It's TFNation 2019 Weekend, and I'm Not in Birmingham...

Yes, for the first time since its inception, I decided to skip TFNation this year.

The main reason for this is that my finances aren't especially stable right now - not bad, by a long shot, just not good enough that I can comfortably spare the money I'd have to spend on transport, accommodation and entry to the event.

Unfortunately, there's not as much in-the-moment coverage of the event (other than attendees live tweeting or Instagramming, perhaps) compared to BotCon, which had pretty much dedicated media coverage on the fan sites, so I'll have to wait pretty much until it's all over to see what I actually missed.

I'm not blown away by the guest lineup this time - but then, it's never really been about the guests for me anyway - though the fact that Flame Toys, makers of all those super-stylised non-transforming action figure model kits, are listed as being in attendence is of mild interest. I'll be keen to see if they showed off anything new, but if it doesn't transform, I'm generally not that interested.

As far as the other guests go, I've mentioned before that I'm just not particularly interested in the comics (even less now they're a more direct advertisement for the toyline) and, much as it's cool to see some of the voice actors from the TV shows and movies, they tend to tell the same sorts of stories. Had the guest list lived up to the promise of this year's Beast Machines branding, I'd have been far more interested, and may even have run the risk of overspending to see what was on offer... So there's not a great deal to regret on that score.

There's a strong chance that I'm not missing out on buying anything I can't pick up at a later date - WfC:Siege Brunt is very high on the list of figures I want and, of course, I'd have been likely to pick up as many new Studio Series figures as possible, particularly the Devastator components. Other than that, I think the only likely purchase would have been Perfect Effect's Jetforce Revive Commander. Hopefully nothing I'm going to miss out on entirely by passing on this event.

Keith's Fantasy Club Sting Thing

(Femme-Bot Friday #65)

Following the example of their first year, TFNation 2018 didn't have its own convention exclusive toy, as such. Instead, it had a small selection of 'show exclusive' figures available via vendors, and one such figure was the KFC/Big Tin Robot & Sid's Toys Sting Thing, a repaint of 2016's Scorpinator, again made available first at an overseas convention with the remainder appearing at TFNation 'exclusively', before being made available online.

When I wrote about TFNation 2018, I noted that I wasn't going to bother with this - the original is OK, but feels a little fragile and isn't really a 'must have' unless you're obsessed with having a complete collection of TransFormers microcassettes - until I read the bio and found out that Sting Thing is a Femme-Bot.

Not only am I all for Femme-Bots generally, but I'm particularly keen on the non-traditional variety, that aren't designed to resemble sexy humanoid females... So, here we go again...

Mastermind Creations Reformatted R-08Q Feral Queen & Nero Queen

(Femme-Bot Friday #57)

There was me, thinking I'd got all the Mastermind Creations Azalea variants I wanted (apart from Eupatorium... maybe...), only for Kapow Toys to announce that they would be bringing the all-new, TFCon 2016 exclusive boxed set of Feral Queen (a repaint originally intended as an April Fool joke - a Femme-Bot companion to the Feralcons/Feral Rex - which was turned into a real figure with a unique head sculpt) and Nero Queen (a black repaint of same, to accompany Nero Rex) to the inaugural TFNation that same year. Stocks were naturally in short supply, so preordering for collection was advised... but, at that point, I wasn't even sure I would be going.

Naturally, my wacky sense of priorities meant that this announcement - and particularly the preordering advice (I'd asked if I could reserve one to be sent to me after they returned from the show, but they couldn't guarantee they wouldn't run out) - tipped the balance in favour of attending the show... and led me to spend even more money on other items of plastic crack.

The big question, obviously, is whether or not the cause of my attendance was actually worth all the effort and associated expense...

TFNation 2018 Round-up & Haul

And so, another TFNation has been and gone. This year, for the first time, my girlfriend Courtney accompanied me (and will be writing a little bit about her own experiences of TFNation, as an 'outsider' to the fandom), and a lot more pre-planning went into the weekend, based on my experiences over the last couple of years: not only did I book travel and accommodation, we also booked tables for dinner on both the Saturday and the Sunday, and agreed to take advantage of the comparatively sparse schedule to potentially go out and have proper lunches rather than just make do with the 'street food' on sale within the venue, the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

Approaching TFNation

With less than a month to go before my girlfriend and I head off to Birmingham for TFNation 2018, I figured it'd be worth making a note of what I'm looking forward to, what I'm after, etc.

