The "City Commander" set, made by FansProject
Numerous non-official Transformers products have been created by various makers from fandom — in other words, those products are not created, released, or licensed by Hasbro nor TakaraTomy. Those makers are also known as the "third party".
Products[]
Some makers take fandom's hopes, and turn them into a product. For example, FansProject created the "City Commander set" for Classics Ultra Magnus to look more G1-ish, while Nato-bot produced kits to make Universe Roadbuster to be more accurate to his G1 self.
While some make toys of those characters who don't have any official products. Take MasterMind for example, they created Hearts of Steel Optimus Prime toy, known as "Knight Morpher Commander". The also released their version of the Seekers from this story line, as well as Shockwave.
Makers like JIZAI TOYS produces toys base on the The Transformers character models.
There are also makers producing parts only instead of a whole character figure. The maker, Crazy Devy literally made their name by making small add-on parts to the Revenge of the Fallen Legends class Devastator, such as his wrecking balls (Yes, Really) and a more accurate right claw. They then began to work on add-on sets and weapons for the G1 combiners, such as Superion and Menasor. Again, the sets were made to make said figures more cartoon accurate. They also made the pile-driver arms for Frenzy and Rumble.
Some makers have created separate figures that interact with already existing official figures. Perfect Effect created "Warden". Their version of IDW Fortress Maximus. As well as having his own vehicle and robot mode, he can also turn into a new head that can be attached to the Original Fortress Maximus toy. His huge gun can also be heald by the Gargantuan.
Planet X answered fans wishes for a War for Cybertron Omega Supreme. They created Genesis. A very accurate representation of the giant from the Game. If you preordered the figure, you received 5 free light orbs, to represent the "inner-glow" of the characters in the War for Cybertron game.
There are makers just producing stickers instead of toys. One of the most well known is, Reprolabes. They specialize in making sticker upgrade sets for replacing lost stickers on Generation 1 toys, or customizing newer figures to make them look more accurate to the continuity they are from. One of their most popular sets is the set for the Revenge of the Fallen Ice cream truck Skids and Mudflap, which includes the controversial slogan "Suck my Popsicle".
Downsides[]
- Due to the copyright issue, most of the toys aren't named what they should be call, but with different names, to avoid breaking copyright laws. Some of them are terribly named like they are knockoffs.
- Most of the products are very, sometimes extremely, expensive. One of the reasons is because they can't mass-produce them on the same scale as Hasbro or TakaraTomy. Also, the shipping cost would make buyers to spend more.
- Some products are notorious for fragile material, making them get broken easily — Just think you spent amount of money to buy a fragile toy. Sometimes the toy gets broken while playing with it for the very first time.
- Toys made by makers such as FansProject used to have high breakage rate. However, FansProject now has a thorough quality control system.
- Some makers repaint their products — just like Hasbro and TakaraTomy — for one reason.
Notable makers[]
- Ark Studio
- Bad Cube
- Cubex
- Dr. Wu
- FansWantIt
- Gigapower
- Iron Factory
- Junkion Blacksmith
- MasterMind
- Mech Ideas
- Planet X
- Render Form
- Unique Toys
- Warbotron