WJ Update

Hi all

We spend the a few hours during the weekend painting a Transformers Classics Sideswipe to white. As mentioned in the earlier post. It was challenging because it's more difficult to cover red pigmented ABS with white paint. But the challenge was good so that at least we can recommend to fellow customizers what to do.

What we used. Stuff that a Non-customizer might use. Standard aerosol can (Mr Color) and Tamiya. This is our list of stuff
a. Mr Color White (semi gloss) - we applied 2 coats of paint cause one coat still showed the red.
b. Tamiya Primer (white)

Minimal sanding of the resin parts. Do note that the kit was made to "snap" on. No glue is actually required, but it's optional. The front grills snap on and the back spoiler slide in.

Here is a first take pix of the WHITE washed sideswipe. Do pardon our photography skills, which needs to be improved :). Now we're waiting for our stickers. The windscreen is white because well, we're including black windscreen stickers, which was save some pain painting the windscreens black, but that is really up to the customizer.

Cheers
Mastercollectables

Weekend blurp

Hi everyone,
hope black friday was good..We know the sales were fantastic. Back to WJ. We had just spend the weekend painting a Classic Sideswipe from RED to white. We can tell you from experience, if you plan to do this, GET a sunstreaker. It's easier to use the dull yellow plastic and paint it white, (after priming the plastic). We'd see how the sideswipe holds up, else we'd do up a sunstreaker also.

If you've noticed, the website www.mastercollectables.com also reroutes to mastercollectors.blogspot.com. That would be our main domain name. We use the blogspot essentially because it was a quick way to get the website running and at the same time allow us to communicate quickly to our fellow collectors and fans. Maybe in the future we'd do up a proper site, but for now our focus is custom toys.

Have a great weekend!!.

Mastercollectables.

Update on the WJ-Upgrade kit

Just some quick updates.

1. There would be some amendments on the stickers, with additional feedback from our printers. The windscreen, eyes, license plate would be printed on opaque adhesive paper. While the rest would be on clear adhesive plastic.

2. We've just received the first "kits". Tested the fittings and they're good. We'd be getting this painted and hopefully the initial stickers would be available for us to apply and share with the internet how our rendition of WJ should look like.

3. Packaging has been decided, and we've asked our art-designer to design the WJ art for the packaging.

All seems to be going as planned.

Stay cool!!
Mastercollectables

WJ-Upgrade Kit update

Hi friends,

Just a quick update on the stickers. After some testing on the design and feedback from the internal team and collectors, we've come up with this design. It includes the black windscreen so saves alot of time for customizers to paint their screen black. These would be precut so it should also help.

So just chugging along again.

Cheers
Mastercollectables

Updates

Just a quick update from us.
We're working on a few projects, which we'd reveal in the upcoming weeks or so. One of them is another upgrade kit, while the other one is a rather complex mecha. The kit is still in WIP stages, while the complex mecha which took us about 3 months of study, concept, design and engineering is close to be revealed.

On the side note, the WJ kit is in the process of being casted out, which is a tedious process for those who're familiar with resin casting. Why not do ABS, as some friends have asked? Well, we're not in the mode of mass producing this for huge profits, but just to test our concepts and designs, and at the same time pass the profits for future R&D work.

Running in parallel is the artwork, and also the design of the sticker which will be printed on clear sticker type. There were some suggestions for water decals, well it'd work, but just would be messy for some collectors to use, although our designers "prefer" water decals for the clean look on the finished product.

When the first test pieces come out, we'd paint and label the decals on it, to show to our friends how the final product can look like. In the meantime happy modding.

Cheers
Mastercollectables

Replies to some questions on WJ upgrade kit

We received some questions either directly to our email address or via our ebay partner so we're going to answer them accordingly.

Q1. Can you remove the A-pillars from the kit (between the side and front windscreen)? This will give it a more G1 feel whit the "wrap around" windscreen.
A1. The A pillars, we had altered them from the original windshield to give the front screen a more curved viewpoint and try to give WJ a more G1 feel. There were some limitations onto the degree of curvature because we didn't want to have to redesign the vehicle front cab portion which was not curved.

Q2: And will we be able to attach the wings from the back on it's rear spoiler (double spoiler)?
A2. Unfortunately we've not designed the Wings to attach to the rear spoilers. It would be an interesting concept, however the design of the add-on rear spoilers with the vertical fins which are esthetically added do prevent any add on for the wings.

