are there any toys out there that you just wonder, who the fuck is buying this?
I don't mean to make this some sort of troll thread where people post moderately popular toys that you just think are shitty. Or even a thread intended for shitty toys in general. Its more for wondering just why people would dedicate so much time an energy to something that doesn't seem like it'd sell well, or have a really niche audience, and doesn't seem all that appealing beyond that.
Like this. I know Bayformers has its fans, but do people even like this Starscream? Can you even tell what's going on in this image? I get spending $30-50 on a retail version of a toy of this design, but $400 on something from a Michael bay movie? Who'd want this nasty thing as a centerpiece of a display?
>>5598639
It's a shame because these are by all accounts some of the best items ThreeA's made in recent years. Really amazingly engineered and painted, very much premium high-end collectables justifying the price tag.
But as you say, I can't wrap my head around anyone with an ounce of taste wanting the Bayformers designs front and centre in their collections. I guess there must be at least 500 people out there who do though, or they wouldn't still be making these.
>>5598639
>Who'd want this nasty thing as a centerpiece of a display?
Yeah. Who would want something ugly on their display?
>>5598684
Bayformers are impressive design-wise, tho. Translating organic functionality to machinery, playing with the position of the vehicle mode's parts, and coming up with recognizable silhouettes from that kind of aesthetic and shit.
Only reason people dislike them is NOT MUH TRANSFORMERS.
>>5598684
The transformers bot modes are shit. Ridiculously overdesigned to the point they carry no resemblence or connection to their vehicle mode.
Bayformers is garbage.
>>5599379
It's ugly insomuch as it's pure visual noise. Predator is ugly, but he's an appealing design in his ugliness. Starscream up there just looks like a scrap pile. There's some Bayformer designs, but he's not one of them.
>>5599385
t. transfag
>>5599391
Some transfags actually like the designs, though, evident by the fact that toys of them sell. The people who hate the designs most, besides hardcore G1 fans, tend to be fans of traditional mecha designs. show Bayformers to /m/ and they shrivel in disgust and spit.
Some bayformers designs like scrapper, 2nd movie megatron, brawl, ravage, optimus, and the corvette one from the second movie were decent considering what they tried to do
Others like devestator looked like jumbled up shit
>>5599379
>recognizable silhouettes
I'll give you 'Scream, at least from the front. But every other decepticon is a mess. The autobots are a little better because they're not masses of grey.
>>5599388
Not really.
If you look at it, every piece is in its proper place and meshes well with what is around it, think of it as a skinless creature and how you'd be able to see all that "visual noise" in the muscles.
Really, the reason why bayformers had to look like this is because traditional super robot designs don't work well on live action.
>>5599408
I've never got them tbqrthwy. Mecha design is stupidly varied, even in Japan.
No reason to hate it when it happens to Transformers when they like it when Gundam switches between hi-tech, realistic, super robot, and whatever the fuck Reconquista was.
>>5599415
Silhouettes would have nothing to do with colors,numbnuts.
I bought one. Along with the other 3 Bayformers. I hope they make more.
>>5599413
Considering how they handle transformation and then the concept of combining, Devastator looking as it did was inevitable.
The only good thing about that design was that they at least got creative with the whole vacuum grinder thing it got going on. It really was as if they designed it with the idea of it being the equivalent of having an entire crew of mining vehicles fucking shit up, which is pretty cool.
>>5599415
Eh. Mixmaster, Long Haul, Shockwave, Blackout, Brawl, Rampage, Ravage, Scorponok, and Barricade were pretty recognizable designs even if they were masses of dark colors.
>>5598639
I love that design. Really don't care who's name is attached to it or what movie it's from
>>5599428
Out of curiosity, what else do you collect?
>>5599379
Not a transformers fan in any way, so no bias/nostalgia here. On top of that I'm also a designer and one of my favourite designers actually worked on the transformers for later films. But I gotta say, the Bayformers are some of the worst looking things I've ever seen and their silhouettes are in no way unique or recognisable to the average movie goer.
They are literally just shiny, visual white noise.
I've never been a big fan of Predator. His head design is his only cool feature, with those unique mandibles and dreadlocks. I know he's supposed to resemble a gladiator, but otherwise he looks weird. He's half naked in fish net, with random bits of armour and a big bobble helmet; and his feet… those fucking Barney the Dinosaur feet in sandals are just laughable.
>>5600362
As a /m/ regular, Bayformers fail the design test because they have no silhouette nor do they convey anything about their function or role.
