Transformers and GoBots

Generations Vamp

2011-07-29T01:58:00.000-04:00

I've been ignoring the "Gobots" portion of this site for waaaay too long. I actually have a big list of GoBots from TF ideas that I've been meaning to digibash.
My favorite group within GoBots were the Renegade Mutants. Not only did they have an amazingly tense, touch-n-go relationship with Cy-Kill and the Renegades, but their designs are some of my all-time favorites.

Vamp.

One of the premiere bad girls of the GoBots series, Vamp led a subset of Renegades referred to as the Renegade Mutants. As the name implied, they were a little more animalistic/insectile in appearance compared to your average Renegade. What always fascinated me the most about Vamp, was the fact that she seemed perfectly content following Cy-Kill until the Master Renegade came into the picture, then all bets were off. And oddly enough, Cy-Kill seemed just as content with this arrangement. Oh sure he was upset when she'd turn on him, but after everything blew over he seemed fine having her around. A very weird dynamic that was probably a result of shoddy writing, but I loved it anyway.

Onto the digibashing...
As with any GoBot, the ideal would be a 100% new, updated version of the character, but I'm not that delusional. If we get Gobots, they're probably going to be a repaint of an existing TF, and I've come to terms with that. BUT, I'd want the perfect form for a character I love as much as Vamp, so when I initially began trying to figure out who would be the best base, I settled on Beast Machine Blackarachnia. Trying to keep in line with Hasbro's budgetary concerns, I thought she would work as a simple repaint with a remolded head. At first I was happy with this-and then Cybertron came along and introduced that delightful Noisemaze mold!

If ever there was a perfect mold for Vamp, it would be this. Considering Vamp's original form was none too feminine to begin with, this actually gives her a bit of a curvy shape without making her a waif. On top of this, the flying form is preserved, which was my biggest gripe about using Beast Machine Blackarachnia originally.

I think there is no better mold for Vamp than this.

I originally digibashed this as close to Vamp's all green color scheme as possible, but just for kicks I decided to break up the color a bit with some black.

And lest we forget about her larger scaled figure, we use Cybertron Soundwave as a base for Super Gobot Vamp! What what?!

(Credit for base toy photos goes to Seibertron.com.)

POW!

2011-03-24T22:42:00.000-04:00

I got Generations Warpath today!
Quit happy with this guy, they managed to perfectly capture the essence of G1 and added that Generations flavor.

We've already seen the instruction scans showing the new head (presumably giving us Hardhead), but so help me there better be a little something like *this* in the works.

C'mon Hasbro, make me happier!

Generations Jazz, Tracks, and Lugnut

2010-12-09T20:49:00.000-05:00

Tracks and Jazz from the TF:Reveal the Shield arrived tonight courtesy of Hasbrotoyshop!I also received an advanced copy (so to speak) of Lugnut.

They are awesome. Tracks I have to give some extra credit to because it's not often I need to refer to the instructions to get those last few steps when changing a TF back from robot to car.
Tracks-overall a solid toy I think. Would I like larger wings? Sure, but considering the 'flight mode' of the G1 toy looked like a silly afterthought anyway, I'm not going to complain. The web feet are only really noticeable if you stare at them, but they serve their purpose-keeping the figure upright. If I have any complaint about this figure, it would be that I wish the arms could shift down a little more at the shoulder. Right now his shoulder joints are almost above the neckline, which bugs me. Shaving off a little plastic should do the trick though.
Of course what really excites me about Tracks is my plan to repaint him into Road Rage-and the inevitable repaint/release from Takara, Hasbro, or FunPub. But until then, the next Tracks I get is slated to go on the slab for the the operation.

Jazz
The first thing I noticed about Jazz is that the boy's got the proportions of a body builder! He completely SHAMES the placeholder Jazz custom I made out of Prowl back in 2008... which by proxy means that he shames Prowl.

Great sculpt, a transformation that takes a little bit of thought, and great poseability. I'm really loving the new open hand design the designers have been implementing. Not everyone needs to be clench-fisted and ready for some fisticuffs.
I am looking forward to seeing this guy repainted into Stepper. Yes indeed.

