The Energon Pub

As of today, May 25 2025, I have graduated medical school!



It’s kinda cool that this page was running back when I was accepted, so many things have happened since then, and so many customs were done! When I was first accepted 4 years ago, I had Jeremiah 29:11 on my mind, and that verse has been something I have clung to in all the (pretty frequent) challenging moments when things seemed impossible:

“For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

And today I’m here to tell you that God has pulled through!

With Med School complete, I’ll be headed to Residency in about a month’s time, where I’ll be much busier. As a result, I won’t be able to maintain customs as frequently as I have been. I’ve got a few legends class customs on the way soon with one Studio Series custom in current development I hope to finish before July. From there, I’ll be cutting back on posts and customs pretty significantly, but not entirely! I’ll be painting up new Bayverse figures when they come out and will likely have some legends class repaints here and there.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you all with the next custom!

93: KSI Widow

Hey, I'm back! Got several Studio Series projects in the works right now, and first up is our last Bayverse release for 2025: KSI Widow!

- Robot Mode -
Despite being mapped onto the McLaren alt mode rather than a Pagani Huayra, KSI Widow is largely based on one particular piece of concept art (If you’re familiar with Widow concepts, it’s the one with the Pagani headlights on the shoulders). I used this one as a primary reference for my painting, swapping the red for orange. There’s gold, silver, and black details, with a little bit of yellow on the arms. I did improvise for some segments though, particularly on the head sculpt, the blasters, and some spots on the torso. The head sculpt was fun to paint, I added some gunmetal to increase the shading effect with some orange spots mixed in.







- Alt Mode -

For alt mode, I found a really cool metallic orange spray paint that I felt matches the McLaren used for filming a little better! Starting with that as a base coat, I picked out the lights in silver around the alt mode, added black to the inner section of the tires, and repainted the back of alt mode with dark gunmetal with a small red section for the tail lights.







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:

- Gloss red
- Flat gunmetal
- Flaming orange (Extreme lacquer spray)

Acrylics:

- Craftsmart Gunmetal
- Decoart gloss white
- Decoart gloss orange (mixed with metallic red and copper)
- Decoart metallic silver
- Decoart metallic gold
- Decoart metallic bronze

Other:

- Rustoleum gloss coay (spray)

A new update for the page is here with a complete redo for my custom ROTF Jolt and a new gallery for Clunker Bumblebee, check them out using the link below back on page 4!



Clunker Bumblebee: evasionmodebumblebees-studio-series-repaints-p2119550.php#p2117445

Jolt (ROTF): evasionmodebumblebees-studio-series-repaints-p2119550.php#p2119550

Got another update for you as I work on new projects, this time it's 2007 Ratchet! Touched up some details and added a few new ones! Check it out back on page 5 using the link below:

evasionmodebumblebees-studio-series-repaints-t114471s100.php#p2136764

94: Optimus Prime (Age of Extinction, Knightwatch repaint)

I'm kicking off my 2026 customs with a really fun repaint of the excellent AOE Optimus Prime mold! This is the first of several repaints on the way soon, check out the freshly updated guide back on page 1 to get a hint of what's on the way!

- Robot Mode -
Starting off with our base colors, I mixed up a new blue that evokes the original figure's colors and uses some of the colors from the AOE Prime blue mix with the addition of a small amount of gloss gray. Testor's flat gunmetal made up the black paint, and I mixed metallic purple with some silver for the couple of purple details in bot mode. I started with the basic color breakup of AOE Prime but then went and added more of the dark gunmetal to sections. We've got some Allspark blue details courtesy of metallic turquoise paint, and I added flames to the forearms and chest. There's less flames in alt mode than the regular AOE Prime truck, so I reflected that in the robot mode deco by having them still on the chest and arms, but not on the legs. The gold details on the arms and chest as well as the small purple pieces on the chest were all meant to homage the location of those details on the original Hasbro deco for Nightwatch Prime.







