Zobovor's Updates Log (2002)
I'm always making little changes here and there to the site that won't
merit a mention in the updates log, but anything new that I've added to the
site can be found here. Keep in mind that some links on this page will
no longer work as the site continues to evolve. Always start from the
home page to find the most recent links!
(10/25/2002)
KITBASHES:
-
Two projects which I finished a few months ago (but couldn't photograph
since the monitor had gone wonky) are now online. One
is a repaint and slight custom modification to the
original Red Alert
toy, now looking more like his cartoon appearance. The other
project involved
repainting Rumble
and Frenzy into their cartoon likenesses. (Which
one is which, now? Heck if I know. Just click
the link.)
(10/24/2002)
Downloaded and installed a new monitor driver, so everything's
hunky-dorky once again. I'll have some new stuff uploaded eventually.
Looks like some parts of the site have gone offline again... no
idea when I'll get a chance to address that. (I really hate
battling entropy, folks.)
In the meantime, here's a
Wheeljack o'
lantern. Carved it myself.
(8/31/2002)
I'm having some really bad luck with the computer monitor of late.
The brightness settings are all wonked up now, which means I won't
be able to do any image editing until I figure out what's wrong. (How
does this affect the site? No new kitbash images for a while,
basically. There's other stuff I can't do, either, but I
wouldn't have gotten around to doing it anyhoo.)
SCAVENGER
HUNT:
-
The hunt is over, but nobody won. I guess I just made
this thing too darned difficult. I'll be doing another contest
fairly soon, but in the meantime, the correct answers have been added
to the page.
TOYS:
-
My trade list has been updated and added to the site once more.
Almost all my extra G1 accessories are on the page now, so come
have a look and see if anything strikes your fancy. (I really
want accessories for my Sideswipe and Red Alert toys. Come
make me an offer.)
(8/4/2002)
KITBASHES:
-
Added my
Superion
kitbash. In the likeness of his cartoon self,
of course.
(7/27/2002)
At last, the first official update since we moved into
the new house. My primary motivation was to get something
uploaded for BotCon weekend, since I wanted to make things
fun for those who aren't attending this year.
SCAVENGER HUNT:
-
To commemorate 100,000 visitors to the ZMFTS, I'm having a contest that combines
my love of Transformers-related obscuria with your love of winning really
neat limited-edition prizes. (No, I'm afraid this contest has nothing
to do with Scavenger himself, no matter how much I wanted to somehow
arrange otherwise.)
ESSAYS:
INTERVIEWS:
-
I recently completed an interview with the
talented Floro
Dery, who was the visual designer for the first and early second
season of The Transformers, as well as the visual concept designer
for The Transformers: the Movie. Come see what he had to
say about his work on the series and film!
KITBASHES:
-
As before, I once again undertook the task of
creating this year's exclusive toys
for CybCon
2002. Twenty toys were involved this time, getting not
just the repaint treatment but some kitbashing
work as well, along with custom-designed packaging, inserts,
and collector cards. I'm very proud of these.
-
Remember the kitbash of
R2-D2
I did, intended to resemble his appearance in the Droids cartoon?
(What am I saying? Of course you do.) Well,
now I've got a Droids version of
C-3PO
to go along with it. Check it out!
-
I've also been hunting down some of the model kits I had as
a kid. I've got one page up now which features the
C-3PO
and R2-D2 model kits made by MPC. I only built 'em and
painted 'em, but I'm still proud of 'em. (V.I.N.CENT. from The
Black Hole is coming too, but he broke in the move, so
I have to fix him first.)
-
I've been doing some silly little projects that don't really have
anything to do with anything, but I still wanted to put them on
the site. One of them is an
Orko
eraser that I painted to match his cartoon appearance
from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I
also painted the Powerpuff Girls
Mojo
Jojo toy from the Subway restaurants promotion they did
a couple of years ago. Finally, I did an Imperial astromech
droid named
R4-I9.
who may or may not have appeared in the Star Wars
trilogy. Points if you recognize where I got
the idea for the diorama from.
(5/28/2002)
We're moving into a bigger apartment house, so I've
been spending most of my time packing everything up. Fun?
No, not in the least, but thanks for
asking! I've been thinking about uploading a few recent projects
to the site before we move, but don't hold your breath.
At least I fixed the monitor problems I was having. The computer
screen had developed this weird purple tint, and I couldn't do
any of my photomanipulation on the computer because the colors would look
wrong on everyone else's system. At first I thought the monitor
needed to be replaced, but actually it just... uh, wasn't
plugged in all the way. Heh.
(4/1/2002) This was the April Fool's Day
update.
I'm working on another batch of fun things, but none
of them are ready yet. I did upload a review of the
G1 Predacon knockoffs, mainly
in the hopes that someone else has found the ones
I'm missing. (And yeah, I know what
day it is, but I'm not about to let that
get in the way of a site update.)