If your nitpick senses are tingling, it's probably because of what I think is the only noticeable flaw on Jazz. The center strip of plastic that his head rests on rotates up as you move his chest piece down. Unfortunately, there's nothing that pegs into place on the torso or this strip which means the whole setup relies on friction. This could lead to some droopy noggin syndrome down the line as the plastic wears, something that could be avoided if there was a peg or notch that secured the parts into place.
But that's something easy to overlook when you have Jazz in all his robotic glory.

Lugnut.
An amazing leap from Animated to the more modernized Generations look. Though I do have a bit of an issue with his noggin looking like an egg on a stick, I've modified his robot mode a bit to leave more of the canopy leaning forward. It may look silly to some, but I wanted *some* semblance of a thick neck, which is what I always thought Lugnut should have.
I'm looking forward to the more purple-hued TF: United version that's coming out in Japan.

Generations Breakdown

2010-09-30T13:23:00.001-04:00

I know Hasbro's giving us all kinds of awesome and amazing things, and I love it.... but...I'm just sayin'... is this too much to ask?

Give us Generations Breakdown dangit!

New Finds

2010-08-30T22:05:00.003-04:00

I just found Generations Red Alert and WFC Soundwave at Toys R Us!

I’m not surprised by this, having JUST ordered them both from TFSource because I didn’t think I’d see them until October. Arg. But I did find Banzaitron as well, so that was a neat little surprise. Sadly they won’t be opened until sometime next week after I’m done moving. Then they can join their robotic brethren.

More customs for my Generation 2 shelf

2010-08-25T12:18:00.001-04:00

Oops, forgot to post these bad boys.

Combat Convoy!
This actually turned out better than I hoped!

I varied the color placement a bit from my initial digibash (see earlier posts) and kept a little more blue to make him look more like his G2 counterpart.

Decepticon Rage

Leader of the Decepticon Stormtroopers (no, I’m not making that up), Rage is one bad mofo. So bad in fact, he seems to have that Motormaster relationship with his teammates. The funny thing about not only Rage, but his comrades, is that their stats are ridiculously high. Of the four, Rage is technically outranked by two his own troops, and I think all of them have stats that rival Megatron… very interesting. It almost makes me want to see something done with Rage that made him into more of a headliner.

Scram
Scram really seemed the prefect repaint for the Classics Silverstreak mold!

There really wasn’t a whole heck of a lot that needed to go into this aside from laying the base coat, adding lots of blue, silver and orange. The hardest part was laying out those dang pink squiggles! I puzzled over how to create them and wound up just doing it manually. Not as clean as I would have liked, but I’m happy with the way they came out overall.

Generation 2 Ramjet
Way back in 2007, I thought it would be a good idea to try to create my own Dirge and Thrust. Things didn’t turn out too well, so I wound up stuffing the failed attempts in my duplicates bins until I could figure out a worthwhile use. Cue this year’s Botcon theme! Now what was once a failed attempt to create Botcon Thrust is remade into Generation 2 Ramjet! Of course, this will wind up just being a placeholder, as the TF Club announced at Botcon that one of the upcoming club exclusives will be none other than, wait for it, Generation 2 Ramjet. Arg.

Straxus arrives! Also, PowerCore Renegade

2010-08-24T13:59:00.001-04:00

Straxus, er, Darkmount has finally been freed from his Post Office prison. I like this guy-a lot. The helmet isn’t quite as feline as I thought, and the lower legs are actually a lot better than a lot of reviews I’ve seen made them out to be. He has waist and ankle articulation, take that Drift!

He is now free to terrorize anything that resembles Blaster.

PowerCore Renegade:
I’ve had the PowerCore character Searchlight in my possession for a few weeks, but never actually picked him up until yesterday and realized that he’s a dead ringer for the Renegade Twin Spin. I’m sure other people have noticed this as well, but it’s the first time I ever took a good look and came to the conclusion myself. It’s striking, right down to the colors and having propeller blades on his forearms. Replace the gray with some beige and you’ve got yet another slot in the Renegade Ranks being filled.

Man, good job Hasbro! I’m anxiously awaiting the upcoming Highbrow-who will be repurposed into Bolt, as well as Tomahawk, who locks right into place as Wrong Way.

Black Animated Prime!

2010-08-10T16:45:00.002-04:00

Black Animated Optimus Prime arrived today! Woo!

I thought I was done with Animated, having sold off most of my original collection-then they had to go and release Arcee and that delectable crystal ‘Sons of Cybertron’ set! This however, trumps everything else in the line, even ShadowBlade Megatron.

