Magic Square MB-49 Spider Gear & MB-50 Energy (Legends Scale Gears & Windcharger) Color Prototypes

They really screwed up badly with that Windcharger foot design. The heel spur needed to be a millimeter or two longer as he's just too back heavy with everything folded up on his back. Yeah, you can swing them down a bit, but there's nothing to lock them that way and they collapse back easily. I don't typically display all my figures together in action poses, and I can't get him to stand in a neutral pose without hunching him over slightly or swinging the arms forward otherwise he just falls over. It's terrible. The spurs don't even need to fold away for vehicle mode as there's clearance to just insert them in the front half of the car under the roof. I've never tried it, but I don't imagine that that type of vinyl plastic will adhere with superglue, so it's not like I can just add material to make the spurs longer. Unfolding the hands going from vehicle to bot mode is also more challenging than it should be. I love the character, but this guy is easily MS's worst blunder yet design-wise. I do think the transformation is fun and clever, which makes it all the more frustrating.

TurtleCaps

Damn @Craigmcgowan1984 outside of Wuss copy that MS sent him to do videos, haven't seen anyone else's copy have the nose scratch. I'd open an after sales case wherever you got it and request that a replacement head be sent.

Some quick shots next to the other minibots.
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Yeah I put in a replacement request as soon as I saw the scratch. Hopefully get replacement soon.

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Broke out the photo tent today and got a better pic. It's actually really hard to properly get the autobot symbol on Wincharger – it's got a different enough sheen to the rest of the figure that it really didn't want to photograph well.

Artereis

Got my set today, and I enjoy the bot modes and most of the transformations, but what's the trick to get Gears' truck to peg together? The doors are supposed to close down onto the pegs from the rear of the truck, but those are on a super small hinge, so it just flops inward instead.

I fought with that for half an hour before I realized that my problem was actually that the arms hadn't gone in correctly and were preventing the back of the truck from being pushed into position. Once I got that sorted, the door panels easily folded down over the dovetail pegs in the back. What was happening was the flaps on the forearms were running into the roof. Once I straightened those panels so they correctly went under the roof, everything went together just fine.

OstOgBajer

Ugh… So much for reading comprehension. I saw the pic of Windcharger and that's what my brain decided you said…

I figured. Technically I didn't say it wrong but it also wasn't the clearest transition from Windcharger to Gears so I was pretty sure that's where I lost you. But yeah, the point was to modify Gears to give him the same heel articulation as Windcharger.

OstOgBajer

Weird. Those spurs folded down without an issue on mine. Maybe I just forced it… I'll need to double check to make sure I'm not stressing the plastic. Luckily, the plastic on these figures is super resilient.

On Gears? His were squared off so they "locked."

zfarsh

Hey buddy, can you pls take a picture of Windcharger's heel spur and how you have it working for better posing and what is this "flat footed" business? Anything that helps me improve my posing and using articulation is a big bonus in my collection, and i have plenty to learn, so looking forward to your responses.

So Transformers will almost always have side to side ankle articulation so they can stand with their feet apart and keep their feet flat but recently the front to back articulation has been left out. This makes it hard to pose them with one foot in front of the other because the foot can't sit flat and it's hard to keep them balanced. Arcee here…
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… has okayish ankle articulation (could do with a little more side to side as you can see her foot isn't flat but it's enough to keep her balanced) and she can stand with a foot out front and her lower leg doesn't have to be perpendicular to the ground. When a figure doesn't have that articulation, you pretty much have to have their legs straight up and down which means it's hard to get anything other than a guitar power stance out of them. But with heel spurs, you can kind of fake it. There foot still can't go flat to the ground but the spur can angle down and provide balance so they don't fall over.
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Anyway, that's why I modified Gears' heel spurs. They had been designed so that they could fold away for transformation but couldn't fold down any lower to provide additional balance. I just shaved off the corner so it could rotate down like Cliffjumper's.

Thanks! You know, that was the very first thing I thought of trying, but the tabs seemed slightly too big, so I figured that wasn't the right approach. Not the first time that a Magic Square tab didn't quite fit the slot it was intended for, though, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

Gears's gun has a hinge to fold up in half; do we know why that is? I assumed it was so the gun could plug in somewhere in car mode, but I couldn't find any spot for it.

I really wish that weapon storage in alt mode became a standard feature that every figure incorporated.

OstOgBajer

Magic Square's Devy got me into legends. I just wanted Devy. Now it's turning into a collection. MP was my primary focus… But… Damnit MS… And occasionally NA…

Added these guys to the team:

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It's like a Lays potato chip. You can't stop at just one.

I got my set in a few days ago after it sat in an LA sorting facility for a week. Still, I like the figures that I got but I couldn't help but notice the back for Windcharger.

Not quite in the same way that others have mentioned but looking at the hood of the car you could probably fold it in a bit more so it could sit under the car roof, drastically cutting down the size and also giving Windcharger much closer his cartoon proportions. Hell, even after that if you rotate the hood you mimic the way his back is angled in the cartoon. Getting the hood to fit in the chest and roof seems to be the key to getting a accurate Windcharger figure.