This was an April Fool's Day prank.
(3/24/2002)
ENCYCLOPEDIA:
KITBASHES:
-
Finished
my Hi-Q
kitbash, designed in the likeness of his late comics
appearances and made to scale with my Neo-Knights toys.
-
Also put together a
Droids
R2-D2 kitbash, representing the lovable little droid
as depicted in the short-lived cartoon series.
(3/13/2002)
KITBASHES:
-
Added my
Negaduck
repaint, created from an extra Darkwing Duck figure.
There are a couple of repainted Darkwing PVCs on this page,
too. (That link didn't work at first, but it will now.)
(3/11/2002)
ART:
-
Just for fun, I came up with a concept design for two RiD
Predacon Spychanger
toys, namely Sky-Byte and Megatron. I hereby rescind all rights
to the idea if Hasbro wants to turn these into actual toys. No, really.
Go right ahead, guys.
(3/5/2002)
INTERVIEWS:
-
Recently I had the pleasure of communicating with
Douglas
Booth, one of the many writers who helped to bring the original
Transformers cartoon to life. He shared with me some of
his recollections about working on the series, and
the specific scripts he contributed to the show.
KITBASHES:
(3/3/2002)
Wow, these mini-updates give me a lot more freedom when
working on the site. I'm liking this.
KITBASHES:
(3/2/2002)
A small update today. We're changing the game plan slightly; I
think I'm going to go back to the tiny little updates here and there
instead of preparing enough content to do the whopping big updates.
I think the huge chunks are just too much for people
to digest, which results in less feedback, and me sitting here
wondering how I can get 500 hits in two days, but have maybe five people
offer feedback. It baffles me.
Oh, and GeoCities is cancelling their free FTP service in April.
Whee.
Consider this the annual birthday update, even though it's a few days
early. Feel free to donate PVCs, Autobot Brother repaints, a digicam
with a macro feature... whatever strikes your fancy.
KITBASHES:
-
Finished a couple of Transfomrers projects I've been working on (and off)
for a while. One is a
Pretender Grimlock
repaint, looking much more attractive and show-accurate. The
other is a
Pretender
Jazz kitbash, with a new paint job and some heavy customization
to improve his transformation and overall appearance.
-
Also finished three more TMNT projects: a
Slash
kitbash, a redone version of the evil turtle from Dimension X; a
Metalhead
custom, looking much more
like his cartoon appearance; and a
General
Traag kitbash, in which I got rid of all those creatures crawling
on him and gave him a more authentic paint job. Up
next, probably, is a completely new Baxter Stockman.
-
Finally, I re-uploaded my
Circuit
Breaker kitbash, which has been offline for a little while, now with
a fairly decent-looking digicam shot. I'll restore the other Neo-Knights
pages soon.
(1/1/2002) (2/14/2002)
Update now online. Rejoyce! Rejoyce! Paint, pant,
pant. Going to take a nap.
ART:
-
Very Big Project #1 (Continued). I'm
still busy cranking out those character portraits for ViceGripX's
fanfic-in-progress,
"Masters of
Fate." He's got a bunch of profiles online now that feature
my illustrations. Check 'em out!
-
I also put together some illustrations for another one
of ViceGripX's projects. Ever wonder what would happen
if you crossed Transformers with Survivor?
Enter:
TranSurvivor!
BLOOPERS:
-
After many months of being offline, the
Transformers Cartoon
Bloopers page and the
Transformers
Comics Bloopers page are finally restored! I also added
several new episodes to the Cartoon Bloopers page, namely
"Forever
is a Long Time Coming,"
"Starscream's
Ghost,"
"Thief
in the Night,"
"Surprise
Party,"
"Madman's
Paradise,"
"Nightmare
Planet," and
"Ghost
in the Machine."
-
Very Big Project #2. Created the
Transformers Syndication
Edits page (around 200KB), which documents the edits made
when the original series aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, as well as the alterations
made to the fifth-season and Generation 2 versions
(and the mistakes that resulted, of course). If you think
you've seen the full, unabridged story from those episodes you
just downloaded or those tapes you bought off eBay, think again!
ESSAYS:
-
My essays are back online, including a newer one entitled
Unicron:
Character or Plot Device? exploring Unicron's function in
the Transformers mythos, and whether he was an
effective character or just an advertisement for a toy that was
never produced.
FANFICS:
-
Book
Three of the continuing epic,
Children
of Cybertron, is finished! In this installment: Decepticons
who break the law, Autobots with broken hearts, and Optimus Prime--just plain
broken! (The past installments of the series are also back online.
If you're just discovering this epic tale, be sure to catch up on what
you missed, 'coz it only gets deeper from here!)