- Alt Mode -

Vehicle mode presented some fun options when adapting the original Nightwatch deco. Capturing the original colors (or my versions of them) wasn't difficult, but I knew I wanted to make some changes as the sleeper cab portion of the truck on the original repaint is pretty much just blue. I decided to carry forwards the black stripe on the side as well as the silver stripe, but then to add some influence of the original AOE/TLK truck, had the stripe turn into flames! The grill was a little more difficult to paint on this version than it was on the original AOE Prime for some reason, so that took quite a while to complete. I freehanded the flames over the wheel wells again, which was definitely faster than last time! I added some accents with the headlights in Allspark blue, taillights in red, and various smaller details in silver and gunmetal!







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:

- Gloss red
- Gloss tangerine
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:

- Craftsmart Gunmetal
- Decoart ultramarine blue (mixed with Folkart metallic blue sapphire and Decoart gloss gray)
- Decoart gloss black
- Decoart Metallic purple (mixed with a little bit of silver)
- Decoart metallic silver
- Decoart metallic gold
- Folkart metallic turquoise

Other:

- Krylon gloss coay (spray)
- Krylon metallic purple
- Rustoleum chrome silver (spray)
- Vallejo black model wash

95: SS-55 Scavenger (Demolishor repaint)

A repaint I've been planning for nearly 5 years now, I've finally turned an extra Studio Series Scavenger into Demolishor!

- Robot Mode -

Thankfully we have some very nice promo CG renders for Demolishor that I was able to use for this project! After the white base coat, I added red details to the arms, the wheel supports, and the head sculpt. The RH400 lettering in this mode was hand painted as opposed to the decals from alt mode, which took the longest of any one particular aspect of this project. The eyes are picked out in gloss orange, and gunmetal was used for sections between the white plating. I added weathering with model wash, dry brushing, and sponge brushing!







- Alt Mode -

Starting off with a flat white base coat, I covered the major red details using masking tape and hand painted them. In hindsight these would have been good sections to spray paint, but it still worked out alright. The RH400 and Terex lettering is done via decals, they are from the same sheet but I painted over the Terex letters in black. I repainted the treads with more gunmetal, added silver details throughout, and repainted the cab with windows. I then moved to weathering with dry brushing, a wash, and sponge brushing with multiple grays to evoke the wear on actual excavators. In looking through his scenes from the movie again, it seems like Demolishor doesn't have a completely intact alt mode CG render, when he starts to transform his arms are already partially transformed, resulting in some red accents and gunmetal portions of the excavator arm that don't appear to be present on the real-world vehicle. I reflected this on my custom with some additional detailing on the arm!







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:

- Gloss tangerine
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:

- Craftsmart Gunmetal
- Decoart gloss black
- Decoart metallic silver
- Decoart metallic gold
- Decoart flat gray
- Decoart flat black
- Folkart flat red

Other:

- Krylon flat coat (spray)
- Vallejo black model wash

96: SS-14 Ironhide (Dark of the Moon)

Huge thank you to Shadow25 for sending this Ironhide over for me to paint up! My existing Ironhide custom has been on my 07 shelf and I've been after another one to include on my DOTM shelf. Here's that custom!

- Robot Mode -

Reviewing 4K footage from the movies for this project, I was able to identify a lot of details I missed on my first iteration of Ironhide. There's a lot more silver on him than I thought! Other highlights include the cyberglyphs on his head, the license plate which consisted of a extra plastic piece I glued on and then painted, and lots more detailing on the arms. The bumper was repainted in a new gray to match the actual truck, which I feel helps it blend in way more in robot mode. While the feet and bumper from the DNA kit are permanently attached to my original Ironhide, I did bring over the DOTM weapons (with a few small updates from the original iterations) so this guy can sit on my shelf for that movie!







- Alt Mode -

While the alt mode is largely similar to the updated previous Ironhide custom, I did find some areas of improvement - most notably the headlights! I left them unpainted on the original and I really like how they turned out here with the white contrasting the surrounding silver. I also made sure to include the license plate this time around!







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Gloss red
- Gloss tangerine
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:
- Folkart gunmetal
- Decoart metallic silver
- Decoart metallic gold
- Deocart gloss gray (mixed with black for bumper)
- Decoart gloss orange (mixed with metallic red)
- Decoart flat white
- Decoart matte red
- Folkart metallic turquoise

Other:
- Rustoleum gloss coat