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...

GoBot-ty Goodness!

Ha! GoBots continue to make their presence known within the TF universe! I just discovered this on TFW2005, a repaint of the upcoming Rise of the Fallen Transformer Knockout into a character named 'Reverb'.


I know of a certain GoBot Renegade named Dart who's suddenly become a great covert op!


Well that's one movie toy I hadn't planned on buying, but how can I *not* pick up this guy to keep Universe Crasher, uh, Fracture, company! Too bad the number on the chest is 26 instead of 17, that would just complete the homage... I'm also thinking that if enough pieces could be simplified/replaced on Dead End, it'd make for a pretty convincing Sparky.
Keep em coming Hasbro, keep em coming.
On top of this, GenZhao has reported seeing scaled up K.Os of the movie scouts, including the forklift Dirtboss. Somebody's destined to be repainted into the Renegade Spoons!

Credit where credit's due: image of Dart yanked from tfu.info, the ROTF packaging image grabbed from taobao.

Old ideas, new post

I'm losing my mind, what with Botcon coming up and me being crazy enough to fly out to California to attend it. I'm stoked about the boxset and attendee only figures. Thunder Clash is especially grabbing my notice. He's not my favorite in the boxset, but he did open the door for me into the world of the European Turbomasters. Now that my buddy Eric's helped to shine a more positive light on them as well, my interest in them has been piqued enough to try my hand at customizing a few of my extra classics into some of the other characters to expand upon the boxset. The first idea I'm totally stealing from Eric-Boss. Co-leader of the Turbomasters, how much more awesome can you get than a guy who just calls himself Boss? The biggest problem I'm going to have is not being able to fully replicate that cool looking batmobile appearance he has in vehicle form. On the upside, Universe Sunstreaker/Sideswipe made a perfect base, complete with window-chests and the leg alignment. Swap out the head and viola! I'm also looking to try my hand at Scorch, who I think will be an easy enough custom using Universe Prowl as a base.
Aaaanyway, I was poking through my photobucket account and found some old customs. Pictures are bad, but I blame my old, cruddy camera. I'll have to dig through my boxes and take new pics.
First up, Skullcruncher. I LOVED the Botcon 2007 attendee exclusive of Weirdwolf, and was dying to update the other headmasters. Cybcertron Beast Megatron is BEGGING for Skullcruncher's colorscheme.


Snapdragon (managed to update this and snap some pics with my good camera)




And what's Snapdragon without Apeface? I had the bright idea to try to cram the TF movie Dropkick's head on Cybertron Beast Primal's body, but the head is just too small, and the connection port does not want to close over the neck connection's nub. The result is Apeface's robot mode looking like a bobblehead. In hindsight, I should have just left the regular Primal head, who says Apeface *needs* to keep his original G1 appearance? Although I probably would fill in that mouth and give him a faceplate.


And here's something I haven't seen anyone try; Reverse Convoy. I *REALLY* want to grab one of those oversized tank Megatron K.O's I've seen floating around the TF forums because as a leader. he should be huge, but this made for a fun trial run. I just repainted the tank Megatron from the Prime/Megs Universe 2-pack, but really need to play around with varying the blues and maybe adding some more strategic black. I *am* happy with the head gimmick though. It's just Megatron's head, with Prime's face glued to the back of it. Flipped one way, Reverse Convoy with Prime head, flip the other way, it's true Reverse Convoy with Meg-head. I think the ideal thing would be to have some kind of helmet/visor that could hide the extra face.