Repaint hell continues with MP-11S Sunstorm and MP-12T Tigertrack!!

Slap me for ever saying I would not get into Takara repaints, because I am pretty much now Takara's bitch on anything and everything Masterpiece related!! I recently did the reviews on the black repaints for MP-9B Black Rodimus Convoy and MP-10B Black Convoy. Both look pretty damn sweet, but I wasn't totally convinced these yellow repaints would live up to that. All I can say now is, man these are pretty damn AWESOME too!!!

MP-11S Sunstorm

MP-11S comes in the usual black matte finish box expected of the Takara Masterpiece figures, and is pretty much identical to the MP-11 Starscream release. As always, I love the box art.

MP-11S does come with a repainted version of the coronation gear that came with Starscream, this time with a purple crown and more pearlescent paint app on the cape. All in all it looks nice enough, but I don't think many collectors will display Sunstorm in this garb.

Inside the box is the usual clamshell holding the contents, and he comes in robot mode. As with MP-10B, I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the paint app is on the figure! The original MP-11 is quite plasticky, with lots of grey and red plastic and little paint. However, on MP-11S, Takara have done a very nice paint app to get different shades of yellow, orange, white, and greys that are painted. It gives the figure a little extra quality to make it stand out a bit and have some more shelf presence. It also comes with a nice chromed pilot instead of the transparent blue plastic pilot of Starscream.

The alt mode is beautiful, and really shows off the paint app to great effect on the wings and rear. I love the flaming accents too. Getting the MP-11 mold to transform between modes as always troubled me, and this was no exception. Pushing the legs into the hip area to form the jet mode was particularly frustrating, bordering on me thinking I was either going to break something or have to leave it in robot mode. Fortunately they finally gave way and I was able to complete the transformation. I think I'll definitely be keeping this one in alt mode for a while.

All in all, I think this is a great repaint, and definitely looks better in hand than in pics. For a quick video review, check out the Kool Kollectibles channel review linked below! :)

MP-12T Tigertrack

Takara must have paid a bucket load for the Lamborghini license, and this repaint is a further attempt to recoup that cost! But the MP-12 mold is just so awesome, I'll probably end up getting the MP-12G G2 Sideswipe repaint too!

The Tigertrack release is the first time Takara goes with a monochrome concept for the box art, which I have no idea why. But it's done in a nice glossy finish unlike their usual matte black finish, so all in all it still looks pretty nice. 

They deviate again from the norm on the back of the box, this time just showing a silhouette of the figure instead of a photo of the actual figure.

Inside, as always, it's packed in the clamshell, and this time it comes with glossy black piledriver versions of the chromed Amazon Japan exclusive piledrivers for Sideswipe. I thought that was a nice touch. The shoulder launcher also breaks up the plain white of Sideswipe's with nice glossy black paint on the base that connects to the shoulder.

Also notice that it does not come with tamped on Autobot insignia, but has a couple of stickers you can add. I for one actually like that they gave us the option, and I'll definitely be leaving mine without any stickers. The plain look makes for a great alt mode.

The alt mode is as awesome as it always was with Sideswipe and Red Alert. I love that the front doesn't have the Autobot symbol, and it just looks like a bad ass Lamborghini model instead.

Having all three current Lambors together just shows how awesome the mold is, and just makes me want the three Nissans more (can't wait for Dec to come so RK can hurry up and ship me my order of all three!!).

The paint app overall is probably an improvement over the original Sideswipe and Red Alert releases, with minimal slop. It doesn't have the same pop value that MP-11S or MP-10B have, but still even in robot mode it looks pretty amazing. I do like the little blue accents on the feet, and the overall look combined with the poseability just make this one awesome figure to have!

So again, this is another repaint that Takara have knocked out of the park. Now I'm just praying that they do a proper MP Sunstreaker while they have the Lamborghini license! There'll need to be engineering changes to make that a reality, so hopefully the incredible Takara designers are hard at work making that happen!

For a quick video review of Tigertrack, check out the Kool Kollectibles channel video linked below! Hope you can subscribe, like, and comment to let me know your thoughts too! :)