We have updated the Toy Gallery section of the website with the first six toy image galleries of the Botcon 2011 exclusives.  This mornings updates are of the Stunti-con Job group themselves:

• Motormaster
• Dragstrip
• Breakdown
• Deadend
• Wildrider
• Toxitron
  

Later than we were planning, but I can now bring to you our full image gallery from Botcon 2011.  The gallery features 446 photographs from the convention including the dealer room, panels and outside of the convention centre itself.

Enjoy

As always Transformers At The Moon will do our best to bring you the important coverage from this years Botcon. We will be in attendance at Botcon 2011 ourselves, so we will look to update the website with galleries and news from our travels as well as bringing you live news throughout the day using our own auto-updating scripts so you can just bookmark a news story and read all of the updates as they happen.

Like our coverage of other conventions in the past, we will also look to bring you round-ups of articles from around the world, ensuring that you can read all of the coverage from the event from as many sources and views as possible. 

Our non-competitive approach to news is something we have become well known for over the last 12 years and is something we are very proud of and, as such, we would like to remind you all that you can keep up-to-date by following our exclusive In The News section of the website that brings you the very latest headlines from many official and fan sites from around the world.   You may well find those sites report different news from areas of Botcon before us as this site is maintained by two people as a hobby as oppose to the staff that run most "fan sites" these days, so we can not cover everything that will be going on at once.

If you are attending Botcon yourself and you would like to say hello, we will not be difficult to spot. During the convention just look for a pair of mirror twins, if that is not enough of a give away, at some point we will both be wearing Auto Assembly committee T-shirts, which will be even more of a clue.

I thought I would bring you a round-up of the Spring / Summer Special updates here at Transformers At The Moon.  In case you have not heard the bothers behind Transformers At The Moon are trying to make a concerted effort to get to updating the content side of the website on a regular basis.  Sadly over the last two years changes in our "real life" situations, especially within our professional lives, have meant that the website had to be put on the back burner. Well we are tired of this and have been collecting and producing lots of new content for you all to consume for the last year but only now are we at a point where we are ready to release it.

Some of the planned updates included more interviews with the cast and crew of Transformers Prime, however those plans were stopped by the heavy hand of Hasbro US late last year and whilst we were trying to come to an arrangement with them to allow us to proceed, sadly communication was broken by Hasbro and so they will never see the light of day.  Another interview we had arranged late last year was with former Transformers and G.I-Joe writer Ron Friedman. This was just before his auctions went on sale, but sadly due to his busy schedule, the interview kept being postponed and has since fallen off the radar.

But those are enough negatives and we launched the start of the Spring / Summer special with some image galleries of paint-samples of the European Transformers Flame and Lightspeed.  So below you will find a list of all of the updates so far.

• Transformers toy image gallery of paint-sample Brainmaster Flame
• Image gallery of the paint-master for Brainmaster Lightspeed.
• European Generation One Classics (Gold Box classics) Sandstorm Prototype (this is actually an FEP, or Final Engineering Pilot).
• Massive Transformers Instruction Sheet archive update featuring instructions of upcoming Transformers Dark of the Moon toys (many of which were not available on Hasbro's own website at the time)
• TV Magazine December 1987 issue - 32 pages scanned
• TV Magazine October 1988 issue - 28 pages scanned
• TV Magazine December 1988 issue - 31 pages scanned
• TV Magazine July 1989 issue - 28 pages scanned
• TV Magazine September 1989 issue - 26 pages scanned
• TV Magazine December 1989 issue - 25 pages scanned
• TV Magazine December 1996 issue - 12 pages
  
• TV Magazine February 1997 issue -  11 pages
  
• TV Magazine March 1997 issue - 13 pages
  
• TV Magazine April 1997 issue - 15 pages
  
• TV Magazine May 1997 issue - 29 pages
  
• TV Magazine June 1997 issue - 25 pages
  
• TV Magazine September 1997 issue - 26 pages
  
• TV Magazine October 1997 issue - 21 pages
  
• TV Magazne November 1997 issue - 18 pages
• TV Magazine February 1998 - 29 images
• TV Magazine March 1998 - 40 images
• TV Magazine April 1998 - 26 images
• TV Magazine May 1998 - 29 images
• TV Magazine June 1998 - 39 images

If you are within the UK or Europe and you look out of your window right now you will probably notice that its bright and sunny outside.  As such that can only mean one thing .... the continuation of our Spring / Summer Special of updates.

