Month: March 2022

Toy review: Roboto

Toy review

Roboto is a very special MOTU toy to me, because I’m pretty sure it was my first! I think the reason why it was him is, that he looks cruelty-free, or maybe well-behaved. As a parent, I might also have preferred a Roboto or Horde Trooper over a Beastman or Snakeface.

Roboto is the only MOTU figure with a transparent torso, only Mosquitor has a transparent window in his torso. It looks fantastic, and the material is surprisingly robust. I can’t remember a photo of a broken, or yellowed Roboto. The only issue is the silver color on the boots, which seems to wear off often. You’ll see red plastic shining through.

Roboto’s colors are not as special as I thought first. His arms are blue, and the left hand is red. It is a bit confusing that is hand is formed like a claw, like the evil figures have it. Without doubt Roboto was always on the good side, so I wonder why the chose this kind of hand. The legs are red, with silverish boots. And for some reason the legs are shorter than usual. I could imagine this is to stabilize him better, perhaps the torso is heavier than usual? His “pants” (what is that on a robot?) are violet and a bit higher than usual, most likely because it carries some of the mechanical parts to get the gears in his torso going. The higher waist could also be the reason for shorter legs, so they could match the standard total-size. He’s got one red gear and two smaller, blue gears in his chest, which turn as you turn the waist. That’s a cool feature and makes him look alive somehow. His “jaw” will also move up and down while you turn the body, and that is maybe not so much supporting the impression of a real robot. It makes him look more like a 80s toy robot who can rather not fight, but only make noise and move.

The head is of the same silver color as the boots, and the jaw is red. Overall the silver color makes sure that we know he’s a robot made from steel. First I thought that this would be a quite unique color, which other robots like Horde Trooper and Blast Attak do not have. Wrong! A bit of silver is found on many figures: King Hiss, Fisto, Ram Man, Mekaneck, Two Bad, Rio Blast, Rokkon, Dragstor, Battle Armor He-Man, King Randor, and Snoutspout. Pew what a list. Even shinier metallic gloss is found on Jitsu’s hand, Blast Attak’s torso, Flying Fist He-Man, and Hurricane Hordak, There might be even more.

Back to Roboto. Solid red and blue are used in almost equal amount, maybe in favor to red. The red parts make him look nice and give the impression that he must be a good one. Thinking about it, he shares very much the colors of Mekaneck, except for the pants and face. Plain or neutral, I want to call it standard blue and red are also found on Mantenna, King Randor, Dragstor, Stratos, Webstor, Spikor, and Stonedar. It is not so common, and I must say I don’t like these colors too much. I helps to have it combined with orange or more violet. Trap Jaw has more a pinkish red and I find that much more appealing.

Roboto’s right hand carries a silver weapon, which can be exchanged: You got a double-barreled laser gun, which I like most, you got and axe, and pincers or grippers. The plug connection is surprisingly stable and takes exchanges very well. Except for the fading color on the boots, Roboto has a fantastic quality.

Last thing: Roboto came out in 1985. In 2013 a cartoon called Rick and Morty started, and in 2014 Gearhead was introduced. This is a humanoid with a transparent torso, showing his gears inside. They always remind me on my first MOTU toy.

Roboto in uV light
wearing the double-barreled gun

Crossover: Masters of the Stone age

Crossovers

THIS is my favorite so far! Each character worked out just fine. I have drawn in pencil, then used a marker for the final lines, and scanned it for Sketchbook then. I guess black background is best for my kind of drawings. I totally ignored the characters affiliation to good or evil, so that this is also a crossover of heros and villains.

We have Fred Tri-stone, who is Triclops of course! The visor is obvious, but he also wears his green I-don’t-know-what under the (sabertooth?) fur.

Orko is always good for a drawing, though I never liked him as a toy or in the cartoon. He is crossed with Dino, the dog-like pet of the Flintstones. His head is pretty cool, and his arm too. The whole attitude is a bit bitchy, not sure why this happened. No questions, his hand is in a weird angle, best is just to make weird hands my signature, isn’t it?

Next to him is Weelma – Wilma and Teela! Same as Fred, she has only subtle details of Teela, the crown, the collar and the armlets (ok I realize I have no idea how these three things are called). Her faces seems to say something between ‘Shut up’ and ‘Keep quiet, I’ll kill him soon”.

Weelma’s left, ugly hand seems to reach for the baby, Pebbles, only that she is crossed with the Scorceress, making it the Pebbleress. Like the smurfs, she was a bit small (of course you can zoom in in Sketchbook) and got a bit rough around the edges. But you should be able to see the bone in her hair, the hawk on her noodle, and feathers on the back. The legs, are weak, because she uses to fly (hmhm). She gazes at her friend, while she might have head one too much.

Her friend is Bam-a-Bam, Bambam crossed over with Mekaneck. This happened because our long necked hero carries a huge yellow bat that is just perfect for the strong baby. His futuristic glasses go very well with the stoneage style of Bambam, so that we have a very cool boy here!

His mother is rather evil, Evil Lynn with Betty makes Betty Lynn. I was in a kind of a misery, because I couldn’t make her limbs yellow, like the toy has it. That would have consumed the yellow bat. So I decided to make her entirely blue. She is well decorated with Evil Lynn’s applications (what is that thing on her head?!).

Barney is also blue, because there’s a Faker in him – now he is Barker! Isn’t Barney like a wanna-be Fred? There is some truth behind it… Orange hair and a hint of his orange amour expose him!

