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Milestone report:

Then:




Now:



Stay tuned gang: more exciting goodies to be installed....

Thanks guys, but you haven't seen anything yet! I'm going to do another long update here...

UPDATE:

First off, I wonder if Rumble or Frenzy would retain bladder control in the face of this?




Roller's MASER Cannon, Deck Gun mode:




CS, two of Contruct-Bots Soundwave's guns really came in handy for Roller; now he has guns that can mount on him in alt mode, and he can go in "two gun" style against that sawed-off little punk Frenzy:




Yeah, the deck may look a little too busy now; I have to paint some silver back onto it and tone down the detail a bit:




More detail for the combat mech's base:




Continuing to detail the deck, right side...




And the left (please forgive the blurry pic):




More pics on a more professional background per se:

























The blue markings on the sides of the trailer are temporary as you'll see in a bