The best. Ever.

The MP-04 Masterpiece Convoy. The finest, most wicked, and most bad-ass Optimus Prime figure available.

Except for the first statement above, I won't be praising this figure to high heavens. Every Transformers fan knows what this figure is all about... so I'll just leave it at that.

By the way, my lovely wife bought me this prior to the WFC OP. She just rocks! ^_^

Eulogy

The final set of pics for the deposed Decepticon Air Commander.

"Who disrupts my coronation?"

Masterpiece Megs would never get as regal as this. ^_^

My fellow decepticons!

Well, the coronation has taken place and Starscream is now the undisputed leader of the Decepticons.

The newly-crowned king.

Here he is, enjoing the moment while it lasted...

... for about 38 seconds.

Right about after he made this pose, and said, "My fellow Decepticons, as your new leader..." his ass got burned by Galvatron. ^_^

Don't worry Screamer, you're still my favorite anti-Autobot dude! :)

Pre-coronation night

Shooting Masterpiece Starscream's robot mode was always one of the many I have put off for a very long time. His alternate mode, an F-15 Eagle, looks so gorgeous and so right that the need to take pictures of him in his more devious form didn't really tickle my fancy.

That was until my wife gave me another present — TFC Toys' TFC-03 Screamer's Coronation Crown and Cape set. So I thought of finally giving him his due by taking his pics before he was crowned king... and died. ^_^

Here's the TFC Toys add-on to the Masterpiece Starscream.

The crown and the shoulder armor are fine, and they are quite worthy additions to Screamer's Masterpiece.

What really sucks, however, is the purple cape. As you can see from the pics above, it just... sucks! Ugh!

I'm willing to bet that I could make a better one given a purple A4-sized satin fabric. Come to think of it, I am going to make one... as soon as I get the free time. ^_^

So there, all the things the Decepticon Air Commander needs for his coronation are set. Lastly, here's what's going to happen during the said event...

Screamer's Visayan island fly-by

I've had a few minutes (15 actually) of spare time the other day and I fumbled about thinking what better to do among these choices:

• Continue reading Michael Schumacher's bio, The Whole Story
• Continue playing Gran Turismo on my PSP
• Revive a couple of photos I've taken before and do something creative using Photoshop

I decided to forego the first two options and give the third one a go.

I've always been wowed by shots of fighter jets as they are cutting through the Earth's atmosphere. Whether their backgrounds are of the sky (as these machines are photographed from the side or underneath), or the sea/land as their flight is captured from above their position, I'm sold.

I particularly have a soft-spot for my all-time fave, the Navy's F-14 Tomcat; and a couple of others -- the F-15 Eagle and the F-22 Raptor.

Let me get this straight -- no, I don't get a boner just by looking at military planes (like Michael Bay.)

Explaining why the Tomcat's my "ultimate fighter plane" is easy -- Macross. Roy Fokker's Valks always had the Jolly Roger marking on their tails. The VF-1S also has vari-angle wings. Besides, it's been an impossible childhood dream of mine to at least get into an F-14's cockpit and maybe let some top gun fly me around.

The F-15 Eagle and the F-22 Raptor reasoning also comes easy -- Starscream.

Ok then, I searched in my photo bank for pictures of my Masterpiece Starscream and a viable background.

The Screamer pic I used was very similar to this one that I posted on my Flickr stream.

An island photo I used for the background.
I took this photo of an island in the Visayas shortly after takeoff during one of our flights back to Manila from Boracay.

This was what I came up with, a good quarter of an hour later --

I just added condensation trails from the tips of his wing to add more spunk. Adding afterburner flames would take me about 5 minutes more so I decided against it. :)

Masterpiece Megatron's Mini-me

They haven't released Optimus Prime's "mini-me" yet but that wouldn't keep the iGear guys from showing us another masterpiece (excuse the pun).

This time, and as expected, it is Megs' turn to get a smaller scale -- about two-thirds the size of the original MP-05.

Maybe iGear has a working model of Richie Rich's shrinking machine ^_^

The original MP-05 (top) and iGear's version (bottom)

The alt mode seems just about right for the average hand

Images from TFormers.com.

A quick one

I got out of my lazy stupor last night to take my Masterpiece Starscream out of the box and transform him.

The boxed U.S. version contains Starscream in his robot mode, unlike the Japanese version where one gets him in his alt mode. I cut the tapes, removed the twisties, and scissored the transparent bands... he was free.

It was exciting to see how the Air Commander would look like once transformed into the alt mode -- an F-15 Eagle. According to reviews, the alt mode is so awesome that you wouldn't know that it could transform into something else, much less into a robot like Starscream.

The transformation instructions were pretty straight-forward and getting him into the fighter mode wasn't that hard. I've had harder times with my Optimus Prime's Leader Class figure.

The reviews were right. Screamer's alt mode is simply wicked! Seeing the F-15 almost made me do "Larry and Balki's dance of joy." Except that I didn't have anyone near to do it with me.

"Damn, this thing's gorgeous!" It was a sentence I kept on repeating over and over again as I marveled at the plane I held in my hand.

Even though it was already way past midnight, I quickly got my cam out, set-up a backdrop and shot off a few pixels. I didn't care if I shot him on a tabletop, nor didn't have any dedicated light... I WILL get some snaps! ^_^

The landing gear and its cover wasn't all flush yet.

A more formal review and photo-shoot would follow, of course, in the next few days... the Air Commander deserves it. :)

Now that I've personally seen and held Starscream, I'm really seriously considering getting all the Takara Screamers. I'm sure they would all look great in an F-15 squadron group shot!

Click here for more pics.

The US$ 4.00 sticker

My fiancee and I came back to Greenhills yesterday in order to pay some bills. I, of course, have only one thing in mind every time I'm in this area -- toys, of course.

My choice in toys became quite diversified only recently. As you may very well know, I used to go ga-ga over Gundams, which is the primary reason why we often come to what is arguably known as the toy-shopping capital of the Metro. Then came my interest for DC Direct figures... Transformers figures... scale model cars, and the like. I have come to like diversity.

Yesterday, I bought a sticker worth US$ 4.00.

The Takara Tomy sticker

In case you're still wondering what the figure behind the sticker is, well, he is my favorite Transformer of all-time. Yup, the Air Commander of the Decepticons, Starscream.

In my book, I'd choose his character over Optimus Prime and Megatron, or any other Transformer for that matter. Optimus Prime is just too, uhmmm, perfect. And Megatron, in my humble opinion, is an ounce shy of being the ultimate evil. I would hate to be a subordinate to any of those two guys.

Starscream, now he's my type of leader. Cunning, takes unnecessary risks, treacherous, and finally, I love his G1 voice. His intelligence may not be up to par with Megs, nor Shockwave, or even Soundwave, but I like him the way he is.

Then the recent designers of Transformers: The Movie effed the leader of the Screamers. His robot mode is just plain fugly! He looks like a moth with arms and legs. This is what keeps my mind from even trying to think about buying the toy version. The F22 Raptor is gorgeous, but when he transforms into his robot form, it makes me wanna puke.

I'd take the original F15 design, thank you. I'd also choose the U.S. version, whose colors are virtually anime-accurate over the Japanese gray-and-purple-painted-and-black-boxed version.

Don't get me wrong though. Even though I said that Starscream is my favorite Transformers character, he is NOT my favorite Transformers toy. That honor still belongs to the MP-01 Convoy.

Anyway, here's the still unopened box.

Masterpiece Starscream (U.S. version)

What's the story behind the US$4.00 sticker you might ask? Well, the toy that doesn't have the said sticker on its packaging is US$4.00 cheaper. ^_^

More pics here.