Crossover: Masters of the Quest

Crossovers

The two seasons of “World of Quest” were released in 2008/ 2009. It is about the slightly spoiled Prince Nestor, who’s parents got kidnapped, and his mysterious, powerful, and petulant nurse/ bodyguard Quest. Let’s talk about these two characters first.

Finding a MOTU prince for this crossover was (too) easy. Prince Adam is Adamstor, same as all characters he has the body of the World of Quest character. In future I hope I manage to meld the bodies better. There is not too much to discover on him, he got Adams legs, and Nestor’s dress. The most obvious change is his weapon, he is carrying Prince Adam’s pink sword instead of the golden axe. Prince Adam’s sword by the way is thankfully not pink in the cartoon, but anyway he rarely used it.

Quest is now Man-E-Quest, and these characters melt well, both are mystical. One is an almost 2000 years old, unbeatable warrior, the other has three faces for some reason. Wait for the Toy review on hefarts! He is wearing Quest’s suit in Man-E-Faces colors, which makes not too much of a difference. His belt and the “sword holder” or sheath, are original Quest-colored. Most funny detail is the helmet, which in case of Man-E-Faces is a chunk. Quest’s chin on the other hand is a typical cartoon-testosterone-virility symbol for the superhuman bodyguard. I kept that, with the result that the helmet had to shrink. Not sure how the face-rotation would work, but a bit of a squeezing would totally be ok in Masters of the Quest. World of Quest has a sometimes very goofy humor, so different from the 80s MOTU cartoon.

The big guy in the background is Graertos, a griffin-like friend of Quest’s. He can fly and has feathers, so who else but Stratos could have been crossed with him? Battlecat would have been funny I’m thinking now. But it is Stratos. I tried a crossover with Stratos before, in Glow-Garmel, and one more time after Masters of the Quest, and I must say he is a difficult to draw character. If you want he is just a grey figure with some feather applications. What confuses me is his face, he is a bird man, but he only got a pointy mouth, is it a beak or not? What is he? In my crossover with Graer he has a beak, and it is a big one! This crossover made Stratos a bird, and I like that! I failed to add much more Stratos-details to this character, so let’s just continue.

There is the other friend of Nestor and Quest, Gatling. A cyborg human who eats metal and chews it to bullets, which he then spits out like a gun. So a guy with dark skin and affinity to weapons, he? Let’s make him Clampling! I never owned the Clamp Champ toy unfortunately. I’m not sure why, today I would leave a Snakeface or King Randor where they are and take him. His trademark is the huge clamp-weapon. I replaced Gatling’s robo-hand by this clamp, and gave him Clamp Champ’s red pants. The rest is very much unchanged.

This MOTU- World of Quest – Crossover is still far away from perfect, but is one of the step stones on my way to hopefully great pieces on day! Drawing such characters is a great opportunity to discover details from those cartoons, which you might no catch when you just watch it.

Note the visible spiral binding on the left. I still drew with pencil first, then with felt pen. On Sketchbook I colored a photo of my drawing.

Masters of the Quest

Titfortat 2: Snoutspout vs. Squeeze – The big wrapping?!

Titfortat

This fight must have been setup based upon characteristics, but who knows…

Two squeezing arms vs a powerful trunk call for a big wrapping fight, doesn’t it? One of the smartest and heaviest heroic warriors, who knows how to make use of his dimensions, meets the fast and smart constrictor. Squeeze is 40cm shorter, and not less than 110kg lighter than the elephant man. Snoutspout though is not a warrior, under the line we have 28 points for him. Two more for the Snakeman, what is also not too much. Look at the table of skills for all properties of these two.

Clear the ring! No wonder that Snoutspout waits for the smaller Snakeman to attack. He is far to slow for a surprising attack. Not long to wait, a hissing sound pierce marrow and bone. An awfully fast move of Squeeze’s followed, with his left arm wrapping around the elephant-man’s trunk.

Let’s not forget, this is his nose, so he is not able to breathe properly now! How will he counter? How will the kind elephant react to the snake attack?! In a smart way of course! Obviously he is able to hold the breath for quite a while, so he doesn’t panic. He spreads out both arms, pushing against the snake’s head while he draws his head backwards/ He tries to pull that arm off!!

He even threads his trunk further around the arm, and so tightens the grip, until we all hear a popping sound, saying clearly that arm is dislocated! Suddenly the Snakeman lets go, his left arm is now useless. Though Squeeze looks very much unimpressed. Our orange hero looks very much strained from this apnea action! He breathes heavily. Squeeze seems to change his tactics now, he’s running from one corner to the other. Snoutspout is hardly able to follow with his eyes. In terms of speed we have a four fighting an eight. Then the next attack! The remaining green arm wraps around Snoutspout’s left foot, but the snakeman this time keeps moving, keeps out of reach for the powerful trunk. Elephant-like, Snoutpout stamps on the arm with his free foot, and then starts stumbling. Still holding the foot, Squeeze jumps with both feet first against the left shoulder of the already falling hero.

What does Snoutspout bring up now? His lack of experience in battles in very obvious, and the snakeman managed to locate his shoulder back! Now he is squeezing the trunk with his jaws, while the other arm wraps around the entire body. Squeezes arms are so long!!! This grip will only get tighter, and gravity is not helping our losing elephantastic hero. He can’t get back on his feet, and he is exhausted already. Snakeman wins. Speed wins over strength and brain.