Love the way the window detailing looks in red. And because Japan loves to torture me so, how much do you want to bet there will at some point be a release of this guy with a Decepticon insignia?

He fits right in on the Black Shelf, now I’m hoping for a Black Animated Arcee. Oh who am I kidding, that’ll have to be another custom in the queue.

Botcon Supplementals: Part One

2010-07-19T16:23:00.000-04:00

I started working on this bunch of customs a little while before Botcon, but then got distracted with the trip itself and the subsequent laziness that followed. Now that that’s passed though, here is the first few custom bots that will be sharing the shelf with this year’s Botcon Generation 2 themed figures.

First up, Autobot High Beam.

I liked this guy, he was one of the original ‘gobots’ from G2 that could be used in the HotWheels sets. According to his bio, he’s not considered a fighter by his teammates, but has never backed down from a fight. I like that, and combined with what I think is a very striking color scheme, earned him a custom.
You can see some more pics of him over on TFW2005.com.

Decepticon Jetstorm:

Not my favorite custom, unfortunately the general layout of the original doesn’t match up well enough with the Classics Mirage mold to retain the more defined features of the character in both modes. In robot mode he’s not bad. Obviously he needs some of those original decals to full invoke the feeling of his G2 counterpart, but even without them I think he has a definite G2 Jetstorm feel.

The problem comes in vehicle mode. I don’t know if even the decals would make someone think this is Jetstorm because of how much the black covers the figure without any bright blue breaking up the layout. Oh well, looks like Jetstorm will forever be in bot mode.

Fearswoop!
Yes, *the* original G2 Fearswoop, take THAT cruddy ROTF ‘Fearswoop’ in Hooligan colors!

I like the way this guy turned out, he’s got enough wacky colors going on to really evoke that G2 feel. The downside for me on this custom was a reminder of how I need to strengthen my resculpting skills... or painting skills, maybe both. The face on this was covered up with sculpty in an attempt to recreate his original visor, and though the original sculpt didn’t look too bad, the details completely vanished once paint was applied. Rats. Still, from afar, Fearswoop makes a nice addition to the upcoming Botcon set methinks.

More to come as I prep more final pics!

Drifting thoughts

2010-07-12T00:11:00.003-04:00

I just completed both the Decepticon and Autobot campaigns in War for Cybertron, and the whole time I’m zooming around like a madman trying to narrowly escape Trypticon’s endless barrage of missiles and fireballs, I couldn’t halp but wonder…

Wouldn’t Drift’s toy make a neat Generations version of Zeta Prime?

(Credit for base toy photo goes to TFW2005.com.)

2010-06-16T22:37:00.004-04:00

Just saw these new pics on TFW2005. To the left is Tomahawk, to the right is Terradive.

Does Tomahawk's head remind you of anyone? Maybe a certain GoBot whose name ends in a single digit number?
No?
I took one look at Tomahawk's Leader-1 head and then Terradive's jet mode and thought "Leader-1 Movie upgrade!" Then went on twitter and saw that even Derrick Wyatt was thinking the same thing, as I'm sure lots of random TF fans were.

So I'm thinking, it's time for me to take the head of one Robot, and put it on the body of another Robot. It's time for Head Swap!

...first you take a head and put it on another's body like if Tomahawk's head was on Terrdive's body, that's a Head swap!

Heeeaaaad Swaaaaaap....
Why the blue? If you don't recall, Leader-1's repaint was a very dark, very nice looking shade of blue,
I think it's nice to break away from all that gray every now and then. That could always be the repaint, right?
I also took away the trident. Seriously, what would Leader-1 do with a trident?

Axer: Quick and dirty

2010-06-12T19:23:00.000-04:00

Just saw that 'Axor' is in the Hasbro 'Hunt for the Decepticons' game. He's essentially Movie Lockdown with a new head, but the new head looks pretty cool. Got me thinking about the original ActionMaster Axer it's based on.

How I didn't see the similarities to the Classics Prowl mold is beyond me, so I digibashed something just to satisfy my curiosity.

