Finally! I can almost not believe it has almost been a friggin’ year and a half since I published the last chapter in my series of articles on vintage European MB Transformers. After months of hard work, especially the last few weeks, I can now finally chill out knowing the article is done. This particular chapter focuses on another interesting corner of the MB Transformers line: packaging mix ups! Of course, everyone knows about the Red Tracks packaging variation, but did you know there were two more? One of these was relatively known and one was almost completely unknown until now and it’s a doozy of a variation!! Some crazy stuff as you will see.

Why did it take almost a year and a half for me to come up with the next chapter in this saga? Well, there are several reasons. First and foremost was the fact that I suffered a serious writer’s block after I had published the fifth chapter. I had spent so much time on it and just couldn’t bring myself to picking up my digital pen again for a while and when I finally did I had no idea whatsoever how to combine the stuff I was researching into the sixth chapter. I made several attempts that went nowhere. Lots of time spent with nothing to show for it kinda gets my morale down, but I guess that’s just normal. What also did not help is that one of the very subject matters I was researching had not fallen into place quite as much as I had liked to.

Late last year I made a concentrated effort to finish the article by rewriting it from the ground up (again). But this time things were falling into place and the stars were aligning! This doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing from that moment on. It was a lot of work. I still marvel at the incredible number of manhours this article has cost me (and the two before it). I don’t have an accurate estimate of how much time it has cost me, but I think I prefer it that way, because if I did I would probably fall off my chair!

One of the reasons why it takes so much time to create these articles is that I like to embellish them with as many photos and infographics as I can (–the poster above shows some examples of the graphical design that has gone into this chapter). This takes shitloads of time. Setting up my photo studio, photographing the items, breaking down the photo studio, importing the photos into Aperture and cleaning them up, then doing the Photoshop magic to sow everything together in a visually attractive way. I’d hazard a guess that more than 60% of the time spent on these articles goes into photography and graphical design. The stuff that I actually end up using is just a fraction of what I have been slaving away at. But in the end it’s worth it, because these articles would be so hard to digest and booooooooring without the visuals to hit things home.

Of the five senses humans have, the largest part of the brain is reserved to process visual information. One photo or drawing can communicate in a split second the same amount of information that would fit into one or more paragraphs of text, which can take a minute to read and re-read (and sometimes still fail to bring the message across to the reader). Visual information rules!

But I’m talking too much again. Please enjoy the sixth chapter in this 10-part series by clicking or tapping on the link below. It took a long time to write and it was a bumpy ride, but I think it turned out alright in the end. Enjoy!!!!

Link to : MB Transformers: Part 6