You can have super greebly detailed stuff that isn't scrap metal glued together. But Bayformers is bad.
>>5605353
>Bayformers fail the design test because they have no silhouette
Proven wrong unless you're being blatantly dense.
>nor do they convey anything about their function or role.
Gee I wonder what this big bulky robot does. Gee I wonder what this slinky, creepy robot in a hunched stance is like.
Gee I wonder what this big robot with a traditional heroic proportion standing upright is like.
>posting Gundams as an example of distinct and interesting design.
/m/ basically gives no quarter to anything not Japanese made.
>>5598639
Well, this thread's sort of getting derailed into a general Bayformers discussion now, but OP, if I may answer your question...
1) ThreeA generally makes good licensing decisions, (Ma.K, 2000AD, MGS) but they also occasionally choose stinkers (Real Steel, Bayformers). We can't all be right 100% of the time I guess.
2) Most of us might think Bayformers are shitty, but some people appreciate toys simply as toys, and ThreeA's Bayformers are admittedly very impressive on that level. Same with their Real Steel bots actually, I handled a few at a friend's place and they were phenomenal toys. I understand this completely. I have made toy purchases in the past solely for the fact that they were very impressive toy specimens, even if I disliked their look or the franchise they came from. Sometimes...you just appreciate a toy for being a toy.
>>5599408
I love the movie bot modes, mostly. It's just a shame that a majority of the items that are bot mode only are several hundreds of dollars each.
>>5599379
>Bayformers are impressive design-wise, tho.
Theyre the absolute ugliest things Hollywood has shit out in years. Maybe ever.
>>5605414
To be fair, the movie designs are hugely complex and weathered to boot, so to do them proper justice ain't gonna be cheap no matter how you slice it.
>>5605353
Everything in your image is really ugly and boring.
>>5605362
The main complaint about the movie was that no one could tell what was going on and who was fighting who. Literally.
>posting Gundams as an example of distinct and interesting design.
Better?
>>5605362
>/m/ basically gives no quarter to anything not Japanese made.
Nigga, we had Pacific Rim threads for months.
>>5605421
This. Nu RobertCop was better than Bayformers and that was edgy rehashes.
>>5605362
Not all gundam designs suck. See: G Gundam, especially Shining
>>5605535
G Gundam is too silly for me. Retro Katoki was the sex. Not nu Katoki, he's lazy as hell.
>>5605567
Ignore the Engrish
>>5605573
Sinanju is pretty sex.
>>5605576
>>5605581
Is Turn A Western or Eastern? It's Syd Mead, but Syd Mead covering Gundam.
>>5605587
Nagano basically went over the deep end, but his 80's stuff is glorious.
>>5605592
Can't neglect Macross. YF-19 is my plane-fu.
>>5605596
Robot fight.
>>5599505
A lot of other 3A stuff, sideshow Dinosauria, MP TFs, some Lego stuff.
>>5605567
>too silly
And this is why /m/ sucks now. Thanks I guess
>>5605603
Personal taste.
I do love the Maxter upgrade from the manga, with the revolver arms.
>>5605607
Speaking of glorious cheese.
Need some Go Nagai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FnU69PgteE
>>5605608
>>5605607
Well, sorry for being a dick. I'm just tired of all the gundam threads on /m/. That does look pretty rad, how's the manga anyway?
>>5605612
No worries.
Not translated as far as I know like all but a few Gundam mangas.
There's literally two groups doing Gundam side stories now and one of them does two volumes and then drops them for a million years.
>>5605610
TV Wing is best wing.
>>5605629
Victory is the sex.
Anyway, sorry to hizack this thread.
>>5605647
/toy/ related
>>5605615
Shame. It looks rad, though I heard Master Asia got changed to being nip instead of being from HK
>>5605671
The prequel manga is apparently more Nippon banzai, if that's even possible.
![bm_animated_35_Girls_Night_Out_All[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/O5SkzLv.jpg "bm_animated_35_Girls_Night_Out_All[1].jpg")
>>5598639
There's always a market for people to want something that looks like the thing they saw on screen, no matter how ugly it is.
Pic related, an entire toy line of this.
well, I like it, and if I ever have the fuck you money to buy it, I will
however, i think this is not the case of how "good" something looks, and its more the uniqueness of the item, Im not talking about how rare the figure is, im talking about its style
for example, I like H. R. Giger stuff, but the alien design as itself I dont like it, I mean is just a guy in a suit, even in toy form, but its how weird and unique in its look that its apealing
>>5605701
>>5605701
Supergirl's big fat potato head.
