Unpaintable plastic

Due to Prowl's mold layout, changing the outer shell of the car while leaving the limbs white for Sideswipe left a white part on the roof that had to be covered by a sticker. All of Sideswipe's white plastic (and the corresponding parts on other versions of the mold) cannot hold paint.

Just what its name implies, unpaintable plastic is plastic to which the type of paint Hasbro and TakaraTomy use will not properly adhere, due to the chemical compositions of said plastic. This plastic is sometimes used on Transformers toys for structural reasons, due to its durability, flexibility, or resilience.

The two most common plastics that are unpaintable and often used in Transformers are Polyoxymethylene (POM) and Polyamide (PA). The vast majority of Transformers toys have at least one mold that is unpaintable.

Examples

• Beast Wars Dinobot's beast forelegs, the piece at the back of his beast mode neck, his robot shoulders, and his robot thighs are unpaintable plastic.
• Armada Thundercracker's silver plastic is unpaintable, which is why his eyes are silver and indirectly why his face is painted red. (Thundercracker's face is usually silver, but since his eyes and face would have been the same color, his deco artist changed Thundercracker's face color.)
• The Ultimate Battle Optimus Prime — Much of his red plastic, especially the upper arms, is made of unpaintable plastic. This is why the Autobot symbol tampograph was moved to his forearm.
• OTFCC 2003 Sideswipe — See photo and caption to right.
• Prime: Robots in Disguise Weaponizer Class Bumblebee has unpaintable plastic between his front wheels and doors, which is usually where his stripes would pass through. This is partly why his vehicle mode deco was entirely changed for the final product.
• Robots in Disguise Legion Class Strongarm's thighs. A paint operation planned for her kneecaps was removed due to this.
• Combiner Wars Dead End and his mold derivatives have unpaintable elbow joints. For Hasbro's versions of Dead End, Brake-Neck, Prowl, and Smokescreen, the elbow piece is molded in a color matching the car mode's side deco color, while the Unite Warriors versions of Dead End, Wildrider, and Prowl use plastic that matches the primary car mode color, as do both versions of Protectobot Streetwise and the Torchbearer Dust Up.

Photodegradation

While it is nothing new, photodegradation has become much more common and rapid in products released in the War for Cybertron: Earthrise toyline and thereafter. Several figures' unpaintable plastic has become increasingly susceptible to decay and discoloration even while still inside the packaging or mere days after being opened. These figures are also known to "yellow" even when they aren't exposed to direct sunlight—even when inside windowless boxes!—and have been observed to have an accelerated reaction in humid climates.

The precise cause is still unclear. A common theory among the fandom is that a fire retardant within the nylon chemical buildup is the cause of this and reacts to heat and/or humidity, causing the plastic to yellow. There was even one case in TFWiki.net's own community Discord server where the fire retardant chemical seeped out of a seam in an individual's War for Cybertron Trilogy Soundwave's knee! Gross. Other proposed explanations blame the COVID-19 pandemic: rapid changes in factory staff and cleaning methods, reduced feasibility of Hasbro site-checks, longer time spent on slowed-down Pacific cargo ships, or some mix of the above.

Well documented victims include:

• Every version of the War for Cybertron: Siege Megatron mold released from 2020 onwards that uses gray or silvery unpaintable plastic
• Cyberverse Warrior Class Hammerbyte
• Cyberverse Deluxe Class Arcee
• R.E.D. [Robot Enhanced Design] Megatron (G1)
• Collaborative Maverick
• War for Cybertron Trilogy Soundwave
• Generations Selects Decepticon Sandstorm
• Studio Series '86 Autobot Jazz
• War for Cybertron: Kingdom Cyclonus
• War for Cybertron: Kingdom Dinobot
• War for Cybertron: Kingdom Maximal Grimlock
• Generations Selects Ramjet (G2)
• Generations Selects Artfire
• Shattered Glass Collection Starscream
• War for Cybertron: Kingdom Tigatron
• War for Cybertron: Kingdom Mutant Tigatron
• Studio Series Autobot Ratchet (Bumblebee)
• Studio Series '86 Coronation Starscream
• Premium Finish Starscream (War for Cybertron Trilogy)
• Legacy Decepticon Motormaster
• Generation Selects Cyclonus
• Buzzworthy Bumblebee Heroic Maximal Dinobot
• Legacy Voyager Class Soundwave
• Shattered Glass Collection Soundwave

This list is not definitive; discoloration of varying degrees—from small spots to fully discolored parts—has been seen on various other figures since 2020, just less consistently. It should also be noted that sometimes, unpaintable plastic is simply a few shades different from similarly colored plastics and is not always an immediate sign of yellowing.

Notes

• Yes, you can probably get commercially available hobbyist paints to stick to this plastic. You are not a multi-million dollar toy corporation and you are beholden to different budget constraints, not to mention your alterations do not have to hold up to the same testing and durability standards their mass-retail toys do. This fundamental disconnect is pretty much the entire driving force behind customizing.