Okay, this isn’t how I had planned to do it. I actually hoped to make this into a gallery, but the same day I tried to e-mail Devastator, he posted on the main page saying galleries weren’t possible right now as a result of the merger with Seibertron.
But I really wanted to get this out into the world. I have been working on it for a long time, and wanted to let go. When galleries are possible again, I’ll submit another batch of pics. Just for this showing I quickly shot a few new ones (unfortunately with a flash, but there was no other option at the time).
When I first learned a few years ago that Beastwars’ Optimal Optimus was called Powered Convoy in Japan (a name homage to the original Diaclone figure, I immediately got the idea to buy an extra Optimal and repaint that in the colors of the Diaclone Powered Convoy: a color scheme I like very much. This was way before I started repainting TF’s. But I always resisted.
Last year I finally succumbed...kind of.
I had already bought an extra Optimal and an extra Primal Prime and had made two hybrid forms. One was supposed to become a fanmade character, but for the other I really had no idea. I toyed for a while with the idea of making it a Jetfire, but in the end decided to let history repeat itself.
Just as the Diaclone Powered Convoy had become Ultra Magnus in Transformers, so my idea to repaint Optimal Optimus in Diaclone Powered Convoy colors changed. And instead I used this Optimal/Primal hybrid to make a Beast Wars Ultra Magnus.
It was a long project (my most complex to date) during which many things went wrong: I had to repaint whole areas because the paint started to crack after applying the second layer, I cut myself regularly, the modifications to the head caused it to no longer fit during transformation, and at one moment I even gave myself a (not intended) thumb piercing using a small screwdriver. To add insult to injury, I only discovered after I had applied the red and had it coated, that my airbrush was damaged. At first I thought it was just a slightly warped needle, but it turned out that the tip got crooked resulting in a little hook at the end. A damaga which resulted in a rather unpleasant spray result.
After all that, he’s finished. And so on to the pics.
Robotmode
Close-up of the face
Beastmode
Jetmode
And finally groundmode
Since Magnus is supposed to be one of Cybetrons better soldiers, I fel the really needed a powerful gun. I took some inspiration from the original gun and a bit from Fort Max his gun.
! He looks amazing in those colors!
I had this problem happen to me before. Same thing, I was spraying another layer and the paint on Classics Starscream started to crack and looked like a turtles back.
[ Click to attempt signal recovery... ]
