HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy New Year, to all friends, fellow collectors, fans and everyone else who´s interested in the Beasts! The year of the Rabbit (2023) might be over but you can rest assured that the mission of The White Rabbit continues. Looking forward to another year of ¨Beasting¨ 😉
The regular visitors of the Beastformers Blog know that in the first days of the new year there´s always the Annual Review and Preview post and this year is no exception. For the die hard fans this might be a special year because this year a special and mythical Beasts is in control because 2024 is the year of the Wood Dragon! *
As always this post starts with a picture from the Annual New Years Eve event that takes place on Planet Beast every year the #BeastformersNightSkyNYE an image that´s also showed via all the Official Social Media channels of the Beastformers Blog, there´s a new one which will be discussed later. But first a look at the great imaginary Fireworks created by the Cold Feet Soldiers of the Pugnacious Penguin Army (PPA) because these little pyrotechnics made sure 2024 started with a blast!
*Officially the year of the Dragon will start on February 10th 2024 but on Planet Beast the rules are a little different 😉
As Mythical as the Dragon Beast Skull Grotesque is it´s also unknown what 2024 will bring but let´s find out what this year has in store for us as Battle Beasts collectors. Let´s hope for some new finds, interesting stories and cool Beast creations because there currently are various talented artists working on Beast creations just to name a few; The Cosmic Bird (working on ¨GodBeasts¨ and a completely new line called Cosmic Beasts), Battle Beasts Redux (working on awesome new 3D printed Beast creations) and Neromorus (¨GodBeasts¨). If things go well you can definitely expect a (belated) Review of (some of) these on the Beastformers Blog this year! And 2024 will bring more but before we look into that let´s look back at 2023 the Year of the Rabbit one more time.
REVIEW 2023
In 2023 there were not a whole lot of additions/changes to the Beastformers Blog but good things don´t need a lot of change, right? 😉 But there definitely were some valuable additions and changes to the Blog in 2023 and of course behind the scenes there´s still ongoing research and more puzzle pieces have been collected into other interesting background stories which will eventually make their way to the Beastformers Blog.
Since the start of the Beastformers Blog in 2013 there´s been only growth in the visitors and views numbers but in 2022 there´s a decrease in those numbers for the very first time. This could´ve been explained by the unrealistically fast growth during the pandemic years (2020/2021) in which some numbers literally skyrocketed with probably a lot of people who had more time and maybe started to look into their old toy lines a little more. With 2023 over we now also know if the Beastformers Blog is in decline with another year of decreasing numbers or whether it´s picked up the line of growth again because numbers don´t lie. Good news! Because first we look into the World Coverage to see from how many different countries the Beastformers Blog was consulted/visited. In 2022 that number was an already impressive with hits from 80 different countries and that number has gone up to 91(!) for 2023.
In 2023 the Beastformers Blog
was visited/consulted by more than 7250 visitors
from 91* different countries all over the world.
Total amount of views for 2023 was a little over 47,000.
* With more and more people using a VPN it´s likely that the actual number of unique different countries is lower.
Although the total amount of views were lower compared to the successful year 2021 the visitor numbers in 2023 were even higher than the record year!
It can´t be a surprise that the US brings in the most numbers in these statistics because of the high number of active collectors out there but the Beastformers Blog still seems to reach all continents. The Blog also seems to be back ranked as #1 on Google when searching for Beastformers, this has been the case on and off a few times before but if they have their algorithms working in the correct order and they value quality and consistency this will hopefully stay for a while in order to make sure more fellow collectors can find, consult and benefit from the information on the Beastformers Blog. But as always it´s also depending on fellow collectors and the whole BB Community so keep spreading the word and share this place with new collectors or collectors who haven´t found this Blog yet, thanks!
Before 2023 is wrapped up there´s (obviously) one more things left, the year in 9 images…
Best 9 on Instagram
With The White Rabbit being a stubborn perfectionist it, as usual, made its own selection of the ¨Best Nine” images selected from the @Beastformers Instagram account simply because likes alone don´t always tell the story and also because Instagrams algorithm isn´t always cooperative…
Starting from Top Left to Bottom Right (random order of importance);
- One of the highlights from 2023 (they´re actually completed in 2022) within the Beastformers Collection for sure was the addition of the two Surreal Beasts by JPK (Jon-Paul Kaiser) an awesome version of Pirate Lion and a JPK version of The White Rabbit.
