How Sorceress wings/arms could have been fixed

[Jun-Yor]

What if she had a cape sculpt using materials like DCUC's Mantis figure? It attaches at the arms, and the wings can anchor at the back piece and he had FULL arm movement with posing similar to Sorceress. Either that or removable wing parts at various states of wingspan (0, 45, and 90 degrees) like an import toy would do.

How do you give movement to a plastic cape? It's tough. Either wings sculpted for various posing has to be made OR cloth, and sadly they won't do cloth (with feathers it may be aesthetically tough).

Whatever happens, keep the feathers orange in front :-)

[DJ Force]

As for the whole issue with the wings. The issue could have easily been resolved! The issue here is money! Which could easily been available if Scott would stop having so much for MOTUC in one month! Having 1 monthly, 1 bonus, and one either beast or Large scale figure a month is a bit much! And on top of that, the subs for Ghostbusters, DC Universe, Voltron. Maybe if they would have their products available on different days with in the month. Spread it out. Things would be a bit better. But Scott refuses to listen when it comes to that! I liked it when it was at most $60 a month. Now it's going to be about $150 on some months. It hurts on some months!

Umm, what has that got to do with this issue?

[Morningstar]

Why Sorceress couldn't have the same engineering in her wings like SW has in her cape?????????????

Is the same, only longer and with feathers sculpted.

[Captain Atkin]

I actually think the easiest solution for this figure would have been to ditch the action feature, and given her two separate sets of wings for display purposes. One set of wings would be in the "up" position, with one single plug to connect to the back of the figure. The second set of wings could be in the "down" position (ie: cape mode) with a plug to connect to her back. I feel like everyone got carried away with trying to give her an action feature, and yet, at the begining of MOTUC they said figures wouldn't have action features. Looking at how the Sorceress turned out, I think two separate sets of wings would have been the better solution.

[oulala]

Why Sorceress couldn't have the same engineering in her wings like SW has in her cape?????????????

Is the same, only longer and with feathers sculpted.

I think the reason why they gave us those wings is... Because of Emiliano!!! I mean, we're all aware that Mattel looks at what we say here. They really listen. They KNEW, because we are pretty vocal about it, that Emiliano's designs for She-ra, Shadow Weaver and Sorceress received a lot of fan appraisal.

So had they gone your route and made a plastic cape à la Shadow Weaver, EVERYONE would have complained and beyatched about how Emiliano's design was better, how articulated wings would have been so great etc. etc.

So they tried hard. Hell, all this engineering and different wing parts must have cost a lot more than a one piece rubbery plastic cape. But unfortunately, it didn't turn up that good.

Now that we've seen Shadow Weaver, and how she works very well, it's easy to say 'Why couldn't they just DO the exact same for the Sorceress'? That is a little cruel in a way since they really did that to try to please us. Call me a Matty Apologist if you will, but I sort of appreciate the gesture. Even if the Sorceress has issues, I like the fact that they LISTENED, and they TRIED.

This said, I wonder if there is enough time to fix the Temple of Darkness Sorceress and give her that same Shadow Weaver type cape? Prob. not...

[Emiliano]

I think the reason why they gave us those wings is... Because of Emiliano!!! I mean, we're all aware that Mattel looks at what we say here. They really listen. They KNEW, because we are pretty vocal about it, that Emiliano's designs for She-ra, Shadow Weaver and Sorceress received a lot of fan appraisal.

So had they gone your route and made a plastic cape à la Shadow Weaver, EVERYONE would have complained and beyatched about how Emiliano's design was better, how articulated wings would have been so great etc. etc.

I hardly think that's the case.
Mattel never looked at any of my drawings for inspiration, never.
It has always been the 4H doing that, not Mattel, and they didn't to it jsut please fans, they did it because it was a good way to articulate Sorceress wings
Yes, still better than Shadow Weaver's cape, for the simple reason that SW's one is indeed a cape, Sorceress cape are feathers and feathers fold down and up like a fan. So they can't really work the same way.

So, the 4H just went for what seemed logic. They exectuted it right. Then Mattel dind't understand how they were supposed to work and completely change the engineering, only to discover what the concept was about and try to make a little fix later. But that wasn't enough. Time and money spent on developing the new solution for the shoulders -which is the wrong solution- should have been spent in trying to come up with a solution similart to the one I posted a couple days ago.
That would have solved the issue and kept the drums much smaller and much less of an eyesore.

