Originally written January 2020.
Shafter is an older, unusual piece, with a bit of history, so let’s get into it. iGear was one of the earliest of the “Third Party” companies, producing unlicensed Transformers figures designed to fill gaps in the official offerings. Over the course of their lifespan, iGear produced all sorts of things: Upgrade kits for official figures, Masterpiece-scale figures at a time when actual Masterpieces releases were much rarer, and a lot of Generations-scaled figures (before it was even called Generations). They produced one of the earliest attempts at a Generations-scale Arcee, Delicate Warrior, made an undersized knockoff of the original Masterpiece Optimus Prime, Faith Leader, and gave prominent 3P designer Cassy Sark a platform with his IDW-Comics-inspired Seeker homages, which would one day lead to him having a hand in creating an original toy line, the now sady-departed Unrustables.
But, back to Shafter. This figure was one of iGear’s final releases before they quietly vanished (as so many Third Party groups often do), and was initially available as an exclusive to TFCon in 2012. He’s a repaint of Rager, iGear’s homage to the classic 1984 mini-Autobot, Huffer, who at the time, did not have a mainline figure (and today, still only has a retooling) (2021 update: Soon to be remedied via Kingdom!). However, this repaint is a homage to a different Transformers character: The 1989 Micromaster Autobot, Erector, seen here.
Like it or not, Erector has a funny name (on the very unlikely off-chance you don’t see it, I’m not explaining), and so, despite being one of those late-G1 toys that basically never appeared in any stories ever, he became a bit of a fandom meme entirely off that name. This memetic status culminated in 2011, when fans actually managed to get him nominated for Hasbro’s Transformers Hall of Fame. He didn’t win, but he did get official acknowledgement and a video. Naturally, iGear played on this popularity when they made this exclusive. While it doesn’t come with the large transforming base the original did, and is a repaint of a different design entirely, it does make for a nice homage, and is a piece of TFCon history. I picked him up from a dealer at the Ontario Collector’s Con out of historical curiosity, so let’s see how that curiosity holds up.
Vehicle Mode
Shafter’s vehicle mode is that of a slightly chibified and kind of cute little truck, with smokestacks on the sides. Those smokestacks are a bit mistransformed in the package, and need to be stuck straight up. In terms of scale, Shafter’s bigger than a Hasbro Legion, but smaller than a Legend, like so:
Materials-wise, this is a surprisingly solid figure, without the fiddly nature and fragility of a lot of Third Party figures. He feels like I could throw him against a wall and he’d be fine (I won’t, though), like an official HasTak release. I think it’s because of the solid, chunky plastic used, and the lack of smaller, fiddly parts. That being said, I do wish his smokestacks properly pegged in, instead of just freely resting there, but it’s not really a big deal, thanks to the joints keeping them there being tight.
For colors, Shafter’s cast mostly in a bright, pleasant, construction-toy yellow, along with bright grey, and black on the wheels. His windows are painted a bright neon reddish-orange-pink mixture, that contrasts sharply with the yellow, representing a hint of the Generation 2 color sensibility coming out early. The only other paint on him is silver on his wheels and grille, not that he needs more than that.
For features, all he does is roll really well, which is all you’d want from something in this scale. One thing that he is missing, though, is weapon integration. His two incredibly tiny black pistol accessories (smaller than anything Hasbro or Takara would ever include in a mainline release) don’t stash anywhere, and are small enough to make losing them a genuine worry. It would have been very easy to drill a couple extra holes on him somewhere they could fit, or even slightly resize the holes already on him, which makes it particularly galling.
Transformation
Shafter doesn’t come with any instructions, though he’s a very simple figure, at least. What makes it more difficult, though, is there’s no photos of the toy anywhere on the box, just some cartoonish art. Some of his robot mode’s design quirks had me wondering if there were transformation steps I missed, and because of that, I wish there were at least proper photos to reference. That being said, his legs unfold in a fairly clever way, with his knees compressing into his lower legs, a trick I wouldn’t expect them to do on a figure this size, and certainly one he didn’t need.
Robot Mode
Shafter’s robot mode sculpt is based on Huffer’s original animation model, and it’s fairly accurate to that, changing into a short, stumpy man with a truck’s front over his head as a hood. I particularly like his very cartoonish headsculpt, considering this figure comes from an era where Third Party products were known for having dodgy-looking head designs.
For colors, this mode reveals some orange paint on his head and chest, and tiny, well-painted blue eyes.
Shafter’s poseability is, impressively, pretty much on par with a larger Hasbro Legend, with balljointed shoulders, elbows and hips, swiveling knees, a twisting waist, and a balljointed head. Shafter’s got two real design issues in this mode, though. Firstly, the wheels near his waist really get in the way of his arms, and result in him not being able to rest those arms at his sides.
Secondly, and more pressingly, his head is located pretty deep into the hood formed by the truck front, and so is very difficult to reach to pose, at least by my average-sized adult fingers, meaning that I need to use a small object, like tweezers to mess with it. He really needed some way to move that hood back, or move his head forward.
Still, he retains that same solid, durable feeling as his vehicle mode, feeling a lot like a HasTak toy, even if they never made anything at this specific size. What doesn’t feel standard, again, are the two tiny black pistols he comes with as accessories, which, like I mentioned before, are way smaller than anything a choking-hazard-fearing official company would ever release. But hey, they look cool, fit in his hands well, and he poses with them nicely, which is all you really want.
Overall
Nowadays, all Third Party stuff tends to be Masterpiece or Legends-scaled, upgrades to official figures, or its own unique scale. Shafter was designed to fit in with mainline Classics/Universe/Generations releases, and that alone makes him feel like a bygone relic. Really, there’s not much to Shafter, simple as he is. He feels really solid and stable in-hand, and his build quality is on-par with a HasTak release of a similar size, but he also comes with one or two rather shortsighted design flaws, which don’t sink the whole thing, though. But is it worth getting this obscure release from a now-defunct company, especially in 2020? (Or 2021?)
Well, Shafter’s an update of an obscure character that I honestly doubt will get any official recognition (I mean, if he didn’t after getting nominated for the Hall of Fame in 2011, I don’t think he will now), largely because of his unfortunately-chosen name and his obscurity. On top of that, he’s a piece of history, both as a remnant of a bygone company, and more importantly, as an exclusive to a convention I was only just starting to dip my toes into at the time. I paid $35 Canadian for him from a vendor, something that sounds like a lot for a Legends-sized toy, but is par for the course for a small Third Party company making an even smaller convention-exclusive run, and I’m happy to own one both for those reasons, and because he’s just a solid little thing. Two years later, a “Masterpiece Shafter” was offered by X-Transbots, a repaint of their own take on Huffer, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in tracking that one down, too, for similar reasons. (2021 update: No luck on X-Transbots version yet, but if HasTak wants to paint their new Kingdom Huffer up in these colors, and release him in Generations Selects as “Cragun,” Erector’s Japanese name, I’m all over it.)
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