The Energon Pub

Latest project is complete. Completely overhauled TF:Prime Deluxe RiD Arcee and added custom Shapeways blasters & blades! This is easily one of my favourite figures now. Just looks awesome!

Here's the link to the Shapeways blasters/blades combo: http://www.shapeways.com/model/492017/tf-prime-deluxe-rid-arcee-blasters-and-blades.html

Tamiya acrylics: Metallic blue, flat aluminum, metallic grey, semi-gloss black, gloss red, flat aluminum custom mixed with pink for accents.






Comparison to original deco:


Original look of Shapeways parts:


Scale of Shapeways parts compared to original blade and blaster rifle:


Much better scale for the figure.

Prior to painting:



And lastly, pics of the final product, complete with awesome new weapons:




Would love to know what you think!

I'm currently painting up my RID Arcee and yours is just... just... Wow

Fantastic job

Arcee just looks awesome in that metallic blue paint! If I had to guess, I'd say it's Tamiya TS-51 Racing Blue.

And those weapons, they're perfectly in scale for her.

Thanks for the compliments! I'm totally happy with the final look of this figure!

@ Skywarp - The blue is actually Tamiya X-13 - Metallic Blue

Jones wrote:@ Skywarp - The blue is actually Tamiya X-13 - Metallic Blue

X is bottled paint, meaning...holy motherboard of Primus! You actually hand-painted all that?!

That officially doubled my respect for you. The paint looked so smooth I thought you sprayed in on out of a can.

Awesome paint job! I love it!

Also, how durable is the material that Shapeways uses?

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:

Jones wrote:@ Skywarp - The blue is actually Tamiya X-13 - Metallic Blue

X is bottled paint, meaning...holy motherboard of Primus! You actually hand-painted all that?!

That officially doubled my respect for you. The paint looked so smooth I thought you sprayed in on out of a can.

Many thanks! I wish I could take all the credit, but in truth that X-13 Metallic Blue is probably the easiest I've worked with. It goes on incredibly smooth, covers really well, and looks gorgeous. This is probably the nicest finished paint job on any figure I've done yet. Everything just came together really well.

Delta Magnus wrote:Awesome paint job! I love it!

Also, how durable is the material that Shapeways uses?

Thanks! The Shapeways stuff feels really weird in-hand. I've never actually held any 3D printed material until I got these pieces, and it's almost styrofoam-like in texture, but much more rigid. I sure wouldn't want to hand this to a kid to actually play with, but putting the weapons on and off multiple times doesn't give me the impression that they're going to break easily. I'm impressed with the quality, and the price for the set of 4 weapons was right at less than $10. Can't go wrong!

hi, im working with the same tamiya metallic blue atm but it didnt turn out that shade did you use a base coat or primer before applying?

phakstar wrote:hi, im working with the same tamiya metallic blue atm but it didnt turn out that shade did you use a base coat or primer before applying?

Nope, no base coat at all on this figure. Just the straight Tamiya metallic blue paint. Although with the metallics, it's tough to get the true colors visualized through pictures, and across different computer screens.

phakstar wrote:hi, im working with the same tamiya metallic blue atm but it didnt turn out that shade did you use a base coat or primer before applying?

Hope you don't mind my butting in, Jones.

Phakstar, did you airbrush or or hand paint the color on? Sometimes the thickness of a coat of paint can also influence the depth of color when it comes to metallic paints.

I could just AB a few light coats of gunmetal on a part (fully covering the surface, of course), and it looks lighter, but if I really go heavy with a few wet coats, it becomes noticeably darker. This could be the case, as Jones hand painted his Arcee. With hand-painting, you usually don't thin the paint, especially when working with metallics. Which means he could have applied a thicker coat of paint than you did, resulting in a darker tone.

Just adding my two cents' worth here.

yes i only hand paint but i did use the tamiya white surface primer before applying the tamiya x13. i think if i used the grey surface primer it would have came out darker like the custom megatron i did.

Did you thin the paint, by any chance?

Also, on the rare occasion where I didn't mix the paint well enough, the ratio of solvents and metal flakes can be unbalanced, resulting in a lighter or darker coat.

Frankly, sometimes different batches of paint can have slightly differing shades of the same color.

TBH, I almost always airbrush my figs since Tamiya paints can be a bitch to hand-paint, so I'm not really familiar with how Tamiya paints act when hand brushed.