New third party company Wonderful-Trans have updated their Weibo account with images of the color prototype of their new WT01 Ronin (IDW Drift).
This an impressive rendition of IDW Drift with a beautifully painted with a metallic finish and detailed sculpt, and standing 21 cm tall in robot mode. He comes with 3 swords and he can transform into an anime-style futuristic car.
See all the mirrored images after the jump and then let us know your impressions on this new Drift figure on the 2005 Boards!
ARTFW00
I managed to get this one for about 90 bucks, whereas the Flame Toys 3K is 400. Just out of my price range
Tanafor
I hope the design is revisited in the future and the problems fixed. It's a very beautiful robot, but I'm exhausted of buying fragile toys.
guarayakha
It's fine as long as you take your time with it, but if you're not planning to transform it wouldn't getting the actual Flametoys Drift make more sense?
ARTFW00
Alright guys I kind of just pulled the trigger on this over at Bombusbee without looking at all the forum posts, is it destined to fall apart in my hands? I WILL NOT be transforming him (I don't do that with my figs), will it still be okay? Just wanted a cool Drift to have in a basic pose now I'm wondering if he can handle that without cracking or breaking :C
Oreo Bot
First transformation was admittedly a headache and a half, but second time was a lot smoother. Prolly won’t be transforming a ton since that clear plastic scares me, but it def gets better
Stardiver
I transformed mine once and while not awful it certainly wasn't fun. However he's not on the sell pile, he looks hella cool in any sort of samurai pose so he's weebing it up with Planet X Star Saber.
Atomic Tofu
Man, people hate and love this figure….I'm lukewarm but now so curious to see if it truly is a nightmare to tf.
daimchoc
First post…
Murasame
Nice, what size is it?
Oreo Bot
Well worth the wait
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Stardiver
After almost six months BBB finally have the replacement parts I requested. Except they don't; I asked for a replacement right arm as the wrist peg was glued solid and snapped off on arrival, and they have requested….a replacement hand.
What good is that going to do when the forearm is seemingly glued shut!
KAFKA
Just got this figure and absolutely love it. It's the first Transformer in a while that I've been really impressed with straight out of the box.
Have not transformed it yet though.
The only negatives so far is the lack of ab crunch, toe articulation and the hands are terrible
Kimosabi
That sounds daunting! Kudos that you were able to do it! I have a replacement upper torso for magic square's mirage, but I and for the life of me, I cannot remove the pins to perform the replacement.
NovaP87
Disassembly was a process. After removing the two screws, I also had to disassemble the engine assembly because the screws that let the engine slide up and down go through to the other side of the chestplate, also serving as structure screws. The sliding intake halves are on tracks, and if you get the parts as far out as they'll go and wiggle, you may be able to eventually work them out like I did. Once I did that I was able to pry up the side panels under those engine intakes and unscrew those parts, which gave me the room to start prying stuff up. The two halves of the chestplate are held by both screws and pegs, so the pegs may have to be pried.
Hardest part was easily firguring out where to start, but once the engine parts were wiggled out of their tracks and the screws were removed, it was pretty smooth.
Kimosabi
Oooh, how was the disassembly? I was trying to remove my Chest piece to see if i could lubricate the sliding area, but I couldn't pry it apart after removing the 3 screws. Is it just tabs after that? Or was there a hidden screw?
NovaP87
Finally got my replacement parts from ShowZ a lil bit back.
He came with two right shoulder vents before, had to remove it to transform it.
Ended up replacing the entire neck and head assembly.
Shame the QC was fuckled, but thank goodness for after-sales. So much more enjoyable flipping between modes now that he's complete.
Xcandescent
After going through a few transformations, the only thing I have to add is this:
You'll notice that you have to exert a bit of stress to tab the rear shoulder sections into the cockpit for car mode. By default, the tabs fall well short of the holes they're supposed to go into, even when the rear end is all tabbed together correctly; you have to force them forward in order for the tabs to catch.
I think this is on purpose. The reason I think this, is because untabbing those shoulder sections gives you enough room to untab the heels from the giant T-tabs on the shoulders. There's no other practical way I can see to do it. I think the intention was to have that slack in the design to work the heel spurs in/out, then lock the whole thing down with the small shoulder tabs to the cockpit.
I also skimmed Paik's video, where he mentions there's a retractable tab in the feet to peg them together. Obviously, it's not needed, unless you're a total masochist and have to have every tab in its place.
Xcandescent
So I picked up this guy after watching emgo's review, and thinking "that doesn't seem so bad, and even if it is, I like complicated transformations anyway."
Well, that review only told half the story. Ronin isn't a nightmare because he's complicated, he's a nightmare because:
In isolation, the individual steps are not that difficult. But you have to do those steps — often involving exerting significant amounts of force due to sticky joints and sliders — while simultaneously trying not to stress any of the cockpit parts. That's often difficult or impossible, especially when rotating the legs into car mode.
It feels like every time the designer made a choice on this figure, s/he decided to choose the option that's the most finicky and fragile. It's hard not to look at the sum of all these choices, and conclude that the figure is designed to break.
Oh, and apparently there's no QC at the factory. I had to disassemble both shoulders out of the box, because the black circle bits that go on the back of the car were installed extended into the shoulders, making them impossible to get out without disassembly. That made a great first impression.
Anyway, don't get him unless you're prepared for the worst. (Definitely don't pay U.S. domestic prices for him.) I can't imagine this figure lasting more than a few transformations, even if I'm careful. The amount of stress the parts exert on each other in car mode is ridiculous, and makes me think it's better just to keep it in bot mode.
-XCN-
Rath
Well mine cracked across the clear plastic where the upper body and lower body are connected, despite being super careful with him. Hooray. Besides that and the horrible experience trying to get everything aligned just right (everything else would typically work except the thighs tabbing in toward the end of the transformation to car mode, only had that work a single time), this is one of my least favorite figures I've purchased.
A shame too, both modes look amazing.
silverej
Thanks for the tip! I like how he looks with the decals on so I'm looking forward to doing them this weekend.