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I made these 10+ years ago, but now that I have a smartphone and flickr account, I dug most of them up while reorganizing, AND most importantly, we finally have an official Marvel G2-accurate toy of their Liege Centuro JHIAXUS to lead them into battle, the stars have aligned!

Here's my custom G2 Cybertronian Army!





I know I need to improve my lighting and shot-composition skills for whole tabletops, but I had my posterboard set up for Ebay selling pics, and couldn't wait any longer to show these guys off.

Because Jhiaxus's forces are legion, and we're never going to see official troop builder toys for this particular faction, I say quantity over quality. Two of these are just plain lazy on my part, and at least half are still works in progress, so I'd appreciate feedback on which guys need what improvements. Like, does the translucent Thunderjet in front of the Machine-Robo shuttle team look cool enough that I shouldn't obscure his wings with huge faction symbols?

I'll update this thread with closer shots of each group in each mode, and add the few I couldn't find or any new ones I create in the future. One will also be making an appearance in the HMW pages; any fellow players care enough to guess who?

Has anyone ever done customs of these guys before? The faction, rather than few specific, well-designed and named characters.

Okay, one more vehicle mode group shot with the two Thunderjet pairs uncombined, and team Galacticide in combined rocket mode.



And now on to individual characters, most of whom I don't have names for yet.

The first is the only true kitbash that I added parts to (others had a bit whittled off their heads) and the only one I entirely painted. The difficulty in getting paint to stick, especially on that soft yellow plastic that's been drawing complaints on SS'86 Hot Rod lately, is part of the reason I switched to Rit dye for recoloring most of the others.

He's supposed to be a character mentioned in Alignment, hence I made him the leader of my HMW team, The Misaligned. Finally, here's the true face of the Green Strike-Jet who's been in the top 30 for years, Storm Front:



The BM Deluxe Jetstorm mold gave us our first toy of Jhiaxus, probably because so much of the G2 Cybertronian air force looked like Cyclonus. Why he got Sunstorm's deco instead of something closer to this, I have no idea.



About half the BM Vehicon toys make can be repainted into passable Cybertronians, IMO. Were some of the designers looking to the G2 comics for inspiration? Thankfully Jetstorm's CG model deviated from the toy enough that my hatred for the wrongheaded Beast Machines show actually allows me enjoy the toys even more, once they're repainted.



For example, have any of the repaints of this mold ever really highlighted the teeth sculpted into the jet "face"?

In my headcanon, that's part of the evidence for the "insanity" that got Storm Front kicked off the force.



Of course, by Cybertronian Empire standards, he was mostly "insane" for deciding genocide against organic life wasn't for him.



Not because he "saw the light" ala Skyfire, Carnivac, or Drift, but because slaughtering the defenseless wasn't violent enough for him.

Can't see how I repainted his thrusters from that angle, maybe I'll post a better one in the HMW team photo thread (once I find it again).



In bot mode, you can see I gave him G1 Topspin's hands, sliced the launcher/wing assemblies off and glued them further down the forearm, and gave him Cybetron Red Alert's head with two spare Gundam Wing knee/dragon-neck joints over the earmuff emergency flashers, allowing his shoulder tailfins to go vertical in jet mode.



Lotta' paint chipping visible from the back. I guess he's constantly getting scuffed up in battle and not caring to fix the small stuff, like Ruckus.



That's my most ambitious Cybertronian custom. Next, I'll probably post my two laziest ones.

Storm Front looks great.
The color pattern is fresh
His altmode looks so dead on

I've never had the deluxe Jetstorm, so I
Never even knew it had teeth.. I like it

The only HMW character I've done has been Flamefeather

Also, are those oversize mini-cons? Or does the size of them just look off to me?

DISCHARGE wrote:Also, are those oversize mini-cons? Or does the size of them just look off to me?

Thanks DISCHARGE!

