Fear the Jeeper Creeper

Ha! Progress made on ole' Jeeper Creeper! Still not quite the end result I was looking for though. I need to go in and fix up some nagging flaws, but he's on the way, and fits in nicely with his fellow Renegades methinks!

Arg!

I'm pissed! I'd been meaning to post digibashes I had done for Buggyman and Man-O-War, but as luck would have it, those files seem to have vanished from all three of my hard drives. Crud.
On the plus side, Jeeper Creeper is almost done, I just need to wait until there's some decent sunlight so I can capture his colors. he's a mighty dark green.

Fitor!

I've seen so many digibashes of Classics Ramjet into Fitor it makes me sad. Not to say it's a terrible idea, but I like Fitor being a futuristic jet. And Universe Cyclonus just screamed Fitor from the moment I saw him. Chop off the bunny ears, some new color, and wallah!  Did oldschool Fitor have a bit of a conehead, sure, but to me there's nothing wrong with normalizing it a bit, especially when the body structure of Cyclonus is such a spot on match for the character. My digibash is very chrome looking mostly because that was the only way I could get a realistic looking swap from Cyclonus' natural deep purple to the color I needed. Not what I originally intended, as I was thinking more of a flat red, but the more I worked on it, the more it grew on me.

Also, did you know the GoBots also had bots that turned into guns?  Indeed they did, look up Rogun Gobot and you'll find no less than three to five different Rogun Gobots that were made. So even Cyclonus' targetmaster could benefit from a little repainting.

Credit for the base images goes to Seibertron.com.

 

Get ready to rumble

Just finished a couple more GoBot conversions that I think Hasbro refuses to acknowledge.
The GoBot Boomers, Blast the Renegade(blue), and Rumble the Guardian(gray).

These were two large six-wheeled rolling armored vehicles that actually made it into the cartoon (Rumble anyway) albeit he was never referred to by name, nor was it confirmed whether or not he/it was sentient, as he/it usually just served as a transport for Nick and A.J.
When the second wave of Classics hit, I remember thinking of these two Boomers the instant pictures of Classics Onslaught were leaked.

I mean, just look at them, it's as if there is secretly a GoBot fan working at Hasbro and manages to slip one of these babies in under the radar just to appease lunatics like myself.
So here are two repaints into characters we'll probably never ever see, the GopBot Boomers.  Credit for the base pictures goes to Seibertron.com.
I took the liberty of changing Rumble's name to Rumbler, just beacause I can hear the rabble rabble of TF fanboys who can't accept there being another 'Rumble' being in existence. That and I actually like the sound of Rumbler better, I think it plays better in thinking of what this guy is and what he does.

 

And Blast:

I didn't come up with bios for these two just because I'm not sure if they're supposed to have personalities or not. maybe I'll come up with something at a later date.

Meet the Creeper

So simple I almost felt bad even spending the time to do this digibash, Jeeper Creeper took about twenty minutes once I found some nice pics from seibertron.com. I pulled some of the silver and replaced it with black, since I figure it would help accentuate the darkness of the character. And make no mistake, Jeeper Creeper was a frighteningly dark character, all they'd have to do is push the fact a bit in the bio and wallah, repaint with slight remolded head adds plus one to the growing Renegade ranks.
Jeeper Creeper lives for making others wish they were dead. He takes great pleasure in hearing his targets scream and will continue to torture his captives long after he's wrenched the last useful byte of information out of them. Most Renegades shy away from him, as even a lingering gaze makes them uncomfortable. They know he's thinking of ways to torture them too.
Refining his knowledge of the most excruciatingly sadistic torture methods under the tutelage of the sinister Herr Fiend, Jeeper Creeper anxiously waits for Cy-Kill to point him towards his next victim.

Transformers... and GoBots!

I got Skyfall over the weekend, huzzah!

