The Energon Pub

I've been wanting to do this one for quite a while, being a huge Optimus Prime fan. SO I finally dove in and got to work. I've been working slowly on this since the summer of 2008. Hope you guys enjoy this! It's still a WIP, but not a whole lot left before painting. I also recently added a tutorial here explaining how to create a G1 updated Prime rifle for this Classics Prime figure. You'll see this in some of the shots below. Here's a link for those interested in it: http://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/viewtopic.php?f=144&t=60472

Once you guys see these pics, I'd like to know what you think about leaving the old gun/smokestacks on Prime like they are. Should I do that or what I've been thinking and create my own G1-styled smokestacks that can simply remove and snap into alt mode, much like the gunstacks does now? I'm leaning toward doing my own G1-inspired stacks--not much of a mod, but I think that coupled with the leg mods I did here, this will make this look considerably more "G1". And we all know that's where it's at (well, at least that's where my customs are at). lol

Here's a list of the mods I did to this:

head mods - I cut off the rounded pieces that were sitting to the left and right of his facemask. Never cared for the Classics look and wanted a more G1 'toon inspired look (blocky). So once those were cut off flat, I took two small strips of styrene, cut them, and glued them in place. I painted the parts and head to get a feel for how it looked (and it looks pretty darn different when compared to the Classics head). I repainted the yellow vents on top of the head silver. Lastly, I cut the antennas on the sides of the head to mimmick a more G1 look (they are now cut on the backside and look as if they are much thinner and "stand up" instead of that folded back look that the Classics Prime head had. There aren't many shots of the head to show this yet, but there will be.

crotch - bet you never thought someone would have a bulletin point specifically for a bot crotch, now did ya? lol--well, there's a first time for everything, my friends! I recently got some old Gundam parts from Jaf and found a nice crotchular piece to hack up and use as Prime's new blue crotch (for lack of better terms). This was basically just cut to size and glue it on. I didn't care much for the flat look and since I've been using a few references for this, I wanted to do the crotch piece that so many artists have used that was shown in the toon. (I used the following for reference regarding Optimus Prime: Venksta's 3-D Classics Prime, Makoto Ono's Optimus Prime & Rodimus Prime artwork, Jun-Ichi Nakamura's Autobots artwork from the cover of TF: Genesis from 2003, and the various Optimus Prime artworks found in Visual Works).

chest - I used some small square/rod styrene, cut it to the lengths I needed, and glued it on the left, right, and center of the windshield to also look more "G1". I painted the underlying top and bottom of the windshield silver, as well as the insides of the styrene pieces (to go with some of the artwork we've seen--check my signature for one of the reference images).

knee & shin area - I have always hated the fold up knee guard thing on Classics Prime. I always wished they did something more like the G1 Prime toy or show (or even the artwork we see). So my first and probably last major mod on this was to cut the entire knee joint out, hinged piece and all. I took the lower legs apart and carefully cut the knees off with my Dremel so that they were now almost flush with the vents on the shins. I put them back together and slowly started building up the area with some thin sheet styrene. I covered the vent area and all with the first small sheet and glued it down around the edges. Once the glue dried, I took my hobby knife and very carefully (and slowly) cut along the area where the vents were. After exposing the vents again, I used a second thin sheet to cover over the first, but I cut a square section out of the top of it (to make it more like the artwork I'd been using as reference). Once they were both done, I glued them in and let them dry. I then took a thicker sheet of styrene and cut two large "H" sections to be used to bulk up the front of the shin area. I cut two small pieces of styrene to glue horizontally between the square I cut earlier and the vents on the legs. This would be used to support the "H" sections I was preparing. On the back of the "H" sections, I used my Dremel to cut a groove across the middle of it. This allowed it to bend (as you'll see in the pictures). I then glued the "H" sections on and let those dry. Next, I cut some sections from the thin styrene sheets to cover the sides and any gaps inside and outside the new leg pieces, then glued them into place. Once the piece was completely covered and the glue dried, I went back and cut two small triangles from the thin sheet styrene and glued them into the knee area (again, following some artwork--but I enlarged them a bit so they were more prominent. I may add some more small details to the new leg sections I made. I just wanted something that stood out more like the G1 look (and the artwork).

