The Energon Pub

Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:19 pm

Minor head change and Viola! Instant Ironhide:

I plan on giving him different hands as well, I just havent found any compatible ones to swap... trying to avoid painting them.

Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:20 pm

That looks pretty cool. Is that a Prowl head?

Sun Aug 13, 2006 1:43 am

Thanks, yep its a Prowl head

Sun Aug 13, 2006 2:43 am

another great mind!

heh heh ha...
I was planning the same thing with more red and grey added to it

Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:10 pm

Vanishing Point wrote:another great mind!

heh heh ha...
I was planning the same thing with more red and grey added to it

Nice

Yeah I do plan on doing something with the blue also. I thought I would be happy with it as is after the head mod, but the blue is just out of place now, heheh.

Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:38 am

sweet. im making mine out of a stripped down jeep. i used prowls head too, but mine has more of a mowhawk.

Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:09 pm

any of you going for a G1 yellow stripe???? or maybe even a bed cover that transforms into a gun platform????

Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:33 pm

I'd like to see someone make the proper pickup Ironhide, with the silver paintjob and blue and purple details. This would be merry...

News Credits: 1 · Mon Sep 04, 2006 1:34 am

I'm not the first to take one look at Alt Prime and say, "Ironhide." Strange thing is, I haven't seen anyone post what struck me the moment I had the toy in my hand. Swivel the waist around and you have the windshield as the chest, much more like G1 Ironhide.

Here's the problem: how to get decent arm articulation and get rid of those ridiculous shoulders? Maybe they look good on Trailbreaker, but I don't like them on Ironhide. The first step of the solution involves shaving the blue plastic off the shoulder joints which prevents them from rotating. (Minion posted this on Tfans.com as part of a different Prime mod.) The rotation with the headlights forward looks better IMO, but to get arm articulation I'll need to cut in some odd ways. The rotation with the doors out gets noteworthily better articulation than the Alt Prime's default position, provided that the bumpers are moved out of the way (behind the future location of the repainted Skids head, here).

The photos show the arms switched at the elbows to get elbow articulation in the direction I want, but I don't see any way to keep stability, good transformation, and articulation in this fashion thanks to the runners that connect to the truck bed in alt mode. What I'm thinking of doing instead is shaving the plastic above the arms' shoulder joints such that I can swing them all the way around and upside-down.

Incidentally, those seats on the arms are a pain, so I unscrewed the arms then unscrewed the bolts from the bottoms of the seats so that they could be inserted in alt mode and clipped on the back in robot mode. And has anyone noticed how the arms look like Ironhide's "water gun" arms with the hands popped off?

Paint scheme is to resemble the red and grey deco above, but I need to settle completely on my physical redesign scheme first.

I'm still fairly new to customizing--hope I'm going about this in the right way!

Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:15 am

That looks very interesting! He seems a little chubby though

As for customizing and modding, there is no right or wrong way! just do what you need to do in order to get the job done.

Tue Sep 05, 2006 8:39 am

no more than fattimus prime did.

maybe a tad unproportional though. but i'm sure it can be workded around.

remove the folded up back of the cab and use it as a shield or find a way to attatch it to his new back.

Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:07 pm

Yeah, That would work!

Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:26 am

I bet it'll look a lot better if ya do the leg extension mod that TFM has recently posted a how-to on. will help with the proportions. I think it could look pretty sweet, especially if you either fold the doors straight back or else fix them so you could swivel them upside down so the red side faced the robot's new cab chest.

Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:38 pm

here's my go....

News Credits: 1 · Wed Sep 06, 2006 5:22 pm

I knew I'd see some good ideas from this forum! Here's the odd thing about our chubby Ironhide in progress: the limiting factor on bending his stomach in isn't even the back of the cab at the moment. Fiddle with the figure and you'll find that there's tension that prevents the windshield and back from folding downward as much as it could. You can push it down to a place where, for a bulky character like Ironhide, it's acceptable, but it won't stay that way. I think the point in question is around the clear hinges connecting the windshield to the dash, but I'm not positive. If anyone more experienced has some pointers on the minimum necessary cut to increase this mobility, that'd be great. Otherwise, I'll be experimenting with this area.

