Saturday, August 29, 2009

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.

Friday, August 21, 2009

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.