November Qs for Hasbro (closes 25th Oct)

[MV75]

I'd suggest that they either did use a darker shade, or they did the following:

Undercoat first. It's the thing that makes painting upon different bases to get the desired results possible, they flat out lied at botcon. But I suppose it isn't a lie when they only work on the one principle of a thin layer of paint with no preparation before hand.

Multiple layers.

Just thicker application of paint.

Also about classics bumblebee, it just happened to be the figure that I first noticed the poor paint applications starting to appear on. Mine and others that I saw at the store all had fade through on the roof due to cheap skating the paint application. Sure it wasn't as noticable at first glance like sunstreaker is, but it's there, and when you're as particular about the appearance of the finish of toys as I am, you notice.

[dirge]

Undercoat first.

Multiple layers.

I don't think any fan would argue, but considering how restrictive Hasbro seems to be with paint budgets, I don't see these happening.

Just thicker application of paint.

This would help, although some of the mismatches we've had lately wouldn't be solved.

Also about classics bumblebee, it just happened to be the figure that I first noticed the poor paint applications starting to appear on.

That's not what I'm pointing to, however. I'm referring to the yellow paint matching the yellow plastic. Sure, that yellow paint may be sloppily applied, but the shades match nicely.

Oh, and Henkei Sunstreaker does use transparent plastic, and a richer, Cadmium yellow, rather than Hasbro's lemon yellow.

I do think jaydisc's question is worth asking, although I'm not sure we'll get much of a reply.

[MV75]

I was using classics bumblebee pretty much as a first example. Yes I know you wern't using it as such, but I felt that after my own experiences with it that I had to use it as an example to the fact that these issues arn't just appearing now on the current toys.

Plus go have another look at him, (classics bumblebee), you should notice that the roof doesn't match, and there are thin spots where you can see though to the under plastic. But as I said, it's not as noticable as sunstreaker, but it is there. Overall it's still a very acceptable toy, (classics bumblebee), but it was the first toy that had me starting to look even more carefully at the products finish, and as such, I've noticed a huge decline since. It became a sort of beginning to a trend. I really was stunned at first when I first did notice it on classics bumblebee, I then spent ages in the store looking at all the other bumblebees on the shelves thinking it was just the one, it wasn't. Sad day that was.

And yea, I'd expect the exact same reply that I did quote above. They totally ignored the paint issue, and they just mentioned the break away feature while avoiding very obvious QC issues of toys falling apart out of the box. Yea, a canned response at best. Something I was afraid of when these questions were first gaining momentum, would they ignore "bad" stuff like this and focus upon fan wanks? Well, yes and no.

[jaydisc]

With their last response, they specifically addressed parts popping off, and pointed out that this was NOT a QC issue as many expected, but rather identified it as a design decision, and in my opinion (in most cases), a worthy one.

So, in that same vein, the paint mismatch might not be a QC issue, but rather an accepted cost vs. value compromise. That's what I'm trying to ascertain.

[MV75]

You could say it was a QC issue then as the parts shouldn't pop off that easily. Opening a toy that falls to bits is a QC issue. Or at the very least it would become a PR issue as people won't continue to buy toys that fall to bits when you just get them out of the box, which is nowhere near the stress they'd endure if you gave them to a kid to play with. Pretty bad looking that is. That is the very thing that stopped and turned me off buying minicons ever again. They just fell to bits all the time, so I just said forget those then. So yea, I still feel they just dodged the issue.

And about the paint, yes, I do see your point there. You want to know if they find a sub-par finish to be acceptable given the budget. Well, I hope that I read that right, because if so, I'd like to know too, and yea, it would even further entrench my opinion that they are cheap skating it too much. Also the budget has increased, the deluxe is now $10.99 USD retail.

[GoktimusPrime]

jaydisc is correct. Ever since late G2 (and popularised during Beast Wars) Transformers have featured parts that are intentionally designed to pop off under stress, as opposed to say old G1 Transformers where parts would just break off under stress. Some of the early BW toys featured parts that fell off a bit too easily (e.g.: Basic Optimus Primal, and remembering that this was 12 years ago) but they've improved on that. I agree that some toys still feature parts that pop off a bit too easily (like on some Star Wars Transformers) - but that would be more of a design issue, not a QC issue.

A QC issue would be say the face of my Cybertron Ransack... a quarter of his face is unpainted so he has this big red splotch on his face. That's not a design flaw, that's just bad QC!

[MV75]

I still see it as QC though as they should have taken samples, and it seems pretty consistant across certain figures as it just seems to plague just those certain figures.

And yea, the introduction of ball joints gave them that extra advantage that they just decided to then call it a "break away feature" when they were most likely trying to decide how to handle the fact that ball joints pop off and how to explain it.

[Pulse]

I'd suggest that they either did use a darker shade, or they did the following:

Undercoat first. It's the thing that makes painting upon different bases to get the desired results possible, they flat out lied at botcon. But I suppose it isn't a lie when they only work on the one principle of a thin layer of paint with no preparation before hand.

Multiple layers.

Just thicker application of paint.

All this comes down to is saving money...





Hasbro Person 1: "Should we give it another layer of paint?"

Hasbro Person 2: "Is it gonna cost more?"

Hasbro Person 1: "Well, yeah"

Hasbro Person 2: "Then one layer of paint will do"

[reillyd]

I'd like to ask the following question

For the Transformers Universe 25th Anniversary line, are there plans to feature any of the G1 gimmicks (Pretender Shells, Headmaster, Powermaster, Micromaster bases), or will there be further Targetmasters like Cyclonus or cassettes like Hound/Ravage? Fans really appreciate the homage to classic G1 toys

Feel free to reword as appropriate.

[Autocon]

how many more BW characters will be introduced in the universe line?