[marndt8448]

Still, I may grab an extra Sorceress sometime to fiddle with myself.

That doesn't sound right at all....

[oulala]

I hardly think that's the case.
Mattel never looked at any of my drawings for inspiration, never.
It was always the 4H doing that, not Mattel, and they didn't to please fans, they did it because it was a good wayt to articulate Sorceress wings.
Yes, still better than Shadow Weaver's cape, for the simple reason that SW's one is indeed a cape, Sorcres cape are feathers and feathers fold down and up like a fan. So they can't really work the same way.

So, the 4H just went for what seemed logic. They exectuted it right. Then Mattel dind't understand how they were supposed to work and completely change the engineering, only to discover what the concept was about and try to make a little fix later. But that wasn't enough. Time and money spent on developing the new solution for the shoulders -which is the wrong solution- should have been spent in trying to come up with a solution similart to the one I posted a couple days ago.
That would have solved the issue and kept the drums much smaller and much less of an eyesore.

Well, what I mean is that they could have just been lazy like with Swift Wind, and just put two immovable wings with a ball joint, stick them in the back of the sorceress, and voilà! That would have been the cheap, easy way, and it would have cost less engineering.

All I was saying is that at least, they tried something different and kinda cool. Pity it created a lot of problems, since I think the whole intention of having her wings popping open by themselves is really cool.

[Son of Keldor]

i'll be doing that fix w/ my extra sorceress.


ingenius!!!

=)

[CicconeSC]

Well I hope a Sorceress 2.0 comes out with the wings Emiliano has drawn or something similar, we need a Sorceress without the gun barrels sticking out from her shoulders.

I would hope they do Sorceress 2.0 and add something extra like a spell casting hand and a cauldron and keep the colors but call her "Spell Casting Sorceress" or something. I know this is very filmation for the current release, but perhaps Sorceress 2.0 could be called "Filmation Sorceress". Would love the same colors and body, but spell casting hand and a change in the wings like Emiliano's ides, because that idea worked with Shadow Weaver very well.

[Morningstar]

The problem with a sorceress 2.0 is that i really like the body to be exactly the same (maybe an opend hand and the inside of the feathers all orange). I don't want a variation Sorceress to have better wings than the original.

[mekaneckpain]

So here it is...

http://thefwoosh.com/wp-content/uplo...g-movement.jpg

Wow, is that ever lame. Emiliano's solution is absolutely brilliant by comparison.

That looks so awful.

[CicconeSC]

Maybe I'm gonna do a complete fool of myself, but the latest pics of Sorceress, confirming fans' nightmares abourt her wings/arms, convinced me I had to explore what could have been a better solution for her arms.
Just to be clear, this is not fan art, but I'm using my original fan design to explain how the engeneering of her arms could have been exectuted to preserv full range of arms movement and no awkyard positions for the wings.

The original idea (see my albums in the signature) was to have a small hinge (those with a tiny metal bar inside) connecting the top portion of the wings to the upper arm piece. Those kind of hinges you see on many transfomers panels. But while this is a joke for Takara and Hasbro, I can't remeber seeing much of these on Mattel toys (I may be wrong though). Plus, the 4H made me notice that has to be ABS plastic to work, and usually upper arms are molder plastic.

The 4H had just glued the wing to the upper arm with a almost 45° angle, but stuck in that position, still better than what we got, but maybe there was a even better solution

Okay, so the point was to replace that tiny hinge with some sort of rotating articulation that could allow all positioning of the wings while preserving the same "fan" contruction that opens thanks to gravity when the arms are rised.
The solution could have been making the upper arm a rotating drum that house two pegs from the shoulder piece (this time with a flat cut) and from a separated ellbow piece
The upper part of the wing and dis middle-arm piece are one solid piece. The wing is not coming straight from the center axis of the arm, but is more on a tangent (as shown in the section below).
I think there might be some size issue since the arm is so tiny, but I don't think this is impossible. And it would have allowed full range of movement for the arm, whileallowing fans to keep the wings in a much better pose all the time by simply adjusting the rotating middle arm portion.

http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/...9&d=1326298244

Emiliano have you been contacted by Mattel at all about this type of design since all of the complaints have occurred?

