I'll try to grab 'em if I can. Who's the better bet -- Toys R Us or Wal-Mart? Those are my two main hunting grounds for 'Formers.

Depends on your area, historically I've found WalMart to be a better bet for finding new items; however, here in the San Francisco area none of our WalMarts appear to be getting much new stock in. Lately, I've found both Target and TRU to be much quicker at putting out new stuff (and I've seen the cases with G&S in both of these stores recently).

Oh yeah -- you think Hasbro will do something smart and do the "Combiner gift sets" again, which Grimlock/Swoop almost hints at? In some cases, I can find only scattered components of Devastator and Superion, and I don't bother picking them up unless I can fill out the whole set at once, so gift sets would be nice. Hopefully by next Christmas, Energon toys will still be a fairly hot item.

Anyway, back to the topic. What materials would I use for a custom monster 'bot? I've heard most people use styrene as a cheap alternative to actual plastic parts, but my only concern is how fragile styrene can be, not to mention how difficult it'd be to make the figure articulated or transformable. I mean, Grimlock doesn't have an overly complex mode-changing scheme...the only concerns would be making the head and chest pieces (that swing to the back) stable, and making the tail sturdy so the toy stands up when the tail becomes the legs.

All your answers lie here: http://www.TFans.com/index.php?showtopic=13908