-
Just for fun, I put together
"Second Best,"
an Ultra Magnus story that shows how G1 and RiD might be tied together.
-
Also, a while back I wrote a fairly naughty story
starring Carly and Hound, called
"A
Special Touch." Not for the very young or very prudish. (I
had previously provided links to the stories via
Google, but here they are on my own web space finally.)
-
I got rid of the links to stories by other authors since I was
having a hard time keeping the links current. It's easier to show my
appreciation to the authors by e-mailing them to let them know that
I like their stories, and voting for them in the Trannies.
KITBASHES:
-
Very Big Project #3.
The
Scavenger Project involved repainting ten of the Beast Machines
Scavenger toys into G1 Scavenger colors as toy exclusives for CybCon 2001.
(I completed this project some time ago, and ViceGripX has a very
nice page dedicated to the toys, but I didn't get around
to creating my own page to showcase the project until recently.)
-
I'm thinking this year is going to be another good year for
TMNT kitbashes.
I've been working on a bunch of Turtles projects lately with no end in sight!
The first is
Usagi
Yojimbo, made from the original toy but far closer to his appearance
in the cartoon show. Next comes
Leatherhead,
who I had to construct using various other toys because the official
version was far too puny. Finally, we have the
Fugitoid, now much
closer to his comic book appearance.
-
This is not to say I've given up on Transformers projects,
of course. Recently, I repainted my original
Optimus
Prime and
Megatron
toys into their respective cartoon likeness. Megatron's even got
some snazzy custom stickers!
-
Speaking of stickers, I also created a set of
Robots in Disguise
labels. The set mostly consists of license plates for the toys,
but also includes unique cartoon-based stickers for Mega-Octane and Skid-Z!
-
Finally, brought all the links to the kitbashing page up
to date. Wow, I was really falling behind there for
a while, wasn't I?
LINKS:
-
Reorganized the page and added a few links to Transformers web sites which
I consider to be significant contributions to the fandom. (I'm a bit
embarassed that I didn't put these here sooner.) Also brought all
the old links up to date.
MISCELLANY:
-
This is a new page which combines most of the files from the Static Image
Theatre with the Hall of Records, but also incorporates all the odds
and ends that I've uploaded but never linked to from any part of the site.
-
The first new additions to this page are scans from
The Story
of Wheelie: The Wild Boy of Quintesson story book. I'd originally
picked it up for a friend who is a major Wheelie fan, but it's such a rich
source of campy humor that I simply had to share it here as well.
POP
CULTURE:
-
The page is back online with a small update, including new screen shots
of the CGI "Mech-Animals" satire from The Powerpuff Girls
and the "Trans Farmers" toys from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
SOUNDS:
-
The
ZMFTS Sounds Page
is back online with new Transformers toy sounds from Robots in
Disguise Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, and 1-2-3 Transformers
Rescue Roy, Charlie Chopper, and Policeman Pete.
SYNOPSES:
TOYS:
-
Very Big Project #4. The
Transformers
Knockoff Toys Archive is born! We're talking about an
informational file over 100KB in size, documenting over 200 separate
knockoff toys! Note that I have not added the image links,
but will include those in a future update. (Probably
when I find a new free web space provider. Uploading is a
real bitch when 20megsfree.com doesn't provide free FTP access.)
-
Created the Toys sub-page to house the
Knockoffs
Archive and the Toy Reviews. Pictures
of my collections will also go here if I ever get around to uploading them.
SITE:
-
The redirect address for this site has expired, so
http://zobovor.zmfts.com will
no longer point to the home page. If necessary, please adjust
your bookmarks to reflect the home page address:
http://members.aol.com/zobovor/index.html.
-
Several of my sub-pages went down late last year because of the cancellation
of several different free web space providers (NBCi, Webjump, and 9ug.com,
to be exact). For the moment, the catalog gaffes page and the
die-cast repaints are still offline, but I'll be restoring them
at some point later.
-
Also, for the first time since the site's inception, some sub-pages have
been removed. These include the "Lost" Archives, the Many Faces of
Prime/Megatron, and the Wacky Shelf Tags.
Well, I hope you've enjoyed this update. I'm always working
on both old and new projects, so check back here in a
couple of months. Feedback is always appreciated. (Well,
as long as it's the good kind.)
(1/1/2002)
Happy new year! There is an update coming, but it may be a day or two. Stuff
like Christmas shopping, decorating, and wrapping tends to take precedence
over web updates, alas. (Then of course there are my insane zombie children,
who tend to stay up later than I do...)
One of the problems I'm having is that the site is getting too large for
me to effectively manage. I've been adding things to it for three years,
and almost never get rid of individual sub-pages, so you can imagine how
extensive it's become. This is also one of the reasons why I haven't really
been motivated to restore the older parts of the site that went down a few
months ago; given a choice, I'd rather focus on the new stuff.