Q3: Will the side panels get add ons (it says so on the ebay, but not on the blogspot, or i misread it)?
A3. The side panels will not get any addons. The pictures in our blog show the 95% final prototype product.

Q4.Hi, seeing as you're open to suggestions, any chance of manufacturing the hood so it's more like the 'rounded' version below at all ?
A4. We had actually made it "rounder" compared with the original hood. It required a resculpt of the hoodscreen portion, while still trying to maintain the connector to the front cab. You'd need to compare it with the original cab to compare the difference.

Q5. Hi. I am absolutely loving your work and I fully intend to purchase one of these. Is December still the likely completion/shipping date?
A5. We're targeting for a Mid-End Dec 2009 completion. Right now we're into the production phase, with a parallel packaging design in the pipeline.

Q6. Just been looking at your Wheeljack kit on eBay and the only suggestion I could think of would be to have the wings and weapons store under the car in his alt mode.
A6. Good question. Ebay is currently marketing by our ebay partner as an alternative channel. It can be purchased directly via our paypal buy it now button. Back to design question, We did fiddle with this idea of putting the wings below the body of the vehicle, but there was no space under there to put it. It must be noted that as an add-on kit to the Classic Sunstreaker / Sideswipe, improvements can be made to the parts based on the ability of the customizer. Potentially we see variables in our offering.
a. A person simply paints the base toy and add on the parts and paste the stickers. This is the simplest and quickest option
b. A person does additional changes to the toy to suite his particular taste, with the add-on parts from us making this change quicker. We agree that using sculpy to make round windshield,the front bumper and using styrene sheets is not a quick and easy job for the average collector. But we're confident, if a collector has done model kits, that this WJ add-on should be a half day "walk in the park".

Q7. Where are we getting our stickers?
A8 At this moment, we're waiting for a first batch to be released. Then we would get our graphic file to be test fitted prior to getting them printed on clear sticker sheets. If there are requests for water decals (because they look nicer, we can explore this option)

Q8. How did you guys come up with this idea?
A8. We didn't come up with this idea. This idea was found by many customizers from Radicons etc, and we as fellow collectors also felt that it would be beneficial for it to be more available the the general collector and also fellow customizers to make a ready kit to cut down on time required for customization. One customizer's design that we did review extensively was blacklion29 , so due credit has to be given to this customizer.
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/249094-classics-wheeljack.html

Lastly remember you can click on the paypal buy it now button in our earlier post to get your piece.

Updates on WJ kit

Just some updates on the WJ kit. We've still not come up with an official name (if it requires one) ;)

But so far this is what we're planning
a. Stickers would be incorporated into the kit.
b. The missle launcher, gun - should be in black resin
c. The back wings - black, the backpack holding the wings - black.
d. The rest would be white - or some form of whitish resin.

And by the way, you can actually use a sunstreaker instead of sideswipe Classic for this modification, and we found that the following helps
a. Mr Color primer (white)
b. Then applying Mr Color white semi gloss.
When we get the first casts out, we'd do a test shot of a "completed" piece. I believe there are lots of "customizers" out there that can do better paintworks, and would do custom jobs with these parts to make a real classic WJ figure.

In the meantime, stay cool and be well.


Mastercollectables

Prototype pictures of our first creation

This is our first creation. WJ custom. It took probably a month of planning, looking at existing designs, and seeing what was the best way to execute. Our design was influenced by many other customizers in the web and we took the best of what was possible on an existing Transformers sunstreaker/ sideswipe toy and tried to improve on it. This is pretty much the final rendition before we do a limited mass production. Let us know your comments on this kit. We're also in the process of reviewing the stickers.

On a side note. We understand that our partner on ebay had listed a pre-production picture. Not the best we'd say, so we've asked them to update with newer pictures. Hope you like our latest creation.
At this moment as per our partners pricing. It is 44.98USD per piece, shipping not inclusive. If there are those who want to take up quantity of this limited release, please contact us at administrator@mastercollectables.com
For the total production - at this moment it's 100 although it might end up at 200 sets, dependant on how well the molds hold. Below is the buy it now button. Directly links to paypal.
At this moment price is 44.98+10USD shipping worldwide. If someone buys a couple of them we'd work out the discount for shipping (approx 50% off the second price etc etc) and refund back. ETA December 2009.

Custom Toys on the way

First blog by mastercollectables. This would be our alias, cause the web is full of interesting people. We'd be putting up information on upcoming custom mecha, robots etc for the fellow collectors, customizers, enthustiasts etc.