And yes, those 4 are Minicon Knock Offs that some manufacturer ("Quick Change"?) enlarged to roughly Deluxe size. They did the Star Saber and Energon Saber minus the hilt-shuttle-bots, Sparkplug in several colors, and Wreckage (Land Military Team), each individually carded. They also enlarged several Cybertron Legends figures to the same size in that assortment, which were just recent enough at the time (2010?) that Hasbro considered those active molds, spurring the crackdown that ended a golden age of Big Lots carrying a huge variety of TF KOs.

I seriously wish I'd gone back and just taken all the box sets placed on the "NOT FOR SALE" overheads due to the mandate to destroy them, and walked out the door daring the staff to call the cops on me for "stealing" something they were just going to throw out anyway. Sigh.

I've already taken pics of the enlarged Vector Prime from that line that I barely customized to be included in my next post, but I'll do the Minicon Thunderjets right after that.

One detail on Storm Front was so minute, I actually forgot it while I was handling him. Many Cybertronians had clumps of cables visible through gaps in their armor, like on Jhiaxus's shins. Seemed like pretty easy targets, unless the cables were just so tough they didn't need protecting.

So I tried to fill the gap between Red Alert's collar and Jetstorm's shoulders by dicing a twist tie then gluing the itty-bits in two rows protruding from underneath.



Maybe it's more visible from the back, though to quote MST3K on 'Robot Rumpus', "Close-ups reveal the weakness of the entire premise," and my painting skills.



Now onto my lamest custom, a Star Wars Crossover Cad Bane that I removed the brown paint from, then slapped two faction symbols on. TA-DA.



I would've done more, but see that crack on the right side of his chest?



That was caused by just rubbing a Q-tip soaked in paint thinner on him. Seriously, that's all it took. Made me skittish about painting him, especially if he might just shatter once I'm done.

I have the Magnaguard this is retooled from, maybe I should swap heads and paint Cad's yellow: the purple-ish Magnaguard would then become Sleepwalker-former, i.e. What if Bob Budianski hadn't left the Marvel book?

Oh well, Cadformer's acceptable in a crowd shot. Onto my second laziest custom, the one I just dyed except for the wings.



The strangest KO giftset sold at Big Lots was an Operation Combination Micromaster head/torso/thigh set enlarged to almost Combiner Wars scale, with deluxe sized Cybertron Legends KOs for limbs. I bought all I could of the one whose legs were red and yellow Starscreams, but Tetrajet troop-building meant I was left with a lot of red and white Vector Primes, so I boiled a white one green while I still had the pot on after dying two tanks.



Still have Star Wars on the brain, so here's his solar sailor mode.



Not terrible, but what bugs me is that despite his face logically being intended to resemble the Autobot symbol, something about it in these colors makes it look like G2 Rook, to me at least.



And if it is my collection's Rook, then I should customize him further, like jamming more twist ties in that huge, hollow gap in back of his head to simulate his cyber-dreads, but his chest would still be a lost cause, so...



Making the panels removable guns was a nice touch from the KO company, but he looks like he's shooting bamboo umbrellas at the Autobots.

Hasbro, you did such an awesome Jhiaxus, please find a way to do G2 Rook so I can mentally repurpose my green VP into another generic Cybertronian.

Until then, SALUTE!



...or the closest approximate gesture. Jhiaxus isn't buying him as Rook either.

Okay, no more excuses, next batch will be the ThunderJets...on the move!

Okay, the packaging Big Lots got was probably different, and so was some of the paint, but here's the KO set I kept going on about. Thanks Bronzewolf!


Seriously, hook me up with a respirator and the address of the landfill Big Lots sent them to, and I'll dig out the biggest Tetrajet fleet Cybertron has ever seen!

I'm still kicking myself for not stealing them as soon as I was told the axe had fallen and they couldn't be purchased. The ULTIMATE ENDs justify the ultimate means.

The Thunderjet pairs should be uploaded later today.

Most of the G2 Cybertronian Air Force were referred to as "Thunderjets", though Jhiaxus seemed to be one of the few big and bulky enough to transform into this alt on his own; most of his minions had to pair up and combine into a Thunderjet, though the art left it a tad vague how this worked. Those killed by the Laser Rods in one panel appeared to split apart symmetrically, but it's possible they were being "Voltron-sliced".