As with previous years, I've bought a weekend ticket but won't be getting there till late evening on the Friday (cheaper travel after 7pm, and all that!). This means I'll be missing all the Friday panels, and probably won't be in time to attend the 'Notorious (Zombie Related) Erotic Fanfic Show', presented by DC Douglas. I'm pretty ambivalent about most of the Friday stuff anyway, so it's not a massive loss. Similarly, I didn't pay the additional cost for a ticket to the Stan Bush gig on the Saturday night. While I liked the soundtrack to TransFormers: The Movie as part of the movie, and even though I bought the soundtrack on vinyl back in the day, it's not really the sort of music I tend to listen to these days.

Last year, I gave the whole Saturday evening's entertainment a miss, even though part of me was keen to attend the script reading, at least. After having a panic attack the morning of the first year's event, which utterly ruined the whole experience for me, I probably wouldn't have attended TFNation 2017 at all were it not for guests like Bob Budiansky and Venus Terzo. I may attend this year's evening event, if only because it has a definite end this time, since they have to clear the room for Stan Bush.

I'm not blown away by most of this year's guests - Bob Budiansky is a pretty hard act to follow, to me - though voice actors always have great stories to tell, and I am keen to see what Mairghread Scott and Aaron Archer have to say. Since I'm not really into the comics (I bought both 'Last Stand...' and 'Sins of the Wreckers' a while back, and didn't enjoy them as much as TFNation 2017's print-form final chapter for TransFormers Animated), I may drift into the other artist/writer panels if they sound interesting, or if there's any indication of what'll be happening once IDW's current continuities are closed off.

As for what I'm after... Nowt in particular, to be perfectly honest... but I shall be on the lookout for any new Studio Series or Power of the Primes figures, anything I don't already have from Titans Return, Generations and TF Legends. Of course, if I see any items from my Want List, I may well take the plunge. Chances are, there will be a lot of impulse buying, as TFNation often features lots of surprises... Particularly with Third Party figures. I keep telling myself I'm not collecting Masterpiece anymore, but I recently bought MPM Barricade, the new G1 toy-style MP Megatron is most definitely on my radar and MP Road Rage is quite appealing.

Any surprises in the traders' section of the hall are unlikely to include any of my 'Holy Grail' figures... I recently obtained one of them (GF Chromia White Version) via ebay, having not seen it available for years (I believe the last time I saw it was as part of the DVD set, around the time that first came out in Japan!). I did see an incomplete Tako Tank at last year's event, but didn't (and still don't) have the space for it... and would prefer it complete, if at all possible. G1 Sky Lynx is another one I don't really have space for, but I'd want to be sure I was getting one that was complete and in working order. BotCon 2006 Darksyde Megatron rarely appears outside of eBay - the last time I saw him in the wild, I believe, was at a convention many years ago, when he was priced the same as the whole BotCon 2006 boxed set, approximately £250 at the time. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable price for him, but not £1,000+.

There's also oddities like Armada Overload, which I've quite recently decided that I'd like to own, because I've got a complete and intact Armada Superpants Prime again, and picked up a second hand Armada Jetfire not long after taking the photos of Timelines Astrotrain in Superpants mode. Black repaints always catch my eye... and, of course, there's always Femme-Bots.

I'll probably have a scoot round the Forge - I picked up a couple of posters last year, from Nate Phoenix on DeviantArt, and very nearly picked up some stickers for my girlfriend on another stand... This year, she'll have the opportunity to peruse them herself.

As mentioned, I'm ambivalent toward the comics, and the majority of non-transforming TransFormers merchandise just annoys me. Even the RID2015 Bumblebee Bath Set I saw in a local B&M - which is thoroughly appropriate to the idea of attending a convention such as this one - is of no interest. I have pre-ordered the little story book whose proceeds are going to charity, along with this year's show t-shirt, after missing out on last year's.

On the subject of t-shirts, I'm attempting to sort out a 'Cool Your Jets' t-shirt to wear for the event, but the people I'm using at the moment have messed it up twice in a row, so I think I may have to look into an alternative printing method...