Somehow creating a double-joint for the doors would be great. I tried popping them off their hinges and reversing them to see how getting the red side facing forward would look, and the wing-doors that look good on Meister or Smokescreen look pretty awful on Ironhide. I'm sticking with the first shoulder pose and moving the shoulders around to accomodate particular poses.

Thu Sep 07, 2006 2:07 am

I actually wasn't thinking of door-wings at all, but that if you could make it work, then you could simply have the doors pointing straight back. would lessen their visibility from the front which would increase the look as Ironhide.

News Credits: 1 · Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:11 am

Fiddling with those shoulders was proving, well, fiddly. Redline's thought to bend the doors back looked to require a double joint whose installation would lead to a much more ambitious kitbash, my momentary idea for the door-wings looked terrible, the position that I liked killed articulation, and my last exacto blade was getting dull. Then I realized that Perceptor might fiddle with all these bits, but Ironhide would huck the thing and do something direct and effective. Did I really need those shoulders... at all? I left the buggers unscrewed and hung the bumper, doors and all, on his back. If I make some kind of bed cover that turns to a weapons platform, maybe I'll make it part of that and leave them off altogether.

But wait, doesn't that screw up transformation? Heh. Those screws provide stability in robot mode. They're borderline irrelevant in truck mode. Here are two pics of the truck being held every which way and shaken with the doors and hood open. Everything stayed put thanks to the bumper. With the hood snapped in and the doors closed I think it's as stable as the original. This is even with the shoulder rotation mod, which probably decreases stability.

The other good news is that the arm-rotation mod worked, with no noticable loss in stability. The picture above shows one arm using it and the other not; it returns the double-jointed elbow to use. The melancholy news is that the chubbiness is probably not going away, since the limiting factor is ultimately the windshield being obstructed by the very front of the dash. I don't see any way of cutting that or even sanding it without affecting the appearance of the dash in alt mode. Still, shaving around the joint gave it a millimeter more mobility, and that helps.

Planned paint: grey shoulders, red arms, grey hands, grey waist and upper legs, red lower legs, red helmet, and a thin yellow stripe along the truck's side.

Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:41 pm

Menbailee wrote:The melancholy news is that the chubbiness is probably not going away, since the limiting factor is ultimately the windshield being obstructed by the very front of the dash.

Not Having one myself, I dunno if its possible or not, but if it is you could flip the shoulders over to the windshield side of him and turn him back around. That would allieviate the chubbiness.

Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:15 pm

Now that I look at it with the head in place I really like it! the body fits the character quite nicely!

Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:39 am

yeah it does look cool. However, I still think you should do the leg extension mod that TFM has posted here, and is supposed to be fairly simple to do, it'll reduce how chubby he appears...

Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:56 am

That doesn't even look good man...

Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:10 pm

I agree with REDLINE. If you were to do the leg mod it should proportion it just right but that's our opinion go with what makes you happy man!

Fri Sep 08, 2006 6:36 pm

I third the motion to give him the thigh mod

News Credits: 1 · Sun Sep 10, 2006 9:33 pm

Here he is post-paint. The mods I've done allow several different possible transformations. Although the last in the line arguably looks best, I prefer my Alternators as unique as possible, and the windshield recalls Ironhide and sets him apart from Nem Prime. Also, removing the shoulder altogether gives him otherwise impossible articulation. I'm in agreement that the leg mod would help for the windshield transformation, though it looks unnecessary for the more default possibility. As a beginner, I might wait a while before lengthening the thighs.

Finally, here's his alt mode, with a tiny bit of detailing invisible in robot mode. If you get broken jpegs, just right-click and view.