For the record, I have never bashed Manny Galan's artwork. He at least actually cared about who/what he was drawing, which places him above Dwayne Turner and even Jose Delbo in my book. His work on the G2 comic largely sucked because he was forced to try and emulate a style that wasn't his.

Point is, to do Thunderjets properly, I'd need some decent sized TFs that could combine in pairs into alien-ish aircraft. Animated Jetfire and Jetstorm wouldn't look right, nor would the Crossovers Millennium Falcon (Chewie already suffered enough from the horrors of GPS), and the KOs of Darkwing and Dreadwind didn't hold together well enough, so what was left?

Maybe it was partly Ben Yee's early Armada reviews pointing out that the Star Saber looked more like a gestalt aircraft than a sword, but when I saw enlarged Knock-Offs of 2/3 of the Star- and Energon-Saber teams in Big Lots, I knew Thunderjets were GO!









Although they didn't bother doing Sonar or Skyboom to give either blade a hilt, Quick Change emulated the originals' use of translucent plastic, at least for the tops of the jets.



For the Star Saber pair, I dyed those clear parts green, along with whatever opaque parts I couldn't remove by unscrewing, mostly just painting their bot mode elements. For the Energon pair, it was all paint.



Painted a few details on top of not-Wreckage, but mostly the underside of the translucent plastic, to give a layered effect. Not sure how well that shows through in photos though.



Not-Jetstorm's legs are splayed like that to avoid breakage. The hip and especially the knee joints on these two are so tight that they've had stress marks on their pelvises since I first transformed them a decade ago. I'll likely never find these molds again, and it makes him look less like an Earth passenger jet, so that's his alt mode.



But speaking of Earth alts, something very strange happened in the KOing of Scattor: he was reshelled into an F-16! Even if this is the same company that did endless KOs of the Constructicons, Protectobots, and Aerialbots, that ain't Skydive's kibble. It's closer to another KO of an F-16 and a Hind that combine Duocon style (thought the only TF part is Battletrap's head). Regardless of where it originated or why this was done, someone did some genuine retooling to make the tail transform like Scattor and Jetstorm's, so kudos to the engineering skills of this unknown denizen of the Knock-Off-Kingdom!



And a USAF fighter jet with a weird undercarriage in Cybertronian colors doesn't seem too out of place for a splash page in the G2 book.

Again, I will never bash Manny Galan, he was under...oh never mind.

That's probably enough pics for one post, combined and bot modes next installment!

And now for their actual combined Thunderjet modes:


Now that I've immortalized how not-Jetstorm looks with his bot-parts visible through the translucent wings, I think I will slap my biggest symbols from the Reprolabels G2 'Con sheet on there. These guys need it to gel as a team.

Unless someone thinks it looks really awesome?

Did the Star Saber pair come out looking better in photos? I always thought the Energon Saber looked cooler in hand, partly because I was able to fan mode the rear guy a bit.

Though even if his legs weren't so stiff, I couldn't robo-yoga them into more convincing thrusters.

I've decided not-Wreckage's appearance in jet mode indicates his function is to project force fields and/or irradiate swathes of land he flies over, killing even microbes or seeds that could potentially regrow and undermine cyberformed areas of the planets they've conquered. But only when he combines to let someone else provide most of the propulsion can he direct most of his own energy towards this function.

This vehicle-gestalt's only weakness is that if you look straight down on it, not-Scattor's robot face is clearly visible.

And though the Thunderjets may try to go their separate ways, they can't escape the fact that the KOs of Scattor and Jetstorm both got the head of...

Optimus Prime?!? Oh wait, you probably can't tell in this pic, and their other bot mode pics came out even worse. I'll have to retake them in the morning. Sorry.

And the two front jets are the same height, their stances just somehow shrunk the yellow one on camera.

And finally, we finish off the Thunderjets in robot mode.