And, finally, following my discovery last year that the restaurants in Resorts World decline walk-in patrons when they're even slightly busy, I'll be sure to make bookings for both Saturday and Sunday evening...

Keith's Fantasy Club Scorpinator

One of my big regrets as a TransFormers fan and collector is never making it over to a BotCon. It never stopped me acquiring any of their boxed sets that I wanted, but there's something to be said for attending the convention and picking it up in person, I think. I did manage to get to a couple of AutoAssemblies, but it wasn't till Roll Out Roll Call 2016 and the first TFNation that the idea of convention exclusive toys really took form in the UK.

While RORC obtained a load of that year's BotCon exclusives (though, again, I'd already obtained the only figure I was especially interested in), TFNation 2016 pretty much allowed a couple of their vendors to carry the exclusives, rather than having any of their own in their inaugural year (it didn't take long for them to get proper show exclusives, though).

Since I try to make a point of supporting exclusive merchandise, there were a couple of things I picked up at TFNation, one of which was this G1/Masterpiece Soundwave-compatible cassetticon, originally created by Keith's Fantasy Club as Stinger, packaged with Doubledeck, their homage to G1 Twincast. This exclusive marks the first time it's been made available on its own.

MAAS Toys/TFNation CT001TFN Rune

(Femme-Bot Friday #43)

One of the best things about BotCon - the TransFormers convention I never managed to attend over its 11 year history of being operated by Fun Publications, let alone its earlier days, when I wasn't even aware of its existance - was the range of exclusives they made available. Starting out with one or two small ones, and developing into their lavish boxed sets. Some have been contentious, some have been mediocre, some have been awesome, but all of them got the attention of the fandom.

As someone who attends conventions for the merchandise more than the panels or the 'community' aspect, event exclusives are especially piquant, so I've made a point of encouraging everything from badges and clothing to toys whenever I've given feedback on a UK show, and I'm clearly not alone... Because TFNation have really delivered, in only their second year, partnering up with MAAS Toys to create an event exclusive version of their first model, Skiff (aka G1 Cybertronian Bumblebee) as a new take on a BotCon exclusive toy from 2002, Glyph (itself a repaint of the G1 Bumblebee toy).

Make sense? OK, let's take a closer look...

TFNation 2017 Round-up & Haul

I'm not going to split this into two parts, as per last year, simply because TFNation 2017 felt more like one experience split over two days, rather than the one horrendous day and one slightly better day I had last time (for reasons which had little or nothing to do with TFNation itself). It's also far more convenient, as I don't have to remember and write about things in any particular order.

Because I'm Nothing If Not Capricious...

...I'm going to be heading to TFNation again this year.

Except I'm not just being capricious - despite my misgivings about last year's event, I did enjoy some of it and said at the time that I would go again if there was a particularly interesting guest. Unfortunately, by the time Venus Terzo (the voice of Blackarachnia in Beast Wars/Beast Machines) was announced, there didn't seem to be any rooms available at the convention hotel. Well, it was either that, or I spent a few more weeks procrastinating before trying to book... Probably the latter, now I think about it.

I spent a short while trying to find an alternative hotel nearby and, at that point, failed miserably... But a second attempt, more recently, netted a better result. So, I'll not be staying at the convention hotel, but I will be staying nearby. The short walk between venues shouldn't pose a problem... and hopefully my hotel this year will be easier to locate in the dark..?

To be honest, I'm not expecting much improvement on the setup of last year's - the MCM London Comic Con has been going on for over ten years now, and getting in is no better (just different) each time, so I've no reason to expect a much smaller event like this will develop any better - but there's no Roll Out Roll Call this year, so I figured I may as well give it a second try.

I'll be going on my own again, as my girlfriend wasn't keen to come, so I may end up giving the evening's entertainment a miss, or just go for the script reading... I'll probably make up my mind on the day.

In other news, my birthday netted me only one new TransFormer - RiD2015 Fracture, from my sister - because I'd asked my folks to steer clear of my 'Plastic Crack' wish list due to lack of space. I'm getting very much behind in my write-ups of new stuff while I try to plough through some of my existing drafts (less than 60 to go)... and, unfortunately, won't have much time for photography this weekend, or anything next weekend, as we're having a short holiday over the last week of June. Bit of a shame, as I actually did quite a few posts in May, but there we go. There's more to life than toy blogging.