He’s mighty neat, a lot less orange in color than I thought he was going to be. I’m presuming this was tweaked after Botcon, because even the live samples they had at the con didn’t look this red. The only real problem I have is the gold face, but without a remolded head, there was only so much they could have done. I’ll be sculpting my own head for this guy once they have a mass release and I can pick up an extra so I can make Skyfall go from this:

To this:

More GoBots! A work in Progress, here are some pics of what I’ve gotten done on Rest-Q so far. He’s still pretty rough, I just laid on a coat of white paint and need to touch up the areas the tape didn’t protect. Lots of painting still required because I’d like for him to have some more ambulance decals. Most importantly, that face is getting a mask! More pics to come!

More GoBots, the ideas keep coming!

Just a quickie post, I've been poking around with Photoshop and worked out a rough draft of what I think would be a very nice upgrade for our beloved Cop-Tor. Cybertron's Evac mold lends itself VERY nicely to being upgraded into Cop-Tor in my opinion, a little head altering and new color-scheme, and wallah!



Credit for original images goes to seibertron.com!

Next on the customizing slab is none other than Rest-Q, our strung-out medi-bot. My thoughts on him, instead of going with the typical First Aid from Cybertron or Ratchet recolor from Classics (who really would only need a head remold to pass for Rest-Q, way too easy) let's take a more creative route. Cybertron Defense Hot Shot!
A quickie bio:
With the Guardian/Renegade battle for Gobotron in full swing thanks to recent technological upgrades, Rest-Q began to feel as though he should be contributing more to the anti-Renegade movement in a more forceful capacity. He upgraded himself with a body he felt was more suited for battle while integrating his vast array of medical equipment into a number of advanced weapon systems. Though Rest-Q's intentions were noble, there is no getting around the fact that he's a terrible soldier, with the highest count of friendly fire Leader-1 has ever seen. For Rest-Q's own safety-and the safety of the other Guardians, Leader-1 spent a lot of time convincing Rest-Q that while he's a very important part of the ongoing battle, he better serves their cause by being what he is; a medic. As not to completely discourage Rest-Q, Leader-1 will sometimes send him onto the battlefield if victory is assured for a (pardon the pun) rescue mission to retrieve a fallen comrade. This keeps Rest-Q's spirits up and makes him feel like a much more useful member of the Guardian cause.

Rest-Q's weapon systems mostly consist of amped up medical devices. He has several precision-point laser canons nestled within his legs and shoulder ports and carries a high frequency vibro-energy scalpel for emergency amputations. In vehicle mode he weilds dual sonic anesthetic emitters, able to completely numb a targeted limb or send a GoBot into a deep sleep. This of course, caused many problems for Guardians standing too close to Rest-Q on the battlefield. His armor plating allows him the extra protection needed to brave a firefight to reach a fallen ally.

GoBots!

Re: Transformers 2. I was going to do a long, drawn out whatnot about it, but everything that can be said has been said, and every stupid argument that there is to be had, has been had. Not much more for me to add to it other than restating how encouraging it is to me to know that you don't need talent to succeed, just boatloads of confidence and drive. Skill means nothing. $800+ Million dollars worth of nothing. Yikes.

Oh, and, was I the only one who hoped f
or a brief moment that Mikeala's dog was going to transform and smash Wheelie after he shouted "Sonuva bitch!"? No? It was just me thinking it would have been legitimately funny to hear him reply "You talkin' about MY mom, little man? Ah well.

Aaaanyway...

Damn it all, I actually *want* to pick up Wreckage in Bludgeon colors, but I do *not* want that cruddy repainted Blackout/Grindor/whatever he comes packaged with. I may have to bite the bullet though, maybe someone will actually be willing to pay money for Grindor/Blackout/whatever and I can recoup some of my loss. I just saw them in Toys R Us marked down to $26 or so, but even so… $26 for a deluxe? Like I said, maybe I can convince someone to buy him or trade…

I finally broke down and ordered one of those Aveo Swerves I've been eyeballing for the last year and a half. He arrived today! Not a bad deal, the ebay Buy-it-Now was relatively reasonable, coupled with the Ebay bucks I’ve racked up over the last few months and a 15% purchase discount Ebay threw at me, I think I wound up only shelling out a little more than $50 for him. Not a

s good a deal as driving into a dealership, filling out a survey and getting him for free, but better than the psychotic amounts of money he was going for when they were offering him through that U.K site last year.