Following on from our last set of updates, the paint-samples of two of the Brainmasters, it is with great pleasure that I bring to you today another piece of European history, a FEP (Final Engineering Pilot) of Transformers Generation One Classics Sandstorm.  The image gallery contains comparisons with both the original release of the figure as well as the final gold box "classics" version (which had the black plastic feet that were painted and different colour stickers).  The early testshot Sandstorm is made from a milky white plastic and was purchased from the former head of Hasbro Europe.

Enjoy!

­This news article follows on from last nights non-news news story where I reported in regards to Hasbro's web document staff re-uploading the Leader Class Starscream instructions, possibly by mistake, to the Hasbro Document website and the earlier story about Hasbro adding then quickly removing a load of Transformers Dark of the Moon instruction sheets.

In the early hours of the morning, UK time, Hasbro re-added all of the missing Transformers Dark of the Moon instructions as well as some other instruction sheets that were also removed.  In total 37 entries were re-touched by Hasbro, with them re-adding the PDF files.  No new entries were actually added though.

We have mirrored those instruction sheets as many of them have since been removed, again, by Hasbro from their own website (including the listings in some cases).

­ 1.Transformers Hubcap 98439 Instructions
2.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Voyager Class SKYHAMMER Instructions
3.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Voyager Class SHOCKWAVE Instructions
4.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Voyager Class OPTIMUS PRIME Instructions
5.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Voyager Class MEGATRON Instructions
6.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Voyager Class IRONHIDE Instructions
7.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Leader Class SENTINEL PRIME Instructions
8.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Leader Class BUMBLEBEE Instructions
9.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class STARSCREAM Instructions
10.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class SIDESWIPE Instructions
11.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class ROADBUSTER Instructions
12.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class CRANKCASE Instructions
13.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class BARRICADE Instructions
14.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class AUTOBOT TOPSPIN Instructions
15.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class AUTOBOT SKIDS Instructions
16.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON MECHTECH Deluxe Class AUTOBOT RATCHET Instructions
17.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class SIDESWIPE Instructions
18.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class MUDFLAP Instructions
19.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class LEADFOOT Instructions
20.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class CROWBAR Instructions
21.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class CRANKCASE Instructions
22.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class BUMBLEBEE Instructions
23.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class BARRICADE Instructions
24.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class AUTOBOT TOPSPIN Instructions
25.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class AUTOBOT SKIDS Instructions
26.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Legion Class AUTOBOT RATCHET Instructions
27.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class SENTINEL PRIME Instructions
28TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class POWERGLIDE Instructions
29.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class OPTIMUS PRIME Instructions
30.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class MEGATRON Instructions
31.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class IRONHIDE Instructions
32.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Commander Class BLACKOUT Instructions
33.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Action Set STARSCREAM ORBITAL ASSAULT CARRIER Instructions
34.TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON CYBERVERSE Action Set BUMBLEBEE MOBILE BATTLE BUNKER Instructions
35.Transformers Brimstone 98440 Instructions
36.Transformers Autobot Drift 98455 Instructions
37.Transformers Animated Swindle 97587 Instructions

Stick with Transformers At The Moon for the very latest in additions and updates to the Hasbro Customer Service website, including those important, and often new character revealing, instruction sheets.  Much like USPTO Trademark news you will find it here first 99.9% of the time guaranteed and hours, days and sometimes weeks before any other website.

Its the evening here within the UK, so I thought I would bring you some non-news news to end see you through the next few minutes.  Why non-news news?  Read on to find out.

