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Longtime readers will know that I’ve been without Adobe Photoshop since I upgraded computers in November 2009. Thanks to sewingstars, I have been able to rectify this situation. And since I am the happy owner of a Bamboo pen, now I can hopefully begin to make some improved graphics to enhance the website.

Adobe is a program that, for me, means jumping right back in. And what better way than to put together a long-promised pictorial list of Transformers: Animated toys for my friends, Julie and Kellie. Yes, I appreciate that Jim and Bill did a great job of detailing these toys recently in the Allspark Almanac Part 2, but the vision of a list I had in my head had a different configuration, so I was obliged to continue.

While I could have easily created the following rendering in a nice blog post, I decided to recreate the pages individually in Photoshop and import them as a graphic, to better facilitate their use. But like so many things, once you start a project like this, it takes on a life of its own. What was simply going to be a series of cut pictures (the vast majority of which were borrowed from the incredibly awesome resource that is tfu.info) quickly grew into a more descriptive exercise, which necessitated a series of page breaks.

As a result, over the coming days, I will endeavour to finish up the various pieces of the puzzle for launch. Please feel free to let me know if you spot any issues that need to be addressed. The beauty of photoshop is that, because the original is layered, everything can be fixed.

I am hoping to be more engaging in the next part of 2010. For now, a lot of the stuff has been listed on the old Twitter feed. But just in case, I wanted to share the hardware and the work.

Heavy Metal Wars - For Honor

Heavy Metal Wars - For Freedom

Heavy Metal Wars - For Victory!

A full breakdown of the 32 characters created for this project is to come. See you at TFCon!

On my way out to a local comic show, I was doing some internal juggling of financial accounts. As part of this, I went into my paypal account to see the cost of conversion from U.S. to Canadian funds for two recent pairs of acquisitions: a 1988 line art catalog from Mattel and three Beast Wars scripts used during the recording sessions (Coming of the Fuzors Part 1, Feral Scream Part 1, and Feral Scream Part 2). The seller had six scripts in all (the others being for Aftermath, Bad Spark and Code of Hero), but they fell out of my price range, so I won only the three.

So anyway, I go back into my account today and look at the total cost Canadian for the three scripts and shipping. And then I notice the name of the seller, which is clear in paypal’s shipping information but completely obscured by eBay itself. It is one Jon Hartman. Pretty cool to think that these treasures formerly in his collection are now in mine. It also likely means I’m out of luck with ever getting any other original scripts.

In other news, I missed a week of collectibles. I’m working to catch-up. Keep watching!

Remember how I said I was back on track with the Transformers of the Day? I lied. Yes, I got some of the work caught up and then completely fell behind again. I am trying to imagine a solution now, and should have some help in the form of a proper Photoshop package from familiar friends in Rhodes Island (waves!) I can either retroactively establish the characters for December, or write them off altogether and make January the new December. Thoughts?

Also, because Mr. Willis’ laments about Hawkgirl today dovetailed nicely into my thoughts on DCUC (DC Universe Collection) versus MOTUC (Masters of the Universe Classics), I thought maybe I’d write a few words about the two lines here.

Let’s start with DCUC. While I don’t want to discount the phenomenal success of DC Direct at filling out the collection of comic collectors everywhere with common and uncommon figures, DCUC is satisfying in that it (mostly) appears at retail and has a similar scale and poseability ratio across the line. Who knew that the humble beginnings of the line, with Batman, Penguin and Orion, that we would move to our current status quo, a range approaching 100 figures that is simply the natural successor to the late, great Super Powers collection of the mid 1980s. I am mostly loving this line and the figures that come with it.

However, even with these positives, I can’t help but wish it was as great as the MOTUC.

I was never a He-Man fan. Other than a few figures (Battle Damage anything, Hordak, Mekaneck), I never really ooowed and awwwed over the line until NECA turned its attention to producing the Four Horseman-sculpted figures that rounded out the He-Man collection of the early part of the 2000nds. But serious, ignoring the complications of the line being a direct-to-market release, Mattel has got it going on with MOTUC. The figures are gorgeous, and the attention to detail is stunning, and it makes you want to be a fan. Heck, I couldn’t even resist the allure of He-Ro and Hordak, and am certainly going to fall victim to the Battle Damaged figures (even if they don’t have the swivel functions), Battle Cat and Adora.

And here is where the comparison comes in. Put He-Man and Superman together and you can notice the difference in terms of the scale of the figure and how it looks. It’s even more striking when you compare a Teela with a DCUC female like Hawkgirl (who is certainly my vote for DCUC figure with the most shortcomings already given the waist articulation issues and the absence of a belt loop to stow her third weapon). Though I’ve not held one out of the box, she looks like she can hold her weapons well and has more… er… meat on her plastic bones than the DCUC woman.

She also looks like she can properly stand up. Always a plus as a action figure.

So I am happy for both lines. But kind of wishing the DCUC was more He-Man than He-Man, if you know what I mean.

Back on December 6, I vaguely referenced “technical difficulties” that were keeping me from regular updates to the ongoing Transformer of the Day challenge. Actually, what has happened is the changeover to the new computer has left me without access to a Windows 7 compatible version of Photoshop. My unfamiliarity with Gimp and the limits posed by Paint has meant I’ve not been able to provide the great pictures to showcase these characters. And without the pictures, I’ve kind of backed away from the project.

But no longer! Given that I will surely get Photoshop sometime soon, I figured the least I could do is put up the characters and text in the meantime, and come back to finish out the details at some later point. So this is what I will endevour to do in the coming days. Catch up. As we enter the home stretch…

We’re having some software difficulties, preventing the upload of new information.

As soon as we can get the proper software fix, we’ll be back. Keep watching.

Transformer of the Day for November 25, 2009

NEEDLENOSE

-Faction: Decepticon (Targetmaster)
-Era: Generation One (1984-1992)
-Function: Aerial Warrior
-Motto: “Get Hip or Get Hit”
-Notable Toy: Deluxe (Hasbro, 1988)

Notes: As I talked about for Spinister, Needlenose was part of his year’s triad of villains. He didn’t get the airtime he might have warranted due to the absence of a North American cartoon, but that didn’t mean he didn’t make his presence known. Which, as you can see, frequently consisted of him getting beat on or running away, frequently in the company of Spinister. Maybe they shouldn’t hang out after all…

(Apologies and thanks to bbts.com and shmax.com for the toy image.)

Part four is a response to 21st century technology.

There was a nice little post all ready to go on the new computer, but it got lost in the reworking of a bunch of other posts (which happens sometimes when the website overwrites one post with another). Anyway, I’ve already talked about the new computer over at the other blog, and here it is, all shiny and out of box.

It’s fast and the screen is beautiful, but I am still migrating files from the portable drive onto the new harddrive, and I have yet to install a version of Photoshop because I don’t have one that is Windows 7 compliant. Which is causing grief for the TF of the Day work, but I hope to correct that soon.

Anyway, behold the box, set up on November 15th.