Stickers or Paint?

[Toph]

I highly recommend Reprolabels. They're better quality than the official stickers.
Plus, they have a rather fun sense of humor (The enhanced Metroplex sheets are HILARIOUS! Tiny people hanging from windows as though were thrown out during transformation!

On topic, I would much prefer that toys did not need sticker sheets. And I feel it's kind of lame and cheap of Takara to dump paint apps and replace them with sticker sheets, in their Prime line.
But IMO, G1 and G2 absolutely need stickers. The toys lack so much detail that they're painfully drab without them.

Figures from BW-Cybertron don't need any stickers (Though sometimes the BWs should have had more prominent maximal/predacons symbols, if they got any at all).

Post Cybertron, Hasbro started to really cut back on paint details. Some Classics/Universe/Generations/RtS suffered from this, and some desperately needed sticker enhancement (RtS Jazz is the biggest example of this. That big blank spot on his door is irritating as all get out).
Movie toys were hit pretty hard by lack of details, and Animated suffered the most.
So we've gone in a weird direction... went from stickers being essential, to no longer needing them, to painted details being cut back so much that they're becoming necessary again (To the point where Takara is now including them)

Third Party toys also need them.

Preferably no, toys should not have stickers. But it's less irritating to me now than it used to be when this downward trend started.

What currently irritates me more is how often Hasbro botches the symbols. This day and age, the rarest colors are Red Autobots, and Purple Decepticons. Instead relying on black, silver, or gold. What gives? That;s what I'm getting tired of, is putting reprolabels over botched symbols. I'm a symbol color purist.

@the Doctor,
If we lived closer together, I'd be happy to put the Jazz stickers on your RtS Jazz. With a pair of tweezers, I've gotten pretty good at it.

[Toph]

As expensive as toys are getting to make, as little paint as many figures are getting, and as hasbro and tomy rely on sticker sheets for details, how do you guys feel about this?

Should they raise prices and go back to intricate paint aps, or should they maybe drop most of the paint altogether and return to sticker sheets for details, and maybe use that saved money elsewhere (like keeping prices lower, or better quality)?

[Llama God]

Oh gods no, not stickers. Even as a fully-grown man-child I still have terrible hand/eye co-ordination. As soon as I have to start applying stickers again my figures are going to start looking like shit. (Although Darkness Megatron didn't go *too* badly. But then, I spent an awful long time on it...) Paint all the way, baby. With factory-applied stickers if necessary.

[Philip Ayres]

Paint/Tampographs.

I'm hoping Whirl and Roadbuster are just a homage to the original....

[Jim]

Both have their place; I really enjoyed Arms Micron as a line, between the building of the micron partners and the stickers it felt quite engaging on a personal level and there was a certain level of customisation as many came with extra stickers not in the instructions (and you could of course choose not to apply some others, as I often did). There was apparently even an exclusive sheet of battle damage stickers but I sadly never saw it. And you could hardly not feel satisfied to look upon the fruits of the Herculean labour of applying AM Ratchet's stickers!

On the other hand I enjoyed some of what Takara then went on to do with Beast Hunters - I only bought the blue dragon one (name escapes me), but he is very nicely painted, and it looks like they're doing good jobs with the movie advance line - BBBB certainly deserved more paint than Hasbro slapped on him.

I think it's also worth pointing out how much better Takara applies paint than Hasbro - I've seen far fewer sloppy apps on import toys. I found this especially noticable with PCC / United Ex - I went through a whole peg of Huffers to find the least sloppily painted when I bought him (and almost just put him back to wait for new stock), but the Takara releases are beautiful, both in scheme and quality and quantity of application.

One thing I wished we got more of with paint, and I would pay extra for, is more interesting / unique apps - dry brushing, randomised camo, that kind of thing.

-Jim

[Deleted]

I got stiffed on Predaking's tail today with the wrong paint applied. It ruined the photos I wanted of him so I vote for improved paint over stickers. I have about 8 sets of reprolabels to apply but I just can't find the motivation for what I deem, a chore. I also want my toys good-to-go straight out of the box. Opening it up to see something that looks (is) unfinished would kill that buzz for me (unless they made the smell of newness extra strong to compensate).

You can always apply third-party stickers to liven a figure up but applying a decent paint job is a whole different kettle of Sharkticons.

[Shockprowl]

Both have their place, but I've voted paint because I feel the base figure should be ready to roll right out of it's plastic and card prisons.



And yet, maybe putting on stickers is a lost art.....

[Andy Turnbull]

Stickers.

Loved stickers back in the day and still do.

Andy

[blueshift]

Definitely paint.

I hated stickers as a kid. I would find them so stressful to put on, and would always get at least one irretrievably wrong!

[Toph]

I decided to cast my vote for either/or. A well painted and well detailed figure is a thing of beauty. But I've also recently found a calming enjoyment in applying stickers, so if it meant the toy's quality would go up, stickers wouldn't bother me the way they would have ten years ago.

[The Doctor]

Fucking hate stickers. Always have.

I do have a rage attack whenever I open up a Lego kit to see a big sticker sheet. Still at least they are not as stressful to put on as Transformers ones always have been.

Tampographs were manna from heaven. The backwards step of less of them and paint apps in recent times makes me froth at the mouth.

IF I WANT FUCKING STICKERS I'LL BUY A BLOODY STICKER ALBUM.

-Ralph

[Shockprowl]

Sooooo which way are you voting, Doc'......?

[The Doctor]

It's hard to say.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

I did think we'd been this way before, so I've merged the posts from the original thread.