He never stops looking neat, and I don't care what anyone says, that bad boy is a perfect upgraded version of Turbo as far as I'm concerned.

Turbo vs Crasher, round 2.0

Turbo and the only mold I’ve seen so far that I feel would make a nice Leader-1 upgrade: Energon Storm Jet.

Speaking of GoBots, I really need to get back into doing some more customs. With the molds dropping from Classics it’s been getting easier and easier to do. For example, something simple.

Love Skyjack? So do I!

There we are!

Credit for the picture of course, goes to Seibertron.com. Their toy archive is tops!

I know, I know, a lot of what I envision are straight up repaints. To be honest, I like the challenge of trying to bring out the most of a specific character without having to do a lot of heavy modding. A big thumbs up to those that do, but I like simple repaints with a mod or two here and there. I don’t think an upgrade has to be 100% throwback to the original, just enough to pay homage while being progressive at the same time. And let’s face it, realistically speaking, any and all GoBot references in the Transformers line is just going to be repaints, so I like to think my ideas are a little closer to the realm of actual possibility than a 100% new mold that they’ll never get.

And I keep trying to figure out what would make a decently upgraded transport for the Renegades and Guardians. Hasbro has already said they have no plans on making any of the citybots, so no hope of recoloring anything like that. Of course, they DID make one mother of an Omega Supreme for Energon. A gray base with some red highlights and detailing I think would make for a great Command Center. They can even combine like I imagined in my way too long fanfic ;P I think for something like this, to really play off how large it's supposed to be, you could go the same route as Megalo Convoy from galaxy Force, and include a smaller Prime so you can really see what the scale should be. There's a big cluster of minicons floating around that can easily be repainted into some Guardians that can hang out on this thing. Too bad Takara threw a hissy fit and swore all the *good* minicon molds all simultaneously combusted, resulting in the horror shows of KO quality plastic monstrosities they released during the initial run of Classics.

As for Thruster, I was poking around galleries of the Armada molds and think that Jetfire would actually work pretty well. And man, I really wish Jetfire could merge with someone besides Prime in this line, like another shuttle-type robot. But he can't, so there he is. Again with my fanfic craziness, I think there should be some sentient Thrusters, and other Thrusters that aren't called Thruster. I’ll have to mock up some pics at a later date.

More Customs!

More customs and things of that sort.
First, more updated Headmasters I created a long while ago. The basic story jumps off the bio for the Botcon Weirdwolf, in which Weirdwolf and his partner Monzo were separated. Because the procedure was new and hastily done, it left Weirdwolf a little more, well, weird. I applied this to SnapDragon, Apeface, and Skullcruncher. The idea being that the procedure was improved and reworked, then used to separate the other Headmaster animals from their partners. The catch though, is that their fighting abilities are only at their peak if they're within close proximity of one another. So even if they argue over something, they'd be extremely reluctant to go their separate ways because they'll become overwhelmed by a diminished feeling. That and after you've been that close for that long... I equate it to the episode of Family Guy where Stewie and Brian wound up glued to each other. After their hands are finally unglued, they walk off holding hands anyway.

The second part of these customs, should I ever go back to them, would be to repaint some minicons into their respective partners.

Apeface, a good learning experience, especially in regards to the robot head. I yanked it off a TF Movie Dropkick because of how much it reminded me of the G1 Apeface's original look, but it was just too small. The way it's set up, you can't simply swap out the Cybertron Primal's head with Dropkick, it sits atop the ball joint and wabbles horribly. Because I'm impatient and not really into doing major modifications, I just left it as is. Oh well.



Snapdragon. I'm much happier with the way he turned out. To me, the Classics Grimlock mold works great at being everything *except* Grimlock.


And Skullcruncher. I've always loved his original figure, but I was amazed by how well the Cybertron Megatron works as an upgrade.