I don't understand how the prototypes can vary so much from the produced figures. Not all of them are like this, but when they do have a figure come out of production looking so unlike the prototype you would think they would change it before starting the whole production. I have NO idea what Terry and Scott were thinking on this Sorceress wing situation.

If they had just thought of a couple of ways, they would have thought of Shadow Weaver and then sooner or later came up with a concept like yours.

The problem with a sorceress 2.0 is that i really like the body to be exactly the same (maybe an opend hand and the inside of the feathers all orange). I don't want a variation Sorceress to have better wings than the original.

Morningstar I would like something exactly like the Sorceress we have in February but with updated wing articulation (like Emiliano's idea or something that is not so noticeable or bulky and allows her hands to go forward all the way. If that means that everything stays the same except change the BG Teela crotch so the leg isn't dented and also change the inside wings all orange. They can release her as Sorceress 2.0 (Filmation Sorceress). Then her wings will be fixed for variants of the Sorceress.

[Emiliano]

Emiliano have you been contacted by Mattel at all about this type of design since all of the complaints have occurred?

Nope. I don't work for Mattel so they have no reasons to contact me at the moment.

I don't understand how the prototypes can vary so much from the produced figures. Not all of them are like this, but when they do have a figure come out of production looking so unlike the prototype you would think they would change it before starting the whole production.

Lots of reasons: there are different safety stantards for each company for example: Mattel's ones force them to have bigger pegs for articulations. The prototypes are hand casted, handpainted piece of uretane. The finished figures are plastic pieces obtained by injecting plastic in steel molds obtained electronically pantographing the prototype and carved the shapes into the mold with a computer controlled milling machine. Then colored by hand by spraying or brushing the colors using metal masks.

Stuff like the thickness of the parts needs to be revised according to the plastic used, the internal engineering of bodies needs to be created from scratch as the original sculpt is just a solid piece, while MOTUC torso are hollow parts that need to contain and holds pegs etc.

I have NO idea what Terry and Scott were thinking on this Sorceress wing situation.

I don't think Scott has anything to do with this. Scott Neitlich is not part of the design team, so he doesn't work on the engeneering of the figures.
I think the whole problem, judging by my conversations with Terry, is that there was a misunderstand on why the articualtion of the wings had been created by the 4H the way it was. And since those reasons where not clear, the needed engeneerign solution went in the wrong way, trying to make them work differently from what they were supposed to do.

Yes, if I was somehow involved in the process, I could have catched the mistake in time. Unfortunately, as you know, I'm prohibithed to work with the 4H and Mattel doens't want to involve me in any fashion, so there isn't much I can do.

[Marvelous0ne]

Umm, what has that got to do with this issue?

Again It's all about money! Scott said many times when there were issues with figures. There wasn't the money to retool parts. With the Sorceress, even back during SDCC & Power Con. He said that Terry came up with the wing's function basically being the easiest way to get the figure to be posed in her classic wings open stance. And it was cheap! If they did go with the way that Emiliano designed and how Shadow Weaver was made. It would have cost more money! Scott than would have complained about how there wasn't money in the budget and all! Which is why I say they need to cut back on the amount they're offering each month. And use the money saved by that to make sure that they're able to have money available when something like this comes up! I rather have less figures made, but have them made right!

[baronterror]

I'm glad Emiliano posted this. All it really shows is that, design wise, this was not a piece of cake to begin with.

I think the route Mattel took is not as bad as people say it is. They could have gone for the lazy, Swift wind wings for all we know (two wings, no articulation, except two ball joints) but they at least tried to make something different.
There's an angle that will look atrocious but whichever solution in engineering you opt for, there will always be that odd angle when it looks phoney.

I still think Emiliano's latest design would have worked better... But before I cancel my subscription and vow never to buy anything from Matty, I'm gonna give that MOTUC sorceress a chance because I think the wings will give some nice poses. Again, might be wrong, but hey, let's at least wait till we get her in our hands!

peace,

I dont have her in my hands, and so I dont know how I feel about it yet. From what I can tell, I agree I dont think it's nearly as bad as some of the reactionaries have said it is.

Mind you, I dont actually think Emilliano's would work in practice, or at least not like we'd hope. But I'm not an engineer. I'm very excited to see some customizers and what they come up with. Who knows, maybe it will.

for my part I (again, not having the figure in hand) cannot think how I'd display her that this is an issue. Again, guess we'll see. I reserve criticism until I have a chance to play with this.

