In a previous post, I mentioned that I had found a couple of very impressive scratch-built customs of a couple Transformers Generation 1 characters. The same person who made those customs is at it again with another Generation 1 character, the triple changing Octane. Its still in progress, but impressive nonetheless.

  

Josh Duhamel, who plays Captain Lennox in Transformers was on Ellen yesterday. And since all actors bring clips of their movies, here is 45 seconds of Transformers. The clip is mostly unremarkable, and the last few seconds clearly jump WAY ahead so its not a full scene, but you do see a little bit of whats happening in Qatar.

The fifth and final figure in the Botcon 2007 Exclusive set was revealed today. Dreadwind will be a repaint of Classics Jetfire with a remolded head designed by fan club artist Dan Khanna. As always, I have mirrored the images below.

When I first heard that Dreadwind would be one of the exclusives, I hoped that we might get a Darkwing to go along with him. I was a big Darkwing fan when I was younger because I had the toy and he had an unusually cool transformation for the time. If you compare the two G1 characters in jet mode to the jet mode of Classics Jetfire, Darkwing is actually a much closer match. Going by robot mode, though, Dreadwind wins out since he has the cockpit on his chest, while Darkwing’s chest is the underside of the plane.

Source for image of G1 Dreadwind head: TFU.Info.

“We’re Doomed. Not that it matters.”
  

IGN has released the first trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie tie-in game. The footage comes from the Xbox 360 version of the game and shows off Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Barricade in motion. We see them driving, fighting, scaling buildings and we get a good glimpse of Prime transforming! The character models are very impressive and need to be seen in motion to be appreciated. Best of all the trailer is narrated by Optimus Prime himself, Peter Cullen!

Source:Transformers the Game Trailer

Botcon.com has posted the fourth figure in the Botcon 2007 exclusive box set of five. Bugbite is a straight repaint of Classics Bumblebee. He is another Decepticon and supposedly the leader of the pack. Bugbite is actually not a new character. Similar to Sunstorm, the Bugbite character originates from an E-Hobby Exclusive repaint of the Generation 1 book-format reissues. In the reissue set, six minibots were included with Bumblebee featuring a retooled, cartoon accurate face (see post banner). This set’s E-Hobby exclusive counterpart featured repainted versions of the six minibots with new names and some new alliegances. It is also worth mentioning that the names given to the repaints were all former Go-Bot names with similar alt modes (Pathfinder, Smallfoot, Bug Bite, Treads, Bad Boy, and Road Ranger).

 

Bug Bite photos from Botcon.com
Bug Bite E-Hobby Exclusive face picture from tfu.info.

New Avengers/Transformers #1 may come out in July, but the first glimpse of the interiors has just been made available for your viewing pleasure – just click on the thumbnail on your left. It’s the pencilwork for page 19 (of the 32-page book), as drawn by Tyler Kirkham.

I realize it’s not much, but at least we’re getting an idea of what the interiors will look like. And hey, we even get to see a glimpse of the two groups standing face to face. More or less. I kind of hope this isn’t the first meeting though – otherwise, what are the first 18 pages being spent on? I guess if that’s mostly Doctor Doom and Decepticons running around together, I could live with that. Personally, I’m loving that Doom is the Marvel equivalent to ALL of the Decepticons. That’s a lot of sneaky bastardliness to fit in one human being.

As previously announced, the book goes on sale Thursday July 5th (not on Wednesday the 4th as it’s a little local holiday) and will cost $2.99.

Botcon.com posted some images today of Exclusive Classics Thrust that have eased any concerns I had on the figure. Images of both modes have been mirrored below. As the last of the original seekers to be revealed, it was significant that his wings have been remolded to more accurately portray his original namesake. Dirge and Thundercracker did not really need any retooling. While all the ‘coneheads’ (Ramjet, Thrust and Dirge) had differently molded wings, Ramjet and Dirge’s wings were similar enough that a straight repaint was not out of left field. Thrust, however, had very different wings in that they had VTOL fans in the center and were placed in the mid section of the fuselage with additional tail fins, whereas on the other jets the main wings were based further back on the fuselage.

You can view some pictures of the original toy and its cartoon counterpart here. To see the previously announced exclusives, see here for Dirge and here for Thundercracker.

The Transformers Club was kind enough to update their site again without sending a complimentary heads up email to members of the club. I’m not bitter though. I enjoy reading about club updates on other news sites even though I’m a paying club member.

Anywho, the club has posted some teaser art for the summer comic. Art is by Alex Milne and story by Forest Lee. Below the art is the following text:

I have mirrored the art below. Its interesting, in that, it shows some new characters/molds. In the forefront appears to be a repainted Cybertron Armorhide in blue and yellow (Punch/Counterpunch??), Cybertron Thunderblast as Elita-1. Behind them is Classics Ultra Magnus. I believe a repaint of Cybertron Defense Hot Shot (in green? Springer?) is to Magnus’ left. Grimlock is on his right. Two others are in the further background that I cannot make out. Let the speculation begin!