Considering how quickly and easily this could be done, I may take a stab at this after Botcon. I thought about using Silverstreak, but kind of like him having that light bar. And of course, being coo-coo for two packs, I figured he should keep his cycle partner. Throw in Cybertron Ransak, he already smacks of Axer's motorbike companion. But if you wanted to go for the double homage, recolor that bad boy black like Axer's R.I.D namesake.

(Credit for base toy photos goes to Seibertron.com. Credit for reference pic goes to the Transformers Wiki.)

Omega Doom

2010-06-10T22:07:00.001-04:00

With the random Botcon leaks hinting towards us getting a Shattered Glass Ravage and Wheeljack (though I'm hoping it's Slicer, unless the color schemes really are the same, then who gives a crap?) as souvenir figures, it reminds me...
Arg, I still want FunPub to give us Shattered Glass Universe Omega Doom!

C'mon FunPub, give it!

Quick update as of 6/11/10:
I received War for Cybertron Optimus Prime and Bumblebee yesterday and think they're mighty neat! Of course, you know what's going to happen eventually:

Botcon Digibash: Combat Hero Prime

2010-05-21T07:34:00.000-04:00

There was also an unreleased variant of Hero Prime that was just blue, black and red.

Personally I loved the way it looked, so I decided to throw him into the mix as well.

His story? I dunno, maybe he was charged with the task of tracking down and putting a stop the murderous actions of General Convoy and Sgt. Hound.
Anyway, I know, I know, too many Primes! Not to worry, I’ve got some other ideas coming down the pike. Now that I’m actually registered for Botcon my creative juices are flowing big time.

(Credit for base toy photos goes to Seibertron.com.)

Botcon is in the air

2010-04-06T23:42:00.006-04:00

Botcon is getting closer, you can tell from all the interweb buzzings of "This is AWESOME!" and "That's HIDEOUS!" as FunPub begins unveiling the upcoming Botcon exclusives.

For the last few years, I've enjoyed making my own customs to fill out my Botcon ranks depending on whatever the theme happens to be. For '07's more 'Classicsverse' focused bunch, I made a custom Skullcruncher, Apeface, and Snapdragon to join the Botcon Weirdwolf. A Shattered Glass Galvatron leads my '08 'Heroic Decepticons,' and the '09 Wings of Honor set grew a bit with a custom Boss and Snare.

This year the announced theme has been Generation 2. It's as good as any, a niche corner of the TF Universe that collectors love that also have a slim to none chance of being released at retail. We've seen Pyro on the TFCC club's page, so now my head's been racing to figure out which character from G2 would make for an interesting custom. I am, of course going to aim a little outside the box for my first few, just to ensure there's little chance for an overlap.

First up:

I stumbled across these guys on the TF wiki. Apparently in the '95 Sears catalogue, there was a picture of some Unreleased prototypes, including recolored autorollers made into characters that were going to be called General Optimus Prime and Sgt. Hound. I LIKE that idea a lot.

I figured General Prime would work well as Classics Onslaught with some chamo and a new head.
Sgt. Hound? Recolor classics Hound, white with gray chamo, new head. Ravage could just be Ravage carried over from G1.

Maybe change Ravage's eyes to a different color and have the story be something like:
The Decepticons have only heard whispers of the name General Prime and his right hand, Sgt. Hound. In truth they have no idea what the duo look like, because when a Decepticon does see them, it means he's seconds away from being killed.
The Autobots don't know who the duo answer to, and with each unspeakable act of violence, the Autobots begin to wonder if they answer to anyone at all.

General Prime:
General Prime has been immersed in the Great War for so long he rarely acknowledges that there are even sides anymore. His focus has become more about ending the war, with little regard as to which side deserves to win. Though he has stated that his allegiance is with the Autobots, many of them wonder… if it meant bringing the war to an end, would he turn his fury upon them?

Sgt. Hound:
"Sgt. Hound is a relentless tracker and an unrelenting warrior. His loyalty to General Prime is topped only by his eagerness to inflict unnecessary damage upon anyone who refuses to cooperate.
He takes great pride in Ravage, whom he captured and reprogrammed to obey his commands. Ravage, though forced to follow Sgt. Hound's orders, has never stopped trying to figure how to override his captor's program. He dreams of the day he can break free of Sgt. Hound's control so he can exact revenge and return to his true master."

I’ve been eyeballing a few other characters within G2 that I think would be a nice addition to the Botcon set; I’ll post more digibashes as they’re completed.

