Posted April 14, 2011 at 2:10 am
Generations Kup (left) and e-Hobby Kup (right)


When I preordered Scrapheap's three-pack, I knew I'd be selling off at least one of the two other guys. Blue Rodimus was a no-brainer.  Screw that dude!  I don't need him!  And I figgered I'd probably be selling off the extra Kup, too, since I was pretty satisfied with the colors of the Generations Kup that I already owned.  He was green!

And the photography of the e-Hobby three-pack Kup depicted him as bright blue, almost a cyan.

I really hate when Kup is blue.  And Kup is blue all the time.  He's blue all the way through the Marvel Comics.  He's blue in the Big Looker Storybooks.  He's blue in all sorts of obscure merchandise.  But his toy is teal, as Kup should rightfully be, and Kup was sort of a grayish dirty teal in the cartoon.

G1 Kup and e-Hobby Kup, before and after color correction


Part of the reason for Kup's often-blueishness, though, is his original toy just doesn't photograph right.  When you put a camera to it, photos come out cyan-y.  I can't imagine Hasbro or Marvel or whoever could be bothered all that much to make sure that they were color-correcting all of their reference material as they sent it back and forth from one another.  So, well, blue Kup.

(For the record, I would totally dig a blue Kup if they went through the trouble of swapping his helmet and face colors like the toy's.  I would love a Big Looker Storybook Kup.)

And a small part of me hoped the same was true with the official photography of e-Hobby's Kup.

The laser musket is supposed to peg underneath and be his exhaust pipe, but you can see it better placed this way.


Indeed, e-Hobby Kup is deliciously teal.  Bright and vibrantly so.  (After I took photos and he insisted on coming out cyan, I attempted to color correct his colors as much as possible in Photoshop.)  As much as I liked the darker minty green of Generations Kup, I can't resist a more vividly teal color scheme.  So it looks like it's my Generations Kup that has to go.

Another thing that sets this Kup apart from the other decoes is his painted battle damage.  There's silver paint scrapes painted up and down the surface of his vehicle mode.  This is a look that's appropriate for Kup, so I'm glad to have that as well.  It's a nice bonus.  It wouldn't have been enough without the teal, but with the teal it's something I won't scoff at.

Teeeeeeeeeeeeal.
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