Oh yes, I never posted finished pictures of Boss. Now that I actually have the Botcon set that includes Thunderclash and the rest, I look at my custom and think he's a little bright and glossy, but ah well, what are you going to do? Here we are:




And Snare, who I think *really* works well standing next to the Botcon Skyquake:

Customize-o-mania

The more toys we see revealed for Botcon, the more motivated I feel to actually take a break from webcomics and get back to some custom ideas I've had in my head for a long time now. First on the chopping block was Black LioPrime... or whatever it is this mold is being called. Possibly one of the simplest customs in existence, the only difficult thing about this custom was getting my hands on a Dark Ligerjack for a decent price. Then just a splash of black, some silver for the ponytail, and a touch of red to bring out the eyes. Wallah! We have next year's Chicago Comic-Con's exclusive :)



But back to Botcon, I actually got moving on customizing Boss out of Classics Sideswipe.


I still really wish there was a better mold, but it was either this, Ironhide, or Prowl. So Sideswipe won out. I'm not a heavy custom modder, so the best I could do for his lack of a batmobile engine for a gun was to give him a targetmaster to match his colorscheme. Right now I'm debating whether or not to leave the black bits or cover them with blue. I know there was very little to no black on them save their tires, but eh, I'm a fan of black breaking up and adding to a colorscheme, so maybe I'll just leave it. Either way, Boss will be waiting for Thunder Clash. Heh, and he'll be fighting Snare, my other custom! I figure if I'm adding an Autobot Turbomaster, I may as well add to their rivals; the Predators. After looking through the cluster of them, I settled on Snare, I love the vibrant coloring on him, though I found a metallic Red that works just as well as the original coloring. If I have time, the purple menace Skydive will be next.
I tend to rotate when I customize, jumping between three to four customs. It works out nicely, giving the paint on each one time to dry before I come back to it.
Next up: Crosscut.

Why? I dunno. I was originally thinking Skidsz, even though he was *not* the same kid of vehicle as the original Ironhide. But, I think the mold would work nicely for him. Then I stumbled onto an e-Hobby recolor; Crosscut. I don't know why this recolor of the original G1 Skids caught my eye, but he did, so I'm now creating him out of Ironhide.


If I can get my hands on an extra Rodimus or Cybertron HotShot, I'll customize his female partner, Road Rage.

Other ideas in que for an inevitable repaint:
Pounce and Wingspan: NOBODY has thought to paint Energon Battle Ravage and Divebomb? Really? I would have thought we'd have seen these guys in the Universe line as a 2-pack a looong time ago.

Duocon Battletrap:
I actually had Battletrap as a kid, and for some reason I always loved the guy. he gets no respect! That's why I'd love to reimagine him into an updated Classics form. Now, being a Duocon, the idea of being two vehicles that combine into one is not something I have the time or energy to figure out... so I wanted to try the next best thing.


Let's push the character a bit and say, I dunno, the Decepticons wanted to maximize Battletrap's effectiveness on the battlefield, so they upgraded his individual components with the ability to take on individual robot forms. BUT, keeping in with the spirit of the original gimmic, those two should be able to *somehow* combine for maximum effectiveness. Enter Energon Barricade and Windrazor. Since Barricade is the center component for one of the combiners, his arm easily becomes a great holster to allow Windrazor to latch on and convert to its gestalt-arm form. Not quite what the Duocons were known for in G1, but *still* two vehicles "combining" to cause lots of destruction.


I figure these three customs will help bulk up my Botcon set. I'd like to do more, but I've already spent more time on these than I planned, and ignored doing some much needed work on feral ignition.

Nemesis Command Center and Henkei Red Alert

I now have the Nemesis Command Center, and Henkei Red Alert! Woo!
I figured with all the third party companies producing trailers for Prime, it'd be fun to have some variety, so Nemesis will have the Command Center, while my Classics Prime will have the upcoming FansProject trailer. Not bad, not bad at all.

Henkei Red Alert is a lot more fun than I thought he would be.
It's nice to see the mold hasn't degenerated and caused issues with the joints being tight or loose fitting snap connections.

He's a great addition to my classics shelf, Inferno missed him.

Now Hasbro, give us Grapple and Hoise.. and Trailbreaker... and Skids...