(Credit for toy photos goes to Seibertron.com.)

Shattered Glass Galvatron

2010-03-11T21:12:00.001-05:00

The latest exclusive Trasnformer being offered by FunPub is Shattered Glass Cyclonus. Not bad, I'll be getting him, but I would LOVE to have seen Shattered Glass Galvatron offered. Aside from SG Prime, Soundwave, and Omega Doom, this version of Galvatron has been the only member of the SG universe that made me do a double take. Pete Sinclair's posted on one of the TF message boards that there was a larger figure they wanted to offer, but Hasbro put the kibosh on the idea. I'm all but convinced it was supposed to be SG Galvatron, considering his bio was in the latest issue of the magazine, one that concluded the storyline. Considering they already made Megatron's SG form for Botcon, it would make a lot of sense to round out the line with his ressurrection as SG Galvatron.
So, to fix this travesty of justice (as much as one who's not working for Hasbro or FunPub can) I customized one of my own. Should one of a more official nature appear sometime down the road, I'll be more than happy to toss mine aside. But until then:

If you'd like to see larger versions of these pics, I also have a thread in the Radicons section of the TFW2005 messageboards.

That's just Super Couper

2010-02-27T23:28:00.003-05:00

By now I'm sure you've seen the pictures of Toy Fair 2010 showing off some of the upcoming Transformers, including a new Scout named Hubcap. Pretty neat, a little couper.

Know what else would be neat? I'll be shocked if they don't repaint that little guy into a certain Guardian named Super Couper.

They've already hit Crasher, Dart, and Spoons, why not keep the streak alive? C'mon Hasbro, you know you want to!

Super Couper Gobot images taken from Counter-X, one of THE best GoBot sites I've ever seen.

Overloaded

2010-02-17T23:47:00.006-05:00

Remember Overload?

He was a nifty little MicroMaster with a minibase.

He was also in Armada.

How can you deny that's little Overload toting around a big 'ole box of destruction?

And yes, the name was applied to a Green Universe Scattorshot repaint... which should have been called Flak.. but that was used for the Botcon repaint... ugh, anyway...

I'd love to see Overload pulled into the Classics-verse line in yet another Two-Pack idea. With Hasbro's trend of scaling up Minibots (i.e Countdown, Movie repainted yellow Mudflap, who's a dead ringer for the Micromaster Erector) I think it'd be pretty neat.

2010-02-10T23:38:00.001-05:00

Real quick...

The eHobby Skids and Screech exclusives...
This is what we got:

This is what I wanted:

Bought some lime spraypaint yesterday >:)
Dammit eHobby, you could have saved me some time and effort if you'd have just repainted the Classics mold! Oh, and you would have been guaranteed my moolah.

Edit: My God, why is it a battle to insert images and text in Blogger without it freaking out and shifting things all over the place? I shouldn't have to type in direct html to make sure the damn thing doesn't spaz out. Too bad, I'm not in a rush to move this back to Livejournal, but at least their setup doesn't punish you for wanting to post pictures. Arg.

Cy-Kill

2010-02-04T00:14:00.004-05:00

So... Cy-Kill.
Why exactly does the majority of people I see mentioning him have an unhealthy need for him to be a motorcycle? Notice how Megatron doesn't have to be a hand-held weapon anymore? He's a tank, a car, a dragon, a giant hand, a jet, a chopper, a pile of plastic, a flying tank... I'm trying to figure out how he's avoided being a horse-drawn carriage... But you get my point, if Megatron doesn't have to be a pistol anymore, why should Cy-Kill have to be a motorcycle?

Okay, the whole Cy-Kill being a play on Cycle, I get it, but is it possible to move beyond that? I'd love it if that happened. Would it kill anyone to spell it PsyKill? SyKill? Or heck, even if it remains Cy-Kill I'm willing to accept the fact that if Bumblebee doesn't have to be a VW Bug or an actual bee, then I'd be fine with Cy-Kill upgraded into a vehicle that the engineers can successfully turn into a robot that doesn't look ridiculous.
But I know change stirs some of the most unpleasant things in some people, so for this update, I used Dark Crumplezone to ease the conversion. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this mold, it's great! It's got the perfect three wheeled vehicle alt mode so people can still cling to the 'cycle' aspect of Cy-Kill for just a bit longer, and the beefy body I think suits Cy-Kill perfectly. Even though (as far as I'm concerned) Cy-Kill was more of a schemer, I always thought that he would be absolutely elated to be in a larger, bulkier body to match the power he possessed.

For this, I swapped the head out for Astrotrain and did some tweaking. I do like Astrotrain's general look, but unfortunately the actual toy head is a little too small to look like it belongs on Dark Crumplezone's body. I had to scale it up for this digibash. I also kinf of like a simple recolor of Dark Crumplezone's face if you wanted to go for a Cy-Kill that was a little more savage.

I can't stand seeing Oil Slick repainted into Cy-Kill. I guess if you need him to be a motorcycle it's okay, I just hope above hope that Hasbro never decides to go in that direction. Besides, if anyone from Animated resembled Cy-Kill, it's Lockdown.
In my personal collection, I like using Lockdown as a stand-in for an advanced, updated Cy-Kill until I can get my hands on the movieverse version.
I know, WTF? Right? he's like, a car and stuff and junk!
Hear me out. Take a look at the color scheme that was originally intended for Cy-Kill (the Red, white and blue we got was only used because the recolor didn't reach the animators in time, the same reason Leader-1 is gray and not blue like his recolor), and look at how similar they are. Now look at the face and the distinctive wraparound chin strap.

By tinting the face and head gem, Lockdown becomes a pretty convincing Cy-Kill upgrade right down to the body proportions and color layout. Lockdown does sport a little more black, but I like that. Him being a muscle car that looks like it smashed out of a Mad Max film just makes it that much more of a perfect evolution of Cy-Kill.
Now granted, he is a bit gangly, and I do like the bulkier Dark Crumplezone, but I think Lockdown's appearance still exudes power. He still works great as an upgrade for Cy-Kill and fits right in with the updated Crasher/Fracture, Dart, Spoons and BugBite.

Disagree if you like, but I think it would be fantastic to see a little more thought be given to the leader of the Renegades. Would it really be such a bad thing for Cy-Kill to progress and evolve past the whole motorcycle bit and branch out into more accommodating modes? I certainly don't think so.

Thruster

2010-02-03T00:09:00.003-05:00

One of the more unique things about the GoBots were their transports. Thruster, the playset, not only held Renegades, but turned into a robot... sorta. I'd love to see that kept alive with a quickie update. Using Armada Jetfire as the base with a slightly modified head, Thruster returns in all its olive-headed glory.

Since Thruster was never given a personality in the show (which I think is a shame), I'll apply my own twist on the character that made for some fun in my Transformers vs GoBots fanfic.

"Thruster only recently discovered her capacity for thought, and is still adjusting to her new-found sentience. She understands her role in the Renegade ranks as a transport and mobile battle station, and seeks to bring glory to Cy-Kill's cause. Since gaining her ability to think, Thruster has become extremely protective of her passengers to the point of obsession. She keeps tabs on the location, activity, and functioning status of all Renegades within her at all times. This sometimes benefits the Renegades in battle, as she will fight tooth and nail to protect them. On the flip side of this, Thruster refuses to leave any of her passengers behind, forcing the Renegades to drag their fallen comrades aboard before she is willing to leave a battlefield."

Fear the Jeeper Creeper

2009-12-07T23:11:00.001-05:00

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!

2009-12-06T01:47:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-10-28T23:32:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-10T22:35:00.007-04:00

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

2009-10-06T00:27:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-09-14T23:13:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-08-29T19:11:00.008-04:00

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!

2009-08-21T23:57:00.001-04:00

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!

2009-07-09T16:23:00.001-04:00

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

2009-05-24T23:00:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-11T23:25:00.006-04:00

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!

2009-05-10T22:38:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-05T23:47:00.004-04:00

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.

MP Grimlock!

2009-04-16T21:11:00.003-04:00

I wrenched Masterpiece Grimlock from the clumsy, incompetent hands of the postal workers today, worth every second of the frustration they caused! As for Grimmy, he's worth every penny, I lucked out and got a great deal on him, but wouldn't have regretted paying full rpice for him one bit. Despite all the griping the general TF community has done over him being smaller than the previously produced Masterpiece figures, he ranks as one of the all-time best figures in my opinion. To be honest, if he had come out and stood as tall as Masterpiece Optimus, I would have been annoyed that he didn't TOWER over Optimus like he's supposed to. So with that in mind, MP Grimlock may be the runt of the MP litter, but you couldn't ask for a more accurate and better fit for your TF Classics collection.

In dino mode, not even custom Snapdragon and Skullcruncher stand a chance...

Robot mode is PERFECT when placed next to Classics Prime.

Hey you!

That right, me Grimlock talkin' to you!

Okay, so Grimlock's still not quite the king of all, but he comes pretty close.

2009-04-02T23:08:00.003-04:00

Well, I finished lettering Brave the Fortress, so I got to open my reward.
Aaaand...

Boo.
For all the complaints I read about Universe Galvatron, at least he has the excuse of being a Voyager stuck in a deluxe's body. Hot Shot is very much not.
He has some impressive things about him, but none of them make me appreciate the toy. For one, it feels cheap, like the plastic quality took a serious nosedive. The transformation is neat, but the limbs fight each other so much as you're pulling him out of car mode they pop off. Overall I'm disappointed, mostly because I thought he may have made a really good base for a custom Runamuck and Runabout. As things look now, Classics Bumblebee is still the prime mold for those two.

Anyway, here's a Revoltech Leader-1 I made some time ago. The head from Cybertron Brushguard works nicely, but would work better if I could fix the way that neck joint juts from the body. I need to take the time to drill a deeper hole and hide the joint.

2009-03-30T19:23:00.003-04:00

I have just purchased Universe Hot Shot. When I finish lettering Brave The Fortress, I will open him. Will it be a worthwhile reward, or a horrible punishment? We shall see.

GoBot revamp: Turbo

2009-01-17T02:10:00.005-05:00

I’ve been severely ignoring what’s supposed to be the GoBots portion of this blog, which is sad because every time I see a new Classics/Universe mold, I can think of at least two or three GoBots that could be made from it. Same thing for some of the Armada, Energon and Cybertron molds.
I’m torn most of the time, I seriously want to sit down and kitbash some GoBots out of some of my extras, but man, I just don’t have the time. So I digibash. This was one I did for Turbo, although I’m not a huge fan of the Autovolt mold (a little more articulation would be great, but hey, they did a pretty good job with the mold overall) but I like the somewhat bulky feel it gives. If I were to revamp Turbo, I’d like him to be a little bigger and beefier than he was before, and the Autovolt mold lends itself to that a lot nicer I think than what’s currently available.
Images are property of the super talented Remy, visit his incredible collection at www.tfkenkon.com.

Leo Prime!

2009-01-08T23:54:00.003-05:00

I received my Leo Prime a couple of days ago (thank you Yu Giland!) and am very impressed with him, the head remold works better on the Ligerjack body than I thought it would.

Mt first thought was Dear Takara, please produce this figure as a clear colored plastic exclusive like the last Wonderfest exclusive, I will gladly pay for him.
Not very practical, I know, but I can dream and drool can't I?
And of course, being the Black Convoy psycho that I am, thought number 2 was:

Hey, why the heck not? And just in case they don't ever do it, I've already ordered a second Dark Ligerjack off Ebay and am scanning for a cheap Leo Prime to nab, let the customizing begin...again! Oh, many thanks to Seibertron.com for the body image of Dark LeoBreaker.

It's all got to go somewhere...

2009-01-06T23:56:00.000-05:00

I've been debating for a long time whether or not it'd be worth my while to do all my yakking about Transformers and GoBots in my main blog or start a separate one dedicated just to those mechanical wonders I love to blather on and on about. Guess the decision was pretty obvious eh? This will be where I toss all my random Transformer and GoBot related thoughts. My first thought in this blog is:
Botcon '09 being held in California. Crud. Guess I won't be attending this year barring me tripping over a treasure chest filled with gold. But that's okay, I can't say i've ever really been in the spirit of the whole 'Botcon' experience. I'm more in the mindset of 'Gimme my exclusives so I can leave and go have fun elsewhere." Meh, it's a shoddy attitude, so sue me. Doesn't make me any less excited about the exclusives though, I'm having fun scanning through the message boards and reading the speculation amongst the fans. I look forward to seeing them revealed and faxing (ugh, really FunPub, can we join the grand age of online registration?) my order in.

Anywho, next post I'll torture the unsuspecting public with my customs. Bed time for me.