- 2023 is also the year in which an ¨Exclusive¨ Instagram account was started for the ¨one and only Battle Beasts Premium Stone Cobra¨ @Thestonecobraclub initially this was supposed to be a private account for proud Stone Cobra owners only but luckily it become a public account so it´s visible for all fans of this Premium Beast which for many is a holy grail figure.
- That the sea creatures have a huge fan base ain´t a surprise anymore because in 2022 a picture of Cutthroat Cuttlefish and Octillion Octopus already made it into the Best Nine as one of the most liked posts on Instagram with over 400 likes. In 2023 this original artwork image from Octillion Octopus’ ID Card was one of the most liked posts again but this time it only reached 246 likes… Strange when the amount of Followers on Instagram has only increased? (Example of Instagrams incompetence/willingness to promote/share posts of smaller accounts)
- Number 75 of the Battle Beasts, Pugnacious Penguin, a favorite for sure but also the second last post under the #BeastformersChecklist for 2023 because after the Penguin Number 76 Ossified Orangutan was also posted meaning that all 3 Battle Beasts Series have been added to the Beastformers Checklist a checklist that goes a few steps further than the common/known checklists which have been out there for years and it can be freely consulted via the Beastformers Blog as well as via Instagram! One of the goals for 2023 was to complete this Checklist for the Battle Beasts and thanks to some diehard friends and fellow collectors this has been accomplished.
- A picture that doesn´t need much addition/explanation because it´s a powerful image but also here goes that apparently Instagram decided different and didn´t want this image to be seen by many. The hashtags were made inactive. Awesome shot of the so called High End LB which were placed in a new type of display as a test case.
- Motion/Movement is something that´s very hard to capture with our beloved figures due the limited amount of articulation. This image of the Beast Saga figures clearly shows what´s going on and it´s clear that someone is sneaking up to it´s lunch 🙂
- The Laser Beasts SHIELD BATTLERS post and page on the Beastformers Blog was together with the completion of the Beastformers Checklist one of the most valuable and appreciated additions to the Blog in 2023 and it might have learned even the most die hard collectors some new things.
- Artistically without a doubt probably the best image that´s ever been posted on the @Beastformers Instagram account. Monkey Fighter isn´t the most appealing Laser Beast so it´s not very often captured or selected as subject matter but in this case playing around with the perspective it became an awesome shot that´s probably also appealing to many Transformers fans. It´s Monkey Fighter as you´ve never seen it before!
- During the closure of the year, in December, Threads was made available for the EU and therefore it also become available on Planet Beast. After years of using solely Instagram and Twitter (X) the Beastformers Blog created another Official Social Media account no surprise @Beastformers is now also on Threads for you to Follow! Like X Threads will not be the main Social Media Channel because that´ll remain (for now) Instagram.
10 Year Beastformers Blog…
This clearly was the most underexposed ¨celebration¨ of 2023. The Beastformers Blog might be a decade old now because it started in 2013 but it´s still far from done and there are still a lot of things that can, and should, be added in order to document this amazing toy line even more. There were some plans in the making to celebrate this anniversary in which an artist was involved but as some of you might have learned by reading posts about working with artists these things take time. Maybe there´ll be some sort of a belated anniversary in 2024 but The White Rabbit doesn´t really like to be the center of attention so it might just as well continue working and doing research in the Beastformers Dungeons and that might be the main on prior reason for the fact there´s been no celebration at all…
To be continued, maybe 😉
PREVIEW 2024
The Year of the Dragon is shouting for an obvious update so that´s something we will dive into directly and apart from that there are a few things close to completion so hopefully also this year one or more interesting pages will be added to the Beastformers Blog.
#BEASTFORMERSCHECKLIST
Last year it was the priority to complete the Beastformers Checklist for the 76 Battle Beast, and with this being the Year of the Dragon let´s see if we can get Skull Grotesque added to it. Probably in February we´ll start adding the Laser Beasts to the Checklist, one at a time every Sunday similar to the Beasts. So if all goes well and there are no, or not too much, hiccups maybe by the end of 2024 the Beastformers Checklist will be ¨complete¨ and hold all 112 Beasts.
Plans for 2024?
Apart from the Checklist there are no major plans to add or change anything to the Beastformers Blog and a lot of it will depend on whether or not certain puzzle pieces will be found and or fall into place. It´ll also depend on certain incoming packages because various custom figures that have been referred to in the beginning of this post will have to make their way to the Beastformers Dungeons hopefully this year. This might result in some interesting Reviews because a lot of those creations definitely deserve a shout out! There are also projects ongoing concerning custom painted Beasts so all in all enough to (patiently) look out for.