The head looks awesome!

nice work. lovin' the head. like how your building up the legs. i just cut and filled up my knee flaps. keep us updated!

Thanks for the support!

I decided to go with the G1 smokestacks (built from tube styrene) since they look much better and aren't as wide or odd looking. Keep in mind, this is still a WIP, so no real shots in alt mode of the new modes or smokestacks--those will come soon. I decided to make these removable (just like the original Classics Prime gun/stacks, so they peg into the shoulder similar to how I did the Ultra Magnus missiles on my old Ultra Magnus custom (the first one I ever did). I'm still building on these and what you see is a rough draft of the finished product. I want to build them onto a small box-like peg that will snap into the shoulder and still allow for arm movement. In alt mode, the smokestacks will be on that box-like peg (the peg will be painted red) and it will all blend more smoothly.

I'm not going for perfection here, just something that makes this sucker more G1 and like the iconic character we know and love. I also added two thin sheets of styrene to the front and rear parts of the shoulders to make the shoulders more square and box-like (like old school G1 Prime)--these will also be painted red, maybe with some more detail added to them in the way of styrene strips or carved panel lines or something. I don't think I'll be going for the Matrix in the chest (I actually did consider it though) as Tramp suggested over on Sector70. I would love to, but it would be too labor intensive at the moment (I won't rule out re-visiting this and doing something like that at a later date). I do have two different Matrix of Leaderships (the one that came with Cybertron Prime that I used with my Scourge custom and one I'm painting up from a Decepticon Matrix necklace). If I did go all Matrixy on this, I'd want his chest to open up and everything--I could easily just hollow out part of the chest and slap one in now though--but it would be better to make it removable.

how about filling the hole above the grill and making a new one that goes all the way up? of everything about this figure, the grill always bothered me the most.

like the stacks, makes we want them on mine. i think that a prime without stacks is like an n/a beer, pointless.

This shoulder pipes make him look sick! That is awesome!

Nice work. He really looks like G1 Optimus Prime with the blue eyes and the shoulder smokestacks. It makes the toy look somewhat appealing. Ahem. Rant warning...

I personally wouldn't be happy with the Classics Prime toy unless it was completely de-streamlined, the stock weapons thrown away or tossed in a scrapbox, shoulders made blocky, proper shoulder stacks added, other details to make his altmode an FL86, and the eyes made blue. As well as a G1 accurate trailer. That is, if he's even got the same transformation scheme. If not, the molds should be melted down to be re-cast or sold off as scrap. In my opinion, Voyager Classics Prime is worthless as a representation of G1 Prime. The deluxe one, weak-looking though the vehicle mode may be, still looks more like G1 Cartoon Prime as is than the voyager one. To add insult to injury, the last US re-release was not only overpriced but also extremely pale, like it was pre-faded. And it still has the stupid shortened smokestacks. I wasn't born in the 80's, but I do like G1, and am irritated that the only really good representations of G1 Prime are the masterpiece version with the trailer, or the original release and Japanese reissues that end up costing as much or nearly so. Looking at the Cybertron line, it shouldn't be too hard to give G1 Prime's original toy full shoulder rotation. And some hands that could at least hold his gun properly. And restore the smokestacks to full height, for the love of Primus. LEGO does stacks of the same size, and LEGO sets are marketed as And instead of making him a TRU exclusive sold at an exorbitant $75 (I'm sorry, but you don't market something that size as a kid's toy and charge that much, it's stupid), sell him at either the Ultra class price point or Leader class price point in multiple chains. (Ultra, now there's a price point that would help with the idiotic movie line's severe scale issue). And instead of putting things like the Insecticons and Perceptor in exclusive group packs, sell them individually at the Scout class price point all over. With modernized articulation and preferably a face cover for Kickback. How to sell them? Easy, milk the "Toys that started it all" appeal for all it's worth. And definitely give the old Seekers this treatment (Along with Classics and Robot Masters-style wing swivels and Robot Masters style cockpit sections, although actually that might just be better done for the next release of the Classics mold), they'd sell like crazy. Sorry to waste your thread space with that rant, but I needed to get that out of my system.