TFNation 2016 - Day 2 & Toy Haul

Sunday got off to a better start despite not sleeping especially well again, but at least I didn't have another anxiety dream to ruin my day. I didn't bother with breakfast that day as I wasn't feeling at all hungry, but equally didn't make a beeline for the day's only purchase - the two-pack of DX9's War In Pocket G1/TransFormers: The Movie homages Leah and Toufold (aka mini-Arcee and mini-Kup). In fact, I ended up taking a walk around the hotel grounds and the nearby lake before even heading in to the main hall. After that, and having checked the day's scheduled panels, I decided to deal with checking out of teh hotel straight away, rather than risk missing the noon deadline sitting in one of the halls or wandering around the retail area.

TFNation 2016 - Day 1 & Toy Haul

The first indication I had that there was such a thing as TFNation was a somewhat cryptic business card-sized card on a table at Roll Out Roll Call. At first, I didn't even look into it and, had I known it was a convention rather than, say, a webstore selling TransFormers toys (which had been my initial assumption) I probably wouldn't have bothered with it. If I'd been told it was happening in Birmingham, specifically at one of the hotels in the NEC complex, I wouldn't have been keen because getting there would involved a train journey (I have terrible luck on trains - the first time I go anywhere is invariably a disaster) and paying for accommodation (albeit simplified as TFNation had made a deal for much-reduced rates with the hotel that was hosting the event).

In the end, I only properly found out about TFNation because of a posting on DaimChoc Reports' Facebook timeline, about Mastermind Creations' event-exclusive boxed set release of what had previously been an April Fool in their Reformatted line, Feral Queen, and its partner figure/repaint Nero Queen. It was created for a Canadian TransFormers convention but was also being brought to the UK - and TFNation - by Kapow Toys.

TFNation 2016 Waffle

This is not the full and proper summing up post (which will likely be split into two days again, as with Roll Out Roll Call) for a whole collection of reasons. I got back from TFNation yesterday evening after my train was cancelled and I had to take a later one. I'd slept very poorly over the weekend due - somewhat embarrassingly - to some very bad dreams, so I was basically exhausted the whole time anyway (Saturday in particular was a Very Bad Day for me) and, even now, feel in need of a weekend to recover (and not in the good way). Basically, I'm not yet in a frame of mind where I can look at my notes objectively and come up with a decent post.

Briefly, though, I bought some stuff, I enjoyed some stuff, and I'll write about it soon. Maybe even this coming Bank Holiday weekend...

In the meantime:

The Day 1 Haul in its meagre entirety.
Day 2 added only the DX9 War In Pocket Leah/Toufold set

One Clearly Wasn't Enough...

...Because, with Roll Out Roll Call out of the way, I've now registered myself for TFNation, at AutoAssembly's old digs in the Birmingham Hilton Metropole, at the NEC.

I know I've previously stated that the schlep up to Birmingham or down to Southampton by train wasn't especially appealing to me, and that honestly hasn't changed. The only times I managed to attend AutoAssembly, I was driven up and back by car.

RORC was a lot of fun, though... and, having made the effort to attend, I decided I'd aim to attend again next year. TFNation had some advertising cards at RORC, but they weren't exactly going out of their way to advertise, and I only really started looking into it this week. There are two reasons I'm making the effort to attend a second TransFormers convention this year (and only a few weeks after the first!):

1. My girlfriend is taking a short holiday, visiting a friend in Munich, so I'd be on my own that weekend anyway
2. I've been thoroughly seduced by a couple of ladies who will be there

They are, in fact, event exclusives. They made their debut at TFCon in Canada, and are making their way over to TFNation. Kapow Toys are/were taking reservations (that is, the "last chance" was announced on 17th... not clear when that last chance actually expires) for collection at the show at the very reasonable price of £80 and, while they reckon that any left over after the show will be put up on their website, I'm less inclined to take the chance that any will be left over considering the scarcity of the previous show exclusives.

The only potential problem is that it's occurring at the end of a particularly busy week at work, and one of my colleagues is leaving on the Thursday. It shouldn't affect my ability to get there (I've booked a train a couple of hours after I should have left the office), but equally I don't have the best track record when it comes to travelling by train: the first time I go anywhere tends to be problematic due to a variety of public transport reasons.

Still, that's another couple of gorgeous Femme-Bots to look forward to...