Old TFCC Mini-Con bios from Fun Publications

[SHIELD Agent 47]

Minicon Bios for TCC Members

Members of the Transformers Collectors Club can log in here to see some exclusive club content. 5 Minicon bios are up right now, and they will add more...

www.tfw2005.com

About 15 years ago, the Transformers Collectors' Club by Fun Publications did a thing where they gave short profiles, headshot artwork, and sometimes localised names for many Mini-Con toys which lacked any characterisation or artistic media whatsoever. Neatly, they did this for characters from the 2004 Armada-themed PS2 console game as well as for Takara-exclusive promotional toys. Some bios would be printed in the Club magazine, but most would simply be hosted online for logged-in club members. The programme seems to have collapsed around 2010; I do not know why. Fun Pub was known for overextending themselves in various ways, though I would assume the worldwide financial crisis probably did not help the BotCon / TFCC system in that year.

https://imgur.com/a/kDnZfbU

In working with other TFWiki contributors, I have recovered some (maybe all?) of the bios which were published to the club website, which I have posted in the linked Imgur gallery, plus this collage wallpaper. Some of the artworks in this collage never made it to completed bios!

Who here in this forum was present when the Mini-Con bio programme was running back in the late 2010s? Do you know of any more unused art or bios floating around on the Internet? I would appreciate any help in figuring out remaining artist credits.

 

[Sabrblade]

As of just one year ago, the old "Members Only" section of the TCC website was still up and fully open to the public without the need for any membership account, complete with all of the old Mini-Con bios and "Theft of the Golden Disk" character profiles still up and fully accessible. Currently, it seems to be down, but it's all still available via Internet Archive's WayBack Machine:

Transformers Collectors' Club: Members ONLY

 

[Lobjob]

Thank you both for retrieving these.

 

[SHIELD Agent 47]

Oh, and I also found out MCRG (Allspark user Spark?), who did the Beacon-cum-Snowblind headshot, posted five other unused artworks to DeviantArt.

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Lock-On' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Impulse' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Jetstream' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Coldsnap' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Cryo Saber' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

TFC Mini-Con Shot 'Snowblind' by MCRGuy on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

It seems Lens was to have become Coldsnap and Quantum was to have become Jetstream, if not for the bio programme collapsing. And Synapse would have been renamed Impulse.

It is...I don't know what is an apt term for this happening...that when Jim did all those Mini-Con team names and short bios of his own via AVP Facebook in 2015, no one at Fun Pub ever bothered to point Jim to previous assets pertaining to Mini-Cons. That is how Triac became the female Bingo in AVP because no one had updated the wiki with the mention of male Trickshot from Flashdrive's online bio, to say nothing of the Trickshot bio itself never surfacing before the TFCC ended.

Out-of-print/hard-to-find media mega-thread - Page 4 - Transformers Discussion

Page 4 of 20 - Out-of-print/hard-to-find media mega-thread - posted in Transformers Discussion: I know that some Twitter links to various Ask Vector Prime posts no longer work. And manually pulling those dates up fails to show anything.

web.archive.org

TRICKSHOT

Function: Sharpshooter

Trickshot can put a plasma bolt through the hole of a hex-nut without singing it. Behind him. With a shot that started out going forward. He studies metallurgy, advanced mathematics and energy signatures for the express purpose of working out how to get a blaster shot to bounce just the way he wants it to smash into his target from an unexpected angle or drop debris into their flight path. He works well with Barnstorm, the two setting up intricate aerial traps. He sometimes falls victim to the same overconfidence he tries to instill in his enemies, and has a severe tendency to brag.

You can even see the Galaxy Force promotional toy Mugen (plus the PS2 character Fullspeed) in that wallpaper. I wonder if Fun Pub had localised name plans for the Caliber Team which have never seen the light of day.

 

[Sabrblade]

As of just one year ago, the old "Members Only" section of the TCC website was still up and fully open to the public without the need for any membership account, complete with all of the old Mini-Con bios and "Theft of the Golden Disk" character profiles still up and fully accessible. Currently, it seems to be down, but it's all still available via Internet Archive's WayBack Machine:

Transformers Collectors' Club: Members ONLY

It's back up and working again.

Transformers Collectors' Club: Members ONLY