Combat Creatures
In 2023 @Morphonauts launched the a Kickstarter for the Combat Creatures line;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/combatcreatures/combat-creatures
With a goal of $65.000 it was fully funded at a total of $73.027 thanks to 433 backers.
The White Rabbit was one of the backers for two reasons. The insane amount of 31(!!) points of articulation which makes that it must be a huge pleasure to play and pose around with these figures especially when you´re used to the Battle Beasts with only 2 points of articulation. And the fact that Morphonauts also showed appreciation for the Battle Beasts line which was the inspiration for the Combat Creatures line by coming up with mini´s (without the articulation) which are in the same size of our beloved Beasts. Reason enough to be excited and to back a project like this.
These are definitely something to look out for this year as well!
Obviously the ultimate goal would be to come up with that insane amount of articulation for actual BB sized figures, who knows when some forces and skills are joined together. Fingers crossed.
BeastformerShop Pop-Up in 2024?!
Let´s hope so… To be honest most of the duplicate items within the Beastformers Collection have found their way to other collections via the BeastformerShop during the last Pop-Ups which makes that it´s not very easy to come up with other items which meet the condition requirements. It´s clear that the Pop-Up idea has become a success after a rough start but due to its high standards it´ll also become harder to actually meet the expectations with every new Pop-Up. So also for the BeastformerShop goes, fingers crossed and let´s hope for at least 1 Pop-Up during 2024. Curious, or want early access for a possible future Pop-Up? Try to Follow @BeastformerShop exclusively on Instagram and Follow the signs of the Grotesque…
Want to support the Beastformers Blog?
Also in 2024 the Beastformers Blog will be up and running and free to visit for all. The foundation of this Blog and the reason why it was started in 2013 is to gather as much solid information and history about the Battle Beasts, and related lines, and to document this in one location in order for it to be well preserved for the future and to make it easier for fellow collectors to consult. Over time a lot of information has been reviewed and updated simply because more puzzle pieces were gathered but a lot of information was also scattered online making it harder to find all of this was shouting for an online location/blog were it all comes together and was verified. Because as much as we believe we know Post or Pages are only added to the Beastformers Blog after proper research has gone into the subject. Research that´s only making progress when new pieces of the puzzle and facts are added. Therefore, and in order to continue this, sharing information and new finds is crucial because every little puzzle piece might help completing a larger puzzle or connect loose pieces together. So if you find something unusual or have something else that´s off or different from the usual please share this with us by reaching out via the Contact options available here on the Beastformers Blog or via any of the Official Social Media platforms. By simply sharing puzzle pieces you already help and support the Beastformers Blog and make that in the future possibly more interesting pages can be added and preserved.
Apart from sharing information you can also support the Beastformers Blog by making a Donation by using the Donation Button that can be found. For more information check; Why the Donation Button? But you can also donate Beasts or Beast related items if you feel like you have something special and would like that to go into the Beastformers Collection and who knows it might be part of a future article here on the Beastformers Blog.
No worries because even without support or donations in whatever way The White Rabbit has enough eyes and ears out in the Beast world to make sure that more and more information will be added to the Beastformers Blog over time but help in whatever way is obviously always much appreciated!
SOCIAL MEDIA
While you can always use the Contact option that´s available here on the Beastformers Blog also in 2024 you can find The White Rabbit on various Social Media platforms under @Beastformers this goes for Instagram, X (previously Twitter) and since the end of 2023 Threads. You can always consult/contact The White Rabbit via those channels if you have Battle Beasts related questions or have any other Beasts related subjects to chat about. Looking forward to connect with fellow collectors! Keep in mind that there are still NO Official accounts related to the Beastformers Blog on Facebook!
And similar to last year, and the year before that, a note:
Please use the Search option
Even though most of the main subjects on the Beastformers Blog are organized and added to the menu in the bar above some of the quick posts are not added or subdivided within the menu. This is done on purpose to prevent extremely long pop out menu´s showing up but the downside of that is that these posts might get out of sight while they are still there. So if there´s something you can´t find via the menu please try to fill in some catchwords or search terms via the Search box on the right to see if there might be any results in most cases you´ll probably get one or more hits and if you don´t feel free to ask. You can use the contact options mentioned in the menu or reach out to The White Rabbit via social media.
Are you ready for the Year of the Wood Dragon?!
The White Rabbit is, let´s see what 2024 will bring, ready for another year to…
Enjoy the Beasts!
The Beastformers Team
Beastformers Blog 