As they did with several small transforming trucks sold at Big Lots (including a garbage truck I actually bought), Quick Change remolded these Minicons' heads into that of Optimus Prime in the process of enlarging these KOs. I trimmed a bit off the crests before painting to de-Optimize them within reason. If that's just how they came out in the spawning process, I imagine a Cybertronian officer having a similar reaction to Stanley Tucci in AofE as he complains about Galvatron having Megatron's head when he's supposed to look like Op.

"And does that look like a consumer-friendly face to you? And what about that big hole in the chest?"
"I think it's bad-ass. I like it."
"Love it."
"Well, I hate it."

If I ever find the right accessory to plonk into those ex-powerlinx ports, I'll do so. Until then, it's another Cybertronian armor gap, minus the cables. Though I did crazy-glue a tangle of twist ties into two other gaps on not-Jetstorm. Show 'em, guys!

"BUK-BUK-BUK-BUK-BOWWWWWK!"

Didn't do it to not-Scattor because his arms end up on top in Thunderjet mode. Again, maybe I'll find the right weapon one day.

And I didn't flip their tailfins over their chests because the left guy's is just plain stuck, so it's not worth the risk of breaking him. I do place the right guy's there in combined mode, so I put it on top to give him an overhead flamethrower in bot mode, and make him look kind of like Sandstorm's original toy.

Not much to say about not-Runway and not-Wreckage, except I tried to give them all different deco patterns in robot mode. I don't think they ever had multiple shades of green in the same comic, but this plastic's pale, sickly shade of green works alongside the darker shades for my liking.

The KOer gave the head a creepy little mouth that makes them look like their faces were carved out of dried apples. Not sure it'd be worth the trouble of changing it though.

No, Abbey Road's the other way, you messed up the lighting again! Guys, c'mon!

Okay fine, just leave.

That does it for Cybertronians customized from TF KOs. Next time, I say "tanks" to Hasbro by ruining two of the same official toy. No, not Mega Tankor, though I should green-and-white a few of that mold someday. What other continuity's 'Cons make aesthetically sound G2 Cybertronians? Weird armor-gaps, skull-ish faces, and alien-assault vehicle alts?

And now, the two tanks I dyed green without disassembly 10 years ago: ROTF Fast Action Bastard Battler Megatron.

However, it turns out I should've taken pics 10 years ago, as my dye job hasn't aged well.

At the time, the hard plastic turned green, with the silver parts retaining a certain sheen. The soft rubber parts on the arms, however, turned black, presumably because the softer plastic absorbed more dye.

But when I dug these out to photograph them, they'd both faded! The majority of the figures are teal/grey, with only the formerly black soft parts being distinctly green. They looked so perfect back then, but now I guess they need some painted details. See what you think. Does it look like I did much of anything to them?


I love this toy's tank mode. It looks powerful and menacing, but also kind of cute.


Like Metal Slugs. Or the Bonapartes from Tank Police.


Sorry about the glare. I sort of had to put the faction symbol on top of the turret/shoulder because there weren't any other flat, unbroken areas on this toy.


The only paint on them so far is to make the rectangular indentations look like thrusters. Homaging the intro to Blaster Master.


Here you can see the soft, green parts.


The lesson here is that dye is unpredictable. Every use of it on plastic is an experiment, for me anyway.


Oh, and I removed the bayonet from one of them, making the claw-parts look more functional. Now he can punch something and pick it up before flinging it over his shoulder, or shooting it off, both action features of this mold.


Oh well, considering how likely boiling toys in dye and acetone is to warp them into unusable waste, I can't complain about these guys living to be painted another day.


And their heads REALLY need to be painted now to look less like Bay-Megs and more like skulls. That and the gappy armor designs are what make so many Cybertronian Bayniverse designs, especially Megatron, work so well repainted into G2 Cybertronians. Though that second feature still seems like a liability to me. Just ask Blackout's groin. Ouch.

Some of the lights I'd been using started dying on me, so I hope you can actually see how this team is recolored from the originals. I've been stringing this out long enough, so I'm posting it now anyway.

