feet 180° to help get a firmer grip. But yeah, such mistransformations are done out of necessity. Sometimes I might shift a part in to save space.

For G1 Omega Supreme I use the show accurate tracks on his back instead of the toy accurate tracks.

For Henkei Lambor and Alert I put their guns on their shoulders to mimic shoulder cannons.

And for my United and Generations Scourges, I have their wings transformed differently to denote Scourge from the Sweeps.

I generally try to transform correctly though.

The one that sticks in mind for me was taking CHUG Scourge's wings off & swapping them. I was never a fan of the pointing down look & fortunately enough it was easy enough to pry them off and flip them up.

About the only 'mistransformation' i've done is with my CHUG BattleTrap. In combined robot mode the rotor on his back sits flush and rigid with his torso which doesn't make for very dynamic posing. I found online a 'fan mode' to still have the rotor 'backpack' plugged in so it can be free-spinning and still looks good and he has his full range of motion now.

I have yet to try moving the wings on my God Ginrai combined mode to a lower height because its so damn fiddly to do, but now that Super Ginrai and Godbomber are separated for a while I may try next time I combine them again.

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Originally Posted by TaZZerath

About the only 'mistransformation' i've done is with my CHUG BattleTrap. In combined robot mode the rotor on his back sits flush and rigid with his torso which doesn't make for very dynamic posing. I found online a 'fan mode' to still have the rotor 'backpack' plugged in so it can be free-spinning and still looks good and he has his full range of motion now.

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Battletrap is one of mine too. My preference re the bacpack is to use the big chunky tab/slot that's used in copter mode to lock the arms together to secure them as a backpack. You end up with the chopper blade between the torso and backpack, but it's doesn't flop about.

I also prefer to bend Roadtrap's arms 90 degrees at the elbow in combined mode. Otherwise I find that the arms interfere with the ankle articulation.

G1 Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust have the nosecones left up.

G1 Hot Rod has the neck piece behind the chest rather than in front of it.

G1 Omega Supreme (and Converters Omegatron for that matter) have two parts of the track attached to the backpack rather than all six pieces.

G1 Megatron has his legs spread further apart to help him stand.

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Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom

G1 Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust have the nosecones left up.

G1 Hot Rod has the neck piece behind the chest rather than in front of it.

G1 Omega Supreme (and Converters Omegatron for that matter) have two parts of the track attached to the backpack rather than all six pieces.

G1 Megatron has his legs spread further apart to help him stand.

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These examples are more for aesthetics rather than mistransformations. I do the same for G1 Coneheads and Omega Supreme.

Isn't there a tab on Hot Rod's head/chest piece for that specific purpose? To tab in behind the chest, or am I having a Mandela Effect moment?

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Originally Posted by Tha_Phantom

G1 Megatron has his legs spread further apart to help him stand.

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For the glaring obvious reason. *chuckles*

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Originally Posted by Sinnertwin

Isn't there a tab on Hot Rod's head/chest piece for that specific purpose? To tab in behind the chest, or am I having a Mandela Effect moment?

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Yeah, the head/neck is meant to sit in front of the chest, but I never liked that. So mine is mistransformed by having the neck piece behind the chest.

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Originally Posted by Galvatran

These examples are more for aesthetics rather than mistransformations. I do the same for G1 Coneheads and Omega Supreme.

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I deliberately mistransform these figures for aesthetics, yes.

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Originally Posted by Galvatran

For the glaring obvious reason. *chuckles*

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I knew someone was gonna go there. :rolleyes:

I don't fold CW Prowl's backpack thing all the way down and turn it up to give him his wings in some crude fashion. I also fold the combiner peg and his chestplate out at 45 degrees to get rid of the flat chest.

Did the leg swap on Alternators Prowl so the rear windshield goes on his shins like the G1 version.

United Tracks’s legs are mistransformed/reversed so the car bonnet makes up his shin armour and he’s a bit taller than his mouldmate Wheeljack.

Thanks for the comments all. Sorry to be so tardy in feedback. Life has gotten hectic in that 'somewhat aging person with very much more aging parent' kind of way lately.

Anyway that was some interesting stuff. It got me thinking that there is a kind of interpretive continuum from 'posing' to 'fan mode' with my 'deliberate mis-transformation' happening somewhere in between. :)

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Originally Posted by Dan

Anyway that was some interesting stuff. It got me thinking that there is a kind of interpretive continuum from 'posing' to 'fan mode' with my 'deliberate mis-transformation' happening somewhere in between. :)

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I think this is very much the case. Especially with older toys that are by design, generally less pose able than newer toys.

So out of curiosity and off topic, where did Sunbow get the Coneheads from?

It doesn't appear on the box art, in the instructions or in the catalogues.

If it was a conscious decision I'd be interested to know by who and for why. If it was an accidental mistake, I'd also like to know where/how the mistake came to fruition.

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Originally Posted by KELPIE

So out of curiosity and off topic, where did Sunbow get the Coneheads from?

It doesn't appear on the box art, in the instructions or in the catalogues.

If it was a conscious decision I'd be interested to know by who and for why. If it was an accidental mistake, I'd also like to know where/how the mistake came to fruition.

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Don't quote me on but I think I read in a Floro Dery interview ages ago the series 2 character model robot modes were definitely based on the actual toys, rather than the somewhat more improvised season 1 character models. So he (or someone) probably noted the Seeker jet toys could do that, and ran with it as a design idea for the animation.

