first edition faces verse Rid faces.

[Shadowpanther]

first edition faces verse Rid faces.

 

which do you prefer?

 

After a friend of mine told me how FE Deluxe starscream's face looked better than voyager Rid Starscream's face.

 

I decided to look up some image pics on the internet studying/examining the FE Faces verses the Rid faces.

 

Here's my opinion's below:

 

I think FE Deluxe Starscream has a better face sculpt than the Rid voyager Starscream. I don't like the longer eyebrows that the rid version has. I like the FE Eyes,eyebrows & all over head sculpt better. I can do without the smile smirk on the FE version as this reminds me of animated toys.

 

I love the FE Megatron face sculpt better than the Rid voyager version. I think the FE Megatron's teeth & inner face look more menacing & better sculpted compared to the Rid voyager version. I like the FE fanged diamond teeth compared to the mummy teeth open mouth Rid voyager megatron.

 

As far as FE & RID Voyager optimu's head sculpt's goes. The FE Voyager wins by a landslide. the head sculpt looks more adult themed & higher sculpted aimed for a slightly older kid buyer. I like the sleeker FE head because it reminds me of G-2 Laser optimus's robot head on the super sized toy.

 

I think FE Voyager & Rid voyager bulkhead. are tied for their robot faces.

 

I don't like the simplistic robot head sculpt FE Arcee has compared to her Rid version. I liked the Rid version better because it looks more serious,more grown up,higher detailed. the rid head sculpt looks like it's aimed for older kids buyers.

 

as far as the FE Deluxe vechicon & Rid deluxe vechicon goes. I prefer the Rid deluxe vechicon face sculpt better. because the FE face reminds me too much of the BM vechicon faces. the Rid face has more persona,higher sculpt,more detail & it looks like it's aimed for older kids buyers.

 

Lastly,FE deluxe cliffjumper verse Rid deluxe cliffjumper's face sculpt. I like the FE deluxe face leaps & bounds better than the rid deluxe face. the FE face seem to have more animated 1980's cliffjumper head designs in it. I don't like open mouth & big lower lip on the Rid Deluxe face. I like the way the horns are bigger & wrap around the helmet better on the FE face. the inner face sculpt on the FE version just looks more pleasing/beautiful to the eye,more detailed,higher sculpted.

[Lord_Onslaught]

really come on SP you don't need to make a thread about which has better faces

[Goktimus Prime]

One would expect the TFPRiD (I refuse to call them RiD) toys to be gooderer than FE, since they came later and have the luxury of hindsight and should be trying to improve on their FE forerunners. But I've yet to come across any TFPRiD toy that I considered to be on par or better than their FE counterpart. To me, TFPRiD feels like a cheap KO of FE. I haven't seen TFPRiD Arcee or Vehicon IRL yet, so I can't comment on them, but all I've seen and handled all the first wave TFPRiD toys IRL, and I found they were all pretty crappy compared to FE -- and not just in terms of sculpt and colours, but engineering too.

 

Look at Cliffjumper... sure, the robot mode may be more visually show-akkurate than FE Cliffjumper, but it's just NOT as well engineered as FE Cliffjumper. I would much rather have a less show-like but better engineered Transformer toy over a more show-akkurate toy that's not as well engineered. To me, the toy is more important than media-likeness. But this all comes down to one core thing I don't like about TF Prime... and Animated... and to a lesser degree, Bayverse (although I'm more forgiving w/ Bayverse) -- I just don't like media-based Transformer toys. On the whole, Transformer toys are better when they're designed as TOYS. Then later on artists and cartoonists can draw their own rendition of those toys as comic book or cartoon characters - but it shouldn't affect what the toy designers and engineers are doing. This is the way it's been for most of Transformers' history as a TOY franchise. Look at G1, G2, BW etc. -- the vast majority of toys from these series were made as TOYS first, then it was up to artists to create character models based on those toys (e.g. Kohara Shouhei, Floro Dery etc.). Sometimes artists will take more liberal creative licensing for whatever reason (e.g. Jetfire, Blackarachnia etc.), but that's fine. At the end of the day, what artists do when designing the Transformers as character does NOT impact on toy design, because the toys are already made. Some fans can cry all they like about G1 Ironhide's head or Skyfire's body or Blackarachnia's pre-Transmetal look and how they don't look like their toys - blah blah blah... but suck it up, princess... the toys were made LONG before they became cartoon characters!!

 

One thing I'm finding less enjoyable with Transformers atm is that the toys feel like a tool for marketing the media (i.e. movie/cartoon merchandise), instead of the media being a marketing tool for the toys! Designing Transformers as characters is complete counter-intuitive to designing them as toys -- as the TF Prime DVD special features discusses. You can either design Transformers as toys first, then run into issues of the characters not looking just like the toys (because cartoonists are essentially "translating" these toys as characters), or you run into problems with the toy designs (as toy designers are trying to "translate" characters as toys). For example, TF Prime animators will create a model of TFP Bumblebee as a robot, then figure out he'll transform to car mode on the cartoon... in cartoon physics land. No need consider reality, cost/budget restrictions, size restrictions (they can't all be Masterpieces!), play patterns/value etc. But HasTak will take a vehicle and figure out how that's going to become a robot. Binaltech/Alternators/Alternity is good example of this... they'll take say a Mazda RX-8 and think, "Now how can we engineer this car to transform into a robot?". So either the character model will be compromised, or the toy will be. I'd rather have a compromised character model and better toy, thank you very much.