Mastermind Creations Ocular Max Assultus (MP-Styled Bruticus) “Vortex” Revealed

Pcm979

You've had no problems with Ocular Max Artifex? It transforms properly and everything?

… Are you selling?

correct, no problems with Artifex.

Roadbuster25

I didn't have problems with any of those MMC creations. Was I the only one?

You've had no problems with Ocular Max Artifex? It transforms properly and everything?

… Are you selling?

Hellion42

If Ragnaros was a bit bigger, so that its current arms were in proportion instead of looking like enormous gorilla arms, I might not be keeping an eye out for a new Bruitcus.

I like his big arms, they make him look powerful!

By the way, I hope MMC revisit Vortex's knee design again, in arm mode, the friction knee joints are no locked in place, I don't like that, I want all of the important combiner joints to be ratchets!

Hellion42

If Ragnaros was a bit bigger, so that its current arms were in proportion instead of looking like enormous gorilla arms, I might not be keeping an eye out for a new Bruitcus.

And if UT released revised parts to fix the stuff that reportedly breaks easily on their Combaticons like Blitzkrieg's waist swivel and the weirdly textured plastic of the upper thighs on a couple of them. Low quality and terrible customer service. At least MMC can beat Ragnaros pretty easily just by using quality materials and being diligent with their quality control process. I don't ever mess with mine, they're just A-stanced on a shelf until a better set of Combaticons comes along. Kind of a shame, the set is kind of decent design-wise and I like their size (not as big as Zeta's), they just dropped the ball on quality and customer service so gotta be careful with them until eventually something better comes out.

BIOMEC

Cons

It's very top heavy, he stands ok, but don't expect him to be in very dinamic poses!

1- The leg connections suck, they are prone to disengage from the leg bots quite easy (Swindle is the main offender) and they tend to have stress marks due to the force needed to move the joints.

2- The connection of the arm bots to the main body is not very good, the post tends to pop out from the port every time you move the rotational joint. The arm bots' legs / hips don't lock into place in arm mode very well, so you will have some play near the combiner's elbow.

3- It's a pantsformer… No, it's a pants & torso former!

4- The individual Combaticons are not very good either…

Pros

1- It's cheap, but you get what you pay for…

2- The alt-modes are top notch!

3- The combined mode is big and looks good, but that’s it…

I hope it helps!

It does. I’ll hop on that thread. Thank you

BIOMEC

I have Armageddon, just stay away from it! Ragnaros is quite good but it has QC and design issues… Mine is alright but I don't touch it!

What are the problems? I was tempted to get Zeta Brut. Maybe get MMC instead?

I think that when it comes to scale with combiners, one should look at what the function it has within the team. I thought about this. To make a combiner look in a certain may, I would say leg bots should be taller than arm bots, but not bigger than torso+upper leg bots. Given the creativity of the engineering team, this could also be applied to alt mode. Of course, if a designer wants has a different, less "perfect human" proportion in mind, it could scale all bots the same size like what is the current trend.

This way, one actually could pull off somewhat of a real life looking alt mode scale within a team. In case of Bruticus, making a huge Blast Off and smaller other bots/vehicles could work, but then Blast Off would have to be the torso. I would not mind such an approach. Could be interesting.

In case of the Stunticons, like how TFF made them, the alt modes of the sport cars look good, but the race car looks out of place and all of them compared to MM are too big. I said this before in its corresponding thread, if their MM was bigger then you would have a better looking team scale wise and a bot with better proportioned upper legs in my opinion.

I also believe that for the sake of a good looking gestalt it would be wise not to scale your torso bot with MP-10 or any bot else. Make it its own size to fit what is needed for the gestalt best.

Have any of the individual bots been released yet? I'm kinda late to the party. I have not decided on which Bruticus I want yet. Been thinking about going for this guy. I enjoy the Ocular Max line (and it's also a big bonus that their releases are so affordable!).

David Hingtgen

I don't think you realize how tiny a P34 is. A Viper is like 3x as big. Dragstrip never has, and never will, "fit, scale-wise" with his team-mates. It's like the Blast-Off problem, in reverse. Or the same issue Groove has. It's just not as obvious to most, because "they're all cars". But Dragstrip should be much smaller than the others.

It's like knee-high:

You know those race-car beds? It's basically that:

Wonder what kind of drugs the creator of the Stunticons were taking, probably LSD back in the 80s to have a f1 car be the fourth sports car. They could have used the iconic Lotus Espirit and would be more cohesive.

David Hingtgen

I don't think you realize how tiny a P34 is. A Viper is like 3x as big. Dragstrip never has, and never will, "fit, scale-wise" with his team-mates. It's like the Blast-Off problem, in reverse. Or the same issue Groove has. It's just not as obvious to most, because "they're all cars". But Dragstrip should be much smaller than the others.

You're right in that he's still too big, but he's still closer than with his Stunticon brothers.
I did know he is tiny (I already had the measurements).

Ligier JS11
Wheelbase: 2,794 mm (110.0 in)
Mirage 114.3 mm (4.5 in)
1/24 scale = 116.416

Tyrell P34
Wheelbase: 2,453 mm (96.6 in)
Dragstrip 112.7125 mm (4.4375 in)
1/24 scale = 102.208 mm

2005 Dodge Viper SRT/10
Wheelbase: 2,510 mm (98.8 in)
Sideswipe 105.56875 mm (4.15625 in)
1/24 scale = 104.583 mm

Mirage should be 2 mm bigger
Dragstrip should be 10 mm smaller (he's like 1/22 scale)
And Sideswipe should be 1 mm smaller

So I would say that Mirage is 1/24 and Dragstrip is actually still too big even for Alternators, but it doesn't look that bad.