[Emiliano]

Mind you, I dont actually think Emilliano's would work in practice, or at least not like we'd hope. But I'm not an engineer. I'm very excited to see some customizers and what they come up with. Who knows, maybe it will.

Why it shouldn't? The whole gravity thing worked perfectly, and I thought that in 2007, way before I started working on Transformers. Why rotating the middle part of the arm shouldn't work? It allows the wings to be positioned downward with the arms forwards, it isn't complicated engineering, it's a simple articulation.
The problem is repostitioning the wings? The reworked design does just that.
And if I had any dubt about the peg size, after seeing Tallstar's extensions, I know this is totally possible.

[Berserker79]

If Mattel would produce an improved version, I would be all for it!

The good thing is, that there aren't many characters with feathers in the future to come...

I hope that there aren't any big mistakes with Kobra Khan & Stinkor...

[Wun2 III]

OMG! This would have been awesome had they executed in ths design!

[CicconeSC]

Emiliano I love your idea, and have came up with one of my own using a combination of the method you would use as well as the one already used. Basically the current shoulder bolts would be inside the torso (so unseeable from outside) with an attachment to the bicep area like Shadow Weaver. I have a diagram that isn't the best way to describe it, but it gets the point across.

The Black connectors are ways to make the current wings have a feather cut off each segment and have some kind of clip type connection using the exisiting feathers or just a small clip used in between each segment to keep the wings together. Something not very noticeable unless you were looking. I explained it more on WTFWTK as a question.

Here is kind of what i described as my concept.

Slide1.JPG

Basically the connection would need to be a bit longer so that all the wings can be outside of the torso but connected throught the back of the figure (under big feather to the bold inside) or even have the coming out the back of her back, since she turns into a bird would make sense for her wings to be attached to her.

I don't think Scott has anything to do with this. Scott Neitlich is not part of the design team, so he doesn't work on the engeneering of the figures.
I think the whole problem, judging by my conversations with Terry, is that there was a misunderstand on why the articualtion of the wings had been created by the 4H the way it was. And since those reasons where not clear, the needed engeneerign solution went in the wrong way, trying to make them work differently from what they were supposed to do.

Scott posted about how excited he was with the improvement Terry made on the wings of the Sorceress and that they would open as her arms raised, also about how excited we would be when we saw the improvement he had made. So I am a little confused obviously Scott and Terry knew about the shoulder boulders and could have fixed them (since Terry made the improvement) they could have took a second and thought hmmm perhaps this isn't the best way to go. If I was either of them and looked at how much the wings protruded from her shoulders, I would have pushed her back and fixed the wings, because I would have known that fans would react badly to how big the wing pegs were. I just think they should have came up with different ideas and announced due to technical difficulties the Sorceress has been delayed until later in 2012.

I don't think fans would have been that irritated if Scott explained why and showed a picture from the side of the current design for the wings. I think fans (and trust me I wanted her more than any other figure, but I would have waited a couple slots to have a better figure and a better way to have the wings be used). All the reviews I have seen on the Sorceress say how amazing of a figure she is but the big flaw is the design of the pegs for the wings and how obvious the shoulder pegs for the wings are, and very distracting while taking away articulation from the figure.

So yeah, Scott may not have designed them but he agreed on how amazing they were, because he made sure to let us fans know how great of an improvement Terry had made on her wings.

Also Emiliano what I meant about being contacted since all the feedback on the wings and how your design could fix it. I just wondered if Scott or Terry contacted you at all and asked to use your design or possibly just let you know that since you are contracted by Mattel that they have a similar design and if legally you would be ok with them using it.

[FAKER II]

I'll get over the bulky wing drums but this design looks much cleaner.

...if Mattel would pay me to do this job, like Hasbro does, that would make it even better, but that isn't gonna happen

Next time you talk to Hasbro can you remind them that Transformers fans are still waiting for a Voyager scale Optimus Prime that actually looks like the 1980's Optimus we love so much?

[Emiliano]

Next time you talk to Hasbro can you remind them that Transformers fans are still waiting for a Voyager scale Optimus Prime that actually looks like the 1980's Optimus we love so much?

You overstimate my role there
But I think the new MP Optimus is great in that regards, and I'm still saving to get it!

[oICEMANo]

But I think Emiliano is happier with what he is doing now.

But it aint MotU...
Someone at Mattel needs to get off their high horse...