Hi!
It's been a while since i've been designing, thanks to me starting uni and having to put money towards textbooks instead of Shapeways, but today i got one last package. Along with Arcee's blasters, i also got a Bumblebee.
Yeah, a Bumblebee.
As if we don't have enough Bumblebees...
This is HOS Bumblebee. Based on the cover art found on the TFWiki, HOS Bumblebee transforms from a little yellow train engine to everyone's favorite little yellow robot (take that, Hot Shot! ). He's a really useful engine, y'know?
So, what took up the most time on this guy? The detail. By Primus, that drained away more time than random internet searches! That took up so much time, but it was worth it. For HOS, i just had to have every little detail picked out. It helps that i have a friend who loves model trains, and with the aid of the artwork, i wanted to make sure that Bee's robot and vehicle modes were as detailed as they should be. From the gears in the legs which took 45 minutes to painstakingly carve out, to each little rivet on the train, from the plates and pipes on the torso to the spokes in each wheel, i went as close to the art as i could possibly go, factoring in the transformation. I think it works for the steampunk look.
The other thing i wanted to get right was to make sure i added enough locks to the vehicle mode. In other words, the pegs and holes that keep the parts together. I've always had parts fit tightly in vehicle mode before, simply by using one piece that goes around to lock everything else in place (like RWX-09a Kickback's wings, which clasp round his entire leg assembly), but that wasn't possible with Bee's transformation. So, i had to make do with some pegs on the inside of his legs and his arms. Still, he should hold solidly in vehicle mode, provided you don't stick him in a pile of TNT.
Obviously, there had to be some concessions made for the transformation, the most obvious being the shoulder armour. They had to be raised, or else i wouldn't be able to fit the arms in. While i know in the art they are supposed to be lower than Bee's head, i thought that higher shoulder armours were better than not having arms. The only other little thing i had to change was to fix the wheels in place, so they don't roll. Just don't have the space for it on this build. It's the same issue of "yes, i could scale it up to have rolling wheels, but then no one could afford it" that plagues Shapeways designing.
Anyways, that's enough of me blabbering, hope you guys like him. I did deliberately leave out the 'BEE' inscription on the train, in case anyone's wondering. Just didn't work with the whole idea of "robots in disguise' when your name's written on your vehicle mode!
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