And I'm assuming someone familiar with the originals can tell me if I really did enough to make them acceptable G2 Cybertronians. The last 2 teams in the vehicle group shot are gestalt teams repainted from Big Lots KOs of Machine Robo Rescue. At the time, I certainly recognized the designs known better in the western world as Screw Head and Fitor, and knew that GoBots were descendants of Machine Robo toys produced by Bandai, but nothing about their story, or that this line had a then-current anime backing it up. All I knew is that the bulldozer guys reminded me enough of the Cybertronian construction crews seen in G2 issues 1 and 5 that I could recolor them into passable representations of those 'Cons.

BUT, I do want feedback from anyone reading this who's familiar with Machine Robo Rescue, as to whether I went far enough. I could've covered up more orange and black, but G2 #1 established that some construction crews get to be more colorful than the warrior Cybertonians, so I kind of did a minimal paint job on the leader, and painted just two squares on each limb guy after they were dyed (I'll explain that later). If they don't look different enough from MRR bots, then I might just add more paint, and post a few new pics in the future.

As to G2 Cybertronians having gestalt teams, they had combining Thunderjet pairs, so why not? They could even come out of the spawning process as one huge metal blob that hasn't completely separated into five before shaping up into something solidly robotic. And Mindset was some sort of counterpart to Onslaught, which implied he could also be a gestalt team leader, right? I do reject TFWiki's assumption that Onslaught was the "parent" Mindset blobbed off from, since their "bond" was not properly explained. I think it was more like Primus encoded some sort of plan in his life force that determined what type of Transformers would form down through the generations, resulting in Cybertronians of a certain archetype coming into existence long before their G1 counterparts in some cases, due to the spawning process being forced along so much faster than new TFs were made by the Creation Matrix and Matrix Flame.

So this team is the Cybertronian counterpart to the Constructicons! Maybe. If not-Screw-Head counts for Hook and Long Haul. I'm not set on names for these guys yet, but I developed a rule with my next team (led by not-Fitor) that these guys should have names with the same number of syllables as their G1 counterparts, preferably in reverse-cadence.

If you skipped reading all that, I don't blame you. I just put more thought than effort into these guys.


I haven't put faction symbols on them yet. I should probably place them over the numbers like I did with the shuttle team (which I'll post next batch), but they work better on these guys. Maybe there are multiples of this team out there. Lotta' planets to cyberform and align.


The dye made the dozers look kind of dirty, appropriately.


Here's where shifting sunlight started screwing up the shot.


Hi-ho. Hi-Ho. We're lined up in a row.


You can see the squares on this side a bit better. They were supposed to denote which Constructicon each limb-guy corresponded to:
Grey => Scavenger
Green => Bonecrusher
Black => Scrapper
Purple => Mixmaster

But the black acrylic paint on all my projects has had an odd tendency to turn grey over the last decade. It looks kind of like dust accumulation, and turns black again when I add water, but I forgot that before I took these pics.

Luckily, no one but me gives a crap. Sigh.


And just like the G1 Constructicons, and many subsequent gestalt teams, you can achieve battle mode by slapping huge weapons on top that largely obscure their vehicle modes, and don't store neatly in bot mode!


Well, there's always subspace just outside of the shot.


Nothing hidden behind their backs.

I know the drill-tank looks more repurposed than customized, but there's hardly any part of his torso where paint wouldn't rub off during transformation, just as true of the shoulders of not-Fitor in my next team. I did paint his arms green, but the #*%&ing lighting...


Okay, NOW you can see the green. And the different indentations I painted yellow to look like lights. They all surely spend long stretches underground.


Oh right, they can wield their guns in bot mode, it just looks awkward, and I don't see them aiming well. No, if a serious fight breaks out...


...they want to combine, ASAP.


So, this guy needs a four syllable name.


Terrastator? Terra-Crusher? Cyberformer...sounds too generic for a character name, but that is their function.


Mecha-Shiva! Mecha-Shiva! Mecha-Shiva!
(Anyone get the reference? I made these guys a long time ago...)


Ah, he found the cannons again, just as I took them from a different MR KO, the smaller red version of the Fitor and shuttle team. I guess they're supposed to combine into this huge vulcan(?)


I can see this thing firing fast and powerfully enough to keep most Firestormers at bay.


Here's my tentative list of list of names for 5 individuals, based on their supposed Constructicon counterparts:

Hook + Long Haul => Screw-Crusher or Foundation
Bonecrusher => Composter (assuming that's how he puts organic waste to use)
Mixmaster => Quicklimer (assuming he's also a chemist, and see above)
Scavenger => Faultfinder (what he'd use his power-shovel-sensors for)
Scrapper => Scraper (he makes sure the ground's level; some KOs deserve unoriginal names)


The composite gun is attached by sliding it over one dozer-con's arm. Stable enough for display.


Works just as well on the other side.

My other Cybertronian gestalt team is also based on a G1 counterpart. COMING SOON!
(No one loves the '88 checklist more than me)
(And that's not a hint at the year of the gestalt team I'm referencing)

And finally, my other Machine Robo Rescue Repaint roster recombines into rocket mode!

Because all 5 of these guys ended up having just a dash of red on them, I reasoned this meant they were high ranking, like Jhiaxus. A special task force that can just zip across the universe to that latest planet that just has to be fully genocided and subdued on time for the cyberforming crew to begin on schedule. The Cybertronian equivalent of the Ginyu Force! More on that logic below.



Terrastator steps in to provide scale. There was an earlier, all red version of this Fitor + Shuttle team that was the same size as the Screw-Head + Dozer team, from whence the Cybertronian not-Constructicons got their weapons. A few years later, the molds were enlarged and improved, and came in two KO versions: One with larger versions of their original double-barreled rollers, and one with the awesome central docking tower seen here. Both sets' shuttles were red and white, but by unscrewing swapping parts around, I could create a team that was all white plastic EXCEPT for the red wings, which are pinned on and therefore needed painting. And I couldn't paint the hinges without scraping, hence the touch of high ranking red.



This was my third dye experiment. I'll post pics of those Autobot Mini-Vehicles turned 'Cons, experiments #1 and #2, when I find them. This was my first large scale dye project, and therefore first hard lesson. Well, even if things had gone as planned, I would've had to paint most of their underside anyway.



Off into the infinite void! I'd have used a black backdrop for all of these if I had the right posterboard on hand.



And one more to put their rocket mode into perspective, but out of focus.



And if anyone still cares after two weeks of suspense, this team is the Cybertronian spawning counterpart to...



The Aerialbots!

In fact, my whole idea for this repaint started from someone I knew briefly in college who wasn't a fan, and told me some 3rd hand misunderstanding about the Aerialbots, which I promptly de-verified. He thought that each Aerialbot had an elemental power. This is understandable if all you knew was their names, but only Silverbolt and Fireflight have weapons in their tech specs that correspond; Air Raid's torque rifle has a tornado-ish effect, but that's kind of a stretch.

BUT, what if there was an alternate version of the Aerialbots for which that WAS the case?! Misunderstandings about Metro Titan and Black Shadow by western fans likely gave rise to the Necro-Titan and Black Shadow's status as a Phase-Sixer, so I decided each member of this task force is a specialist with a specific element, and all five of them can quickly destroy or subdue those elements on most cyberformable planets. That may seem more like evil Voltron that evil Superion, but that's who these guys have been in my mind since the moment they finally came together.



Following a rule that their names have the same number or syllables as their G1 counterparts, inverted somehow when possible, they are:

Splitterchrome: from Silverbolt. This references his Silver conehead giving him some sort of space polarizing/splitting ability that lets him warp their rocket mode across infinite space in record time. How his other electrical powers work, I haven't decided.

Strike-Slip: from Slingshot. After the type of fault line, since he specialized in ground alterations. I envision him lugging around all or most of the their central docking tower for this purpose, but haven't decided how it works.