Hasbro's web admin staff in charge of their documentation section have continue with their strange trends when it comes to maintaining the instruction sheets that are available online.  Having recently added Transformers Dark of the Moon Megatron and then removed the instructions and then also adding and quickly removing several other Dark of the Moon instruction PDFs now they have seemingly gone back in time as on the 29th April at around half 4 in the afternoon (BST), they added a new instruction sheet entry complete with PDF file.  Who was this for? Well Leader Class Starscream .... again.  Yes the 94192 leader class figure who's instructions have already been made available by Hasbro for sometime, received another copy of the PDF file.  Did they mean to upload this rather than a Leader Class Dark Of The Moon Starscream instruction sheet?  In my opinion ... yes.  There is no indication that the listing was suppose to be for a DOTM release, just that Hasbro's admin staff are not checking what they have already uploaded.

Don't worry, the admin here at Transformers At The Moon are on the case and we will continue our Instruction Sheet vigil to bring you the very latest additions to the Hasbro instruction sheet archive from actual new toys and documents, to re-submissions by over zealous office staff both here on the news page as well as within our dedicated Hasbro Instruction Sheet archive section.  That section contains 854 instruction sheet entries that have appeared on Hasbro's documents section, with copies of 815 PDF instructions.  Sadly we missed some when the vigil was broken and those instructions have remained removed.

I have updated the In The Media section of the website with a collection of new Japanese hobby magazine scans.  Today's updates are:

• Figure King Issue 158 (April issue)
• Figure King Issue 159 (May issue, actually added yesterday)
• TV Magazine May 2011 issue
• TV Boy May 2011 issue
• Hyper Hobby March 2011 issue
• Hyper Hobby April 2011 issue
• Hyper Hobby May 2011 issue

It brings me great pleasure to be able to kick off what should be an exciting Spring and Summer to visitor of Transformers At The Moon with three new Transformers Toys image galleries. Being a European based website we felt that it would only be fitting to kick off our "Summer Special" as the Transformers community builds towards the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon by adding three galleries of European exclusive figures.

First up, we have added an image gallery of Motorvator Gripper.  This image gallery contains comparison images to Brainmaster Blacker as well images showing him combined with both Braver and Laster.

The second and third galleries are of something a little special and yet also related to the Motorvator Gripper gallery.  What are they?  Well they are image galleries of a paint-sample of Motorvator Flame and an image gallery of a paint-sample of Motorvator Lightspeed!  What is a paint-sample, you may be asking yourself, well when Hasbro decide to recolour a figure with a different colour scheme, hand-paint a mock-up version using the existing figures mold.  In this case Hasbro Europe took the Japanese Brainmaster figures Braver and Laster and hand-painted them into the proposed colour schemes for their European releases.  We picked up these figures from the head of Hasbro Europe who was also responsible for presenting these toys to the heads of the individual European territories at the time.  The figures had not been transformed since that presentation until we bought them, which meant that they are very stiff.

The image galleries of these unique figures include comparisons with their Japanese counter-parts but not their final European release, as we do not own those yet.  These figures are from an import period in the history of the Transformers line, as it was a time that support for Transformers had dried up within the US, but it was the lines popularity both within Europe and Japan that kept Transformers going and would eventually lead on the release of Generation 2.

It is with great pleasure that I can finally present to you are Transformers toy image galleries of both of the Japanese Cassetticons that make up LegoutDail (Dairu) and Saur (Zauru).  We have owned Saur for almost 8 years but only recently managed to pick up a Dial.  As big fans of the cassettes as well as Dinosaurs, the Japanese cassettes have been figures we have been intent on picking up so not only are we extremely please to have finally picked up the one missing from our collection but with the purchase of Dial, we have also completed our Transformers Cassette collection.

You can find some groupshots of our cassette army within both Dail's and Saur's galleries.

As part of our recent "rare toy" image gallery updates which have included  Bumblebee Silver Version and Megatron Gold Version we thought it was time to turn back the block and bring you another image gallery update of one of our rarer figures from the 1990s.  Generation 2 LazerCycle Soundwave.  For those that don't know, Soundwave was due to be released as a recoloured LazerCycles Road pig along side Lazer Cycle Jazz but the G2 toyline was cancelled.  No one is quite sure how many of these toys were produced, originally it was rumoured that there was only 15 of them, but that has since been disproved and it is generally considered that since carded versions were produced that a reasonable production run was actually made.  That being said, these figures are still pretty difficult to track down, perhaps as they are not as sort-after as the Stunticons and Protectobots who are arguably the most sort after of the unreleased Generation Two items.