Okay fellow Seibertronians, I know that I was going to upload a new forum post in the customizations forum section, but since this isn't about going all in depth, I wanted to show what I think was lacking in the Hasbro release as it comes to minor paint applications.
With my first pic here, you can see where I took some paint and added them to the mid sections on his chest. I used Testors Model Paint, and I am currently still in the process of painting the spots I feel HASBRO should have. As I have said before, My goal is not to go all out and do a super detailed Metallic style repaint of the entire figure.
1. A full on crazy repaint would look movie accurate, however it would not blend in with any of my other figures and would not look good next to my future purchase of MPM-03 Bumblebee.. So for me, I just wanted to make the MPM-04 Optimus Prime as perfect as I could without going so far as to knock him out of the similarity of the rest of the Masterpieces I own, or future Movie Masterpiece releases.
2. Making a full on paint redux to the figure would mean possible paint chipping in the fuuture, and it is a lot of work for a figure that I essentially want to remain the way it came in the package, however I do NOT consider minor paint app additions as such a big customization as to reduce the price of the figure, in fact I think the minor Paint apps were something Hasbro could easily have done, and if in the future they do the DOTM version with the redone abs, the rest of the paint Apps I have applied should be standard in any secondary or future release of the mold, barring any changes like the abs.
3. In the final paint work up, I will do a final reveal in the customizations forum like I stated I would earlier. This post is just to show what the bot looks like with some minor paint apps already applied, and to show that HASBRO could have easily surpassed Takara Tomy's rendition all they needed was to add minor paint apps, and mold the Gun in silver with the black scorch paint applied. If Hasbro wants us to remain loyal with purchases in the future for high end market figures, then they really should pay attention to fans and their detail concerns. THERE IS NO REASON THAT MPM-04 SHOULD HAVE BEEN RELEASED WITHOUT THESE MINOR PAINT APPLICATIONS APPLIED...COST IS NOT AN EXCUSE.
AGAIN.. The Purpose of this post is just to show where HASBRO should have added additional Paint applications.. as you can see, the darker grey body plastic works well, much better then i think the light grey plastic of Takara Tomy. All that is really needed is the additional accents of paint. Namely the feet, and the minor copper paints and some silvers and the missing blues.
I will detail all my paints, and clear coat spray to help with any seibertronian who desires to do the same when i do the full blog forum post on my mod to the bot.
Bottom line for me...
I think the Hasbro release of MPM-04 is the better choice, but for minor paint applications. other then that, I think the Hasbro version is great. I don't have tabbing issues, or chest problems myself. as others have reported. To me, the chest sits on the slots, held in by friction, as apposed to tabs plugging in. Yet, If I had to purchase the MPM-04 again, I would still get the Hasbro version. Painting my Masterpiece transformers isn't something I like to do, but with this release, I felt it just needed a bit of extra to put it over the top in my book. I hope you guys like what I have done and can see the potential of the figure from the Hasbro side. It really is the best version IMHO.
). Sure it'd be clashing with the brighter colors on it, but I think it kind of fits the rough Cybertronian metal better for me. Maybe a happy medium between the color grays would be good enough, but what I'm more worried about is distribution (maybe a knockoff copy would be good if not better).