Flagrate: from Fireflight. Almost went with "Napalm" since his primary function is to burn off any life down to the last germ or seed that could conceivably grow to destabilize cyberformed areas later on. Also works with Strike-Slip on volcanic areas.

Drybed: from Skydive. Tries to eliminate water and other substantial liquids, sometimes by funneling them into space.

Dead Air: from Air Raid. In charge of altering planets' atmospheres to prevent corrosion to cyberformed worlds, and make them unbreathable when possible.



You can tell who's who from the wings. Again, I'm assuming high-ranking and older G2 Cybertronians get to be more colorful. At least in one mode. Maybe two.

Here you can see how the tower splits so two different shuttles can each carry half. Probably should've taken one from the front, but this is enough pics already.



And here they are mounted on their roller weapons, which I guess they can pull out of subspace.



Coming right at you! But their robot modes will be coming in the next post.

I actually ended up buying four different Machine Robo Rescue KO boxsets to make these guys. Once I had the parts for an all white team, I tried dying them all green. The rookie mistake I made was just dumping them all in the pan of boiling dye. The hard lesson was never let your plastic touch the bottom of the pan, or it'll warp and twist into unusable garbage. I'd read about tying strings to each part an simmering it like a teabag, but I had a lot of parts that I wanted the exact same shade, so I took a shortcut.

The only parts of the skinny shuttle-bots that didn't warp were the tailfins and the cargo doors that end up on their tummies, hence they're a lighter shade of green than the painted wings. Thankfully, Splitterchrome's lower legs and top shoulder panels also turned out fine, so I just had to paint his arms and pelvis green. As with not-Screw-Head, the way the shoulders rotate to transform makes them unpaintable, but dark blue's kind of neutral.

The other happy accident that came from destroying my first attempt while these KOs were still available at Big Lots was ending up with an extra docking tower, roller weapons, and spare parts for a mostly red team that I might finish up someday. So far only their leader, Thunderstrike, has been finished for years. But that's another thread down the road.

(If any aspiring dye-masters actually want to see the remains of my first attempt, let me know. It could be the wreckage of another team that The Swarm ate.)



I wanted them to have unique colors as individuals, then be identical when combined. But the wings make more convincing legs when folded, so...



Yeah, they have more defined legs, but look way less distinct...and less threatening.

I mentioned the Ginyu Force before because they're a kind of evil reverse-Sentai team: Crayola-skin-colors, but bland black-white-brown uniforms like the rest of Freezer's minions. Similarly, these shuttles have unique colors in alt-mode that get folded over by the standard Cybertronian green upon transforming.



Now, I just assumed they could somehow hold those roller-cannons in bot mode, and I used to be able to force one onto each fist (however awkward and unbalanced it looked) years ago, but this time I immediately produced a huge stress mark on top of the grey plastic. So, now they just surf around on their guns in robot mode. If they're more destructive scientists than conventional soldiers, I guess this works. Their bot modes don't look super threatening no matter what I try.



They're still more intimidating than that red team I mentioned though; their bot modes just look like sentient red crayons, and therefore need some actual, physical mods. Someday.

But like Team-Terrastator, when serious danger calls, they fly back from the five corners of whatever planet they're ruining, to form...



...does he look better without shoulder cannons because if you can see the afterburners, he looks like he can do a rocket punch? Oh, right, to form...



...do you get what I mean from this angle? Oh, forget it, TO FORM...



GALACTICIDE! (4 syllables like Superion)



Looks like he can deliver one helluva punch without an extra rocket boost.



And if he can't hold any hand weapons, he needs all the mounted firepower he can muster.



Though speaking of which, the central tower splits into 4 parts to make his legs more stable, and add some sort of weapons to the back of his hands. Looks like he could punch a huge fissure into the ground, doesn't he?



I should watch the MRR anime sometime to learn what this thing actually did. Was this upgraded design in the anime?



Looks like it could be shooting something as well.



This is how I usually display these guys. In combined rocket mode, I'm afraid some paint will rub off the bottom.



And Terrastator steps in again for scale.

I'll be back with some robot mode group shots next post.