As a kid, I used to mistransform Scattershot of the Technobots to have a giant ding dong in robot mode. But everyone did that, right?

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Originally Posted by reillyd

As a kid, I used to mistransform Scattershot of the Technobots to have a giant ding dong in robot mode. But everyone did that, right?

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Nope. But that one sounds like great gif material.

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Originally Posted by reillyd

As a kid, I used to mistransform Scattershot of the Technobots to have a giant ding dong in robot mode. But everyone did that, right?

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Not I, but probably mostly because I never had a scattershot.

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Originally Posted by KELPIE

So out of curiosity and off topic, where did Sunbow get the Coneheads from?

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I wonder a similar thing about Jazz flipping back his door wings.

And I'm not sure that's really too off topic. :)

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Originally Posted by KELPIE

If it was a conscious decision I'd be interested to know by who and for why. If it was an accidental mistake, I'd also like to know where/how the mistake came to fruition.

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It was a deliberate decision made by Floro Dery to help further differentiate the second year jets from the first year jets. Because if they stuck with toy accuracy then the second year jets would look more like this:
https://i.ibb.co/D7rhxqY/temp.jpg
And bear in mind that this looks "wrong" to us because of our personal bias. We're used to seeing the second year jets look like coneheads in the cartoon and comics, so seeing them drawn normally in that style looks strange. Although other G1 media did draw them normally, but the rest of the body was also more toy-accurate so it didn't look out of place.

Dery made the decision to make many 2nd year Transformers who were redecos of first year toys look different rather than just recolouring the same animation model. I guess the funny thing is that he made the Autobot Cars more toy-accurate whereas the Decepticon Jets became less toy-accurate, but both decisions were made to differentiate the first year toys from the second year toys. And it may have been helpful to animators too, because we know that the first year Jets were often hilariously miscoloured because in black and white they all look the same!

Look at Trailbreaker and Hoist for example. Both are based on near-identical Diaclone toys, but Trailbreaker's animation model was drastically changed from the toy whereas Hoist is far more toy accurate.
https://i.ibb.co/0DWLdbL/temp.jpg

Because if Dery had decided to make the Autobot Cars toy-accurate in Season 1, then characters like Trailbreaker might've looked more like this... ;)
https://i.ibb.co/gwLt73d/trailbreaker-toyaccurate.jpg

Not sure if it counts as a mistransformation, but when I was a kid I used Swindle to form one of Menasor's legs. My Wildrider fell from a desk and he got beheaded (neck/connector plug snapped), so whenever I wanted to form Menasor, Swindle had to fill in for Wildrider.

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Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime

It was a deliberate decision made by Floro Dery to help further differentiate the second year jets from the first year jets.

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Thanks for those images. I'm very attached to the cone-up look combined with the more toy accurate body (more lumpy legs and curved arms) but it is interesting seeing what could have been.

Your more accurate Trailbreaker looks cool to me. It also gets me wondering about the reverse. What if molds like Inferno's that were not released as Transformers till 1985 got the 1984 simplified animation model treatment. :)

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Originally Posted by FatalityPitt

Not sure if it counts as a mistransformation, but when I was a kid I used Swindle to form one of Menasor's legs. My Wildrider fell from a desk and he got beheaded (neck/connector plug snapped), so whenever I wanted to form Menasor, Swindle had to fill in for Wildrider.

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Oh, well in that case, I do that with Scramble City toys too, since I have less than five of any set. :)

I guess it's only a mis-transformation if you strictly conform to the recommended combos rather than embrace the 'free combination' inherent in their design. Besides, I find that the leader-torso portions (and associated accessories) contribute most of the identity to any gestalt.

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Originally Posted by Dan

Oh, well in that case, I do that with Scramble City toys too, since I have less than five of any set. :)

I guess it's only a mis-transformation if you strictly conform to the recommended combos rather than embrace the 'free combination' inherent in their design. Besides, I find that the leader-torso portions (and associated accessories) contribute most of the identity to any gestalt.

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Yeah, I guess it can't be helped if you're unable to secure every member of a combiner team, because some members might be more elusive than others - Heck, it still happens to this very day (looking at you Snarl, Sludge and Rippersnapper)

In the case I described earlier, the rabbit hole gets a bit deeper. The Stunticons I had were the gold-boxed/carded G1 reissues that my father bought for me during a trip to Australia. I lived in South-East Asia at the time, so getting a replacement Wildrider would have been out of the question. Those G1 reissues were Australia/Europe exclusives. The Swindle I used to substitute Wildrider was the G2 version; so you could probably imagine how weird it looked :). It's fairly normal nowadays to mix and match teams, and even Wildrider got replaced by Offroad in the official canon. But back when I was a child, having a gestalt character who was 80% G1 Stunticon and 20% G2 Combaticon was kinda weird (til I got used to it).

Cybertron and Destron Super Scrambles are exactly that -using members from different subgroups.

G1 Ironhide/Ratchet: I bring the shoulders right in so that the shoulder joint sits flush against the grill in robot mode, which gives it a more "War Within"- esque look. The outstretched shoulder struts work when you're talking about a power lifter on a tank tread battle station base, but not so much when you're talking about a humanoid robot.

G1 Hurricane: The position of the shoulders on the instructions makes it looks like Hurricane's arms are attached halfway down his ribcage, so I slide the shoulders up to the point where the arms just have clearance still, which makesit look 100 times better.