>>5605671
Different manga
>>5598639
No bully!!
Starscream is cute! Cute!!!!
>>5598639
The Bay TF movies are very popular in China and SE Asia, where there's a lot of disposable income and these kinds of things are popular.
>>5606666
CUTE
I feel like not understanding how other people have different taste than you has become the rule of the Internet.
Is it really so fucking hard to understand that people won't always like what you like? Is this concept just utterly foreign to /toy?
>>5606825
Fuk you, my taste > your taste
>>5606825
I think it's worse with toy collecting because of the money involved.
>>5606825
For me, it's looking at a solicitation list every fucking day and rarely seeing anything that A) I like and B) would sell. There is alot of garbage produced and it sits in failed retailers' basements or gets destroyed because it didn't move at half off or a previous order of shit closed the doors before it made it to the clearance bin. Sure, this is great, in the short term, for poorfags wandering the con floor with a whopping $10 in their pocket, but it's a well-hidden massacre for vendors that will manifest consequences sooner or later.
>>5607047
Con venders are scum.
>>5598639
I have no idea why the gundam fandom is so large. It all looks so samey. Every gundam collection I've seen is the epitome of boring.
>>5606825
People understand that anon, the discussion is around drives the logic behind bad tastes.
>>5607047
>Please buy my overpriced toys
>Uh, I can get this shit cheaper on a BST,AmiAmi, or Mandarake..
>FUCKIN' POORFAGS REEEEEEE
>>5607130
And yet you still pay to get into cons.
And are too dumb to factor in shipping.
Because dur hur math is hard?
>>5607223
A lot of the times I find that con prices are even pricier than factoring in shipping. A lot of you vendors have no fucking clue about half the shit on your table and just charge MSRP+shipping+more, even if its been languishing online for months.
And unless its a toy convention, there's other reasons people go to cons. Don't get mad that people browse their smartphones in front of your table to find if they're getting screwed over on a price or not. that's the modern world. Adapt or die.
Back when I was a con-goer, I used to think the stereotype was unfair. I showered before leaving the hotel and spent money in the dealer room. But now, man, I'm tired of people thinking it's my problem that ticket prices are high and that I somehow owe them a $40 Figma for $5 in Chuck E Cheese tokens and bits of string. I'd love to see vendors outright abandon a show or two and see how everybody else likes it.
I think that's why we're seeing a tilt towards more art vendors, to the point that shows are turning them away with plenty of vendor slots still open. A print costs a dollar to make and sells for ten, still within the budget of people who are going to cons even though they can't really afford to. But if the shows just filled up with artists, they'd get squeezed too and be making the same kind of cost benefit analysis that vendors get raked over the coals for.
>>5607251
And yeah, those people who low-ball you to the extreme are assholes, I'd agree. That said, this isn't a charity and if you're prices are significantly higher than online options, there's no reason for people to go out of their way and choose you rather than online. Even if selling at a more competitive rate would put you at a loss. It's not "fair", but that's the way things are now.
>adapt or die
Haven't rented space at a con in over a year. Now I'm just listing old stock at rape prices on Amazon. Took awhile for it to "age" but it's moving. Disappointed that's what it came to. I think most dealers start out with good intentions but eventually become ruthless (the stereotype) or throw in the towel before it happens.
>>5607223
I don't pay to some of the cons hosted on my country because we are cheap like that but even then the only con sellers that mark up shit like crazy are transformers sellers, featuring shit like 30 dollars for a beaten up Generations Kup and 40 for a fucking regular Classics Starscream.
Animeshit sellers lower their prices on cons for some reason so I only buy locally during cons.
Shipping is a pain in the ass.
>>5600362
The thing about Bayformers is that in the third movie, they decided that 80% of the decepticons should be black, gray or beige to counter the multicolored Autobots, which coincidentally was also the movie that killed off the only black colored scrap ball on legs, which was Ironhide.
Now, when it came to AoE, I'm extremely mixed over the new robot designs. For once, they actually gave each characters a couple more dialogue than they had in 2 and 3 and they tried enough to make each of them stand out compared to the older add-on bots that came after the first one. In their design, they looked less of a clusterfuck but at the same time, made it almost impossible to make them transform onscreen. I absolutely loved the knight design of Optimus but I also hated that it came with the cost of having no car kibble.
Bayformers is really sad. Lots of designs, loved or hated, usually gets little to no screentime save for the video games that gets released alongside the movies.
>>5599379
Don't expect these people to get what you're saying. People like to think they're some sort art connoisseur, but most just like to talk out of their asses.
