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.)
