It may be a surprise to some that these three toys are actually the same toy but in three different color schemes!

Aredeco, or recolor, is a toy which uses the samemolds as a previously-released toy, but has been reproduced with different plastic colors and/or different paint applications. A redeco can either be officially marketed as the samecharacter in different colors or as a different character. A redeco uses exactly the same tools or molds as the original toy. If any changes have been made, even something as simple as giving the toy a different head or additional pegs for locking body parts into place, it is more properly categorized as aretool.

For example: the first threeGeneration 1Seekers,Starscream,Thundercracker, andSkywarp, are redecos while the second year SeekersDirge,Ramjet, andThrust are retools of the same base mold.

The term "repaint" is also in wide use among fans as a synonym for "redeco". "Redeco", however, is the term used by the people onHasbro'sTransformers team. Additionally, the term "repaint" is technically wrong* in almost all instances of a same-mold-new-colors toy, as typically more than the paint applications are changed when a toy is redecoed.

In fiction, redecos are usually justified as characters sharing the same "body-type".

*Don't worry, you won't be burned at the stake for calling redecos "repaints". Still, we use the proper term for this wiki.

Why redecos?

Some people just don't know when to stop.

The single most expensive step in making a Transformers toy is making the steel-cutmolds required to hold then cool molten plastic. Add to this the salaries of the designers and engineers, and there is a very considerable expense involved in making a single new-mold toy. Many of these development expenses are not involved in making a redeco, giving the company a chance to make a larger profit on a single mold and put more product on the shelves with a smaller investment.

Another reason is that the toy market moves far, far faster today than it did when the line first started. Retailers do not like product to linger, and shipping older toys in new assortments can give the impression that some items simply do not sell. (Of course,some don't anyway, but that's beside the point.) With this much shorter sales window in mind, companies use redecos to keep molds in use longer (to help make back the money spent in development plus a worthwhile profit), and oftentimes keep popular characters still in circulation while maintaining a "fresh" look on the shelves, making the retailers happy.Retools have a much longer development lead time than redecos, even for small parts. It may not cost much more to give a reused mold a new robot mode head, but timing concerns may be the deciding factor in choosing to redeco the old one.^[1]

Members of theHasbro Transformers team have repeatedly pointed out that they never expected anyone tobuy all the redecos made;Aaron Archer was apparently baffled by the premise. However, with the rise of the collector market, and fans who habituallydo buy every toy that comes out, Hasbro has increasingly tried to ensure that the redecos they're releasing are "meaningful"—i.e. based on the lore, or in homage to something from the franchise's history.^[2]

Redecos as exclusives

OTFCC 2004Megazarak is a redeco of a toy available at mass retail.

Mostexclusive toys, be they for conventions^[3] or stores, are redecos andretools of previously-released toys. With just one exception, all exclusives that used previously-unreleased molds are toys that had been developed for normal retail but were temporarily in "limbo" when their intended toylines were ended. The one exception,Aveo Swerve, was a new mold produced for a gigantic multinational corporation.

The simple reason for this is, again, cost; making the steel molds is prohibitively expensive, as well as the engineering and so forth. Because most exclusives are produced in numbers far less than a normal retail toy, there are fewer units to amortize what production costsdo remain, which means the toys must either sell for more to cover costs and make a worthwhile profit, or the profit margin per item must be reduced, or even both at once.

While it is certainly not outside the realm of possibility that a major retail chain might get a new-mold toy as an exclusive (as they can move thousands and thousands of units nationwide over several months), the odds of a convention getting one are almost nonexistent due to these cost considerations, as the production runs of these toys rarely reach far beyond 1000. At most, therefore, one can expect a few retools of select parts from a toy, often a new-mold robot mode head.

"Virtual" redecos

Guess how many of these toys existed when this comic was published. Now half that.

While character model re-use has been a cost-cutting staple of the brand since its inception, a peculiar, fantastically nerdy trend began to materialize incollector-oriented fiction around the turn of the 2010s: slavishly toy accurate art of existing molds, but with decoes that did not exist on real toys. These "virtual" redecos can have many motives, from "backdoor pilots" for future exclusives, tocustomizer bait, to a simple game of I Spy forhuge nerds.

Some prominent sources of virtual redecos include:

• Shattered Glass
• Beast Wars: Uprising
• GoBots, somehow
• Legends
• ThePrecursor World
• TheCybertron Satellite promotional campaign

Popular redeco themes

Notknockoffs.....

Redecos can be marketed either as the samecharacter in different colors, or as a different character. For both versions, some recurring themes have been established between Hasbro and Takara.

• Black redecos - commonly used for "stealth" forms and evil clones.
• Clear redecos - sometimes inspired by specific character abilities or plots (such as Generation 1Mirage's invisibility orStarscream as a ghost).
• "Fire"-themed redecos - often representing a power-enhanced version of a character (such as the "Fire Guts" version ofGod Ginrai or the "Super" redeco ofSide Burn).
• Metallic redecos - particularly gold or silverchromed. These are often used forLucky Draw figures.
• Homage redecos - designed to resemble a previous (oftenGeneration 1) character. This is particularly prevalent withconstruction vehicles anddinosaurs.
• G2 redecos - Made to represent the bizarre G2 color schemes given to various characters

Popular redeco characters

Skywarp is usually redecoed fromStarscream.

Some toys of a certain character are frequently designed to be redecoed as one or more other characters (with or without various levels of retooling). Some of those different-character redeco themes are directly rooted inGeneration 1, while others are indirectly inspired by Generation 1, and still others are more recent additions to the Transformers lore. Some well-known examples include:

• Optimus Prime intoUltra Magnus,Scourge,Nemesis Prime andMotormaster.
• Megatron intoGalvatron.
• Soundwave intoBlaster andSoundblaster.
• Bumblebee intoCliffjumper.
• The Seekers.
• Prowl,Bluestreak,Smokescreen, andBarricade.
• Rumble andFrenzy.
• Ironhide andRatchet.
• Sideswipe,Sunstreaker, andRed Alert.
• Cheetorintovariousothercats.

Notes

• Hasbro designerJoe Kydeonce said that the plural of "redeco" was "redecos", not "redecoes". But seeing as it's a made-up word, and Joe Kyde is a troll, take that with a grain of salt.

Foreign names

• Japanese:Redeco (リデコRideko)
• Chinese:Chóngtú (重涂, "repaint")

References

See also

• Repaint
• Retool
• Gang-molding
• Mold
• Paint operation
• Body-type