Stickering a Transformer returns me to the 80s when nearly every figure came with a set. Since then I’ve used them to restore toys to shop-bought status, replace missing detail on newer figures, and have enhanced those that deserve it, But this week I explored new territory: using them to change a toy…
Stickers are a wonderful concept: decorating toys with little pieces of artwork, from simple colour blocks to painted scenery, enhances the visual appeal and sets fire to fertile imaginations. With Transformers particularly they helped sell the machine concept hiding within the bare plastic and (back then) die-cast metal. Replicating such detail with paint is more expensive and beyond a certain level of complexity would push retail toy price points beyond the reach of mere mortals (One of many reasons Third Party Collector-Grade toys are so expensive). But yeah, what if stickers could do more than that? What if they could alter a characters’ entire identity?
Enter Power of the Primes (POTP) Inferno! Or more accurately, “Exit”…
I purchased Inferno for a visual joke idea that had been burning in the dark regions of my brain for years; I had little interest in the toy beyond that. POTP Inferno is one of Hasbro’s ‘thin slice’ repaints of a mold designed specifically for another character, where the mold clearly designed for certain characters (in this case Hot Spot from the Protectobot team and also Onslaught from the Combaticons) only bears a passing resemblance to the new character being invoked (See: Titans Return Quickswitch for an especially egregious example of this phenomenon). So what to do with this toy in the aftermath of my hilarious genius? Sell it on? Relegate it to the darkest recesses of my toyboxes, with the rest of the forgotten ash? Fate had other ideas….
Browsing Toyhax one night I chanced across a set that transformed him into G2 Pyro and suddenly Inferno’s fate was sealed! Step into the fires of re-creation, my friend, and prepare to be Reformatted!
G2 Pyro is one of those figures I’ve never owned but always wanted to. Sadly, the original toy is plagued by Gold Plastic Syndrome (GPS), a form of extreme material decay unique to this type of plastic that resulted every toy using it becoming astonishingly brittle within a decade (#GlassGas #Cliffjumper) often literally crumbling to fragments in collectors’ hands at the slightest tension or manipulation (It has happened to me and it is heartbreaking). GPS has wrought carnage on several of those old characters but Pyro is particularly badly afflicted meaning finding an intact original toy became virtually impossible, and definitely well beyond my limited budget.
Compounding this scarcity, he’s one of those fringe characters Hasbro itself has not revisited since, not even in 13 years of the Generations toyline. Tsk.
But through the magic of painted slivers of sticky paper Toyhax smashes into the smoke-filled building and pulls off a miracle rescue! The stickers arrived early this week so I’ve been slowly applying them through a number of sessions (there being quite a lot of them and many being scarily small and fiddly). You can see the wonderful results pictured here:
What a startling and dramatic difference! Ignoring the slightly muted filter I’ve used on the original photo (Left; the newer photo on the right is unfiltered) you can immediately see huge changes. Pyro has much more colour, life and detail than Inferno who now looks rather drab. Hardly surprising as his sticker count in these images alone has risen from 6 to 50! The vehicle form has changed significantly too, the stickers bringing back that almost wasp-like yellow and black striped rear-end Pyro is famous for:
I could talk all day about the changes. But suffice to say I personally think this has been a very successful exercise. From tired not-quite character to return of a beloved and sorely-missed obscurity. I also want to add that applying this many stickers is not easy. Some of them are particularly tiny which introduces risk just getting them off the sticker sheet intact. I actually taught myself a couple of new tips for tweezer use during this exercise. I can’t say I’ve done them all correctly either. But as hard as it was it was immensely rewarding and made me grin more than once. And that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day, really, isn’t it? Enjoying the hobby you love. <3
Please enjoy the rest of the photos, and I’ll see you again here soon.
~R0B0_G0D~
[DISCLAIMER] I do not receive payment or benefit of any form from Toyhax, nor anyone affiliated with them, nor do I have any reason to endorse them beyond my personal satisfaction with their product.
