The Energon Pub

Kreo Sideswipe. Wow.
Worst robot mode ever.
With those wonky limbs and flimsy-looking proportions...
It was a challenge, I thought, to rebuild this guy into something more solid and, hopefully more G1.
At least, that's what I thought when I picked this up last night.
The surprising thing was that, a G1 build is easier than I thought.
This only took me an hour.
After opening the box, I did not try building the car mode or the robot mode.
I just went straight to rebuilding a better robot mode.








I did study the manual on how the limbs should be built.
The biggest challenge here is how to make limbs that are not too long or not too wonky given that the knees and elbows are ball and socket joints, instead of the usual hinges.
This is also the reason why the original robot mode had weird legs.
Anyways, I managed to find a solution for this. Took some closer shots of the upper arm and thigh to show how I went around this hurdle.





As usual, the build was accomplished through trial and error so, no instructions yet. Sorry about that...

What I kept in mind during the build was how G1 Sideswipe looked like: hood chest, windshield back, bulky legs, shoulder cannon. The kit surprisingly has enough parts to make a G1 rebuild, and more parts left behind. Which is why I was wondering why Hasbro settled for an ugly robot mode.
And yeah, all the parts used came from the kit.
I consider it challenge to limit myself to pieces that come with the set.




The limbs have good articulation. Even the shoulder cannon can be moved almost 180 degrees.



Now, some comparison shots with bootleg MP Red Alert:





With my other rebuilds:

Your rebuilds look fantastic! I'm afraid I had to copy your design, out of curiosity and because I haven't been able to come up with anything good. I shot you a PM if you don't mind letting me know how I did.

Hey, thanks, dude!

You really have a good eye to figure it out and deconstruct the build!

And yeah, I'm okay with people copying it. That's the point of sharing it here, yes?

Only reason I haven't made any instructions is because I don't even know how I build these. I just try out some stuff and see what works until it looks good.
I actually did that when I tweaked an existing awesome G1 Optimus rebuild to make mine more stable and playable...

When my workload clears up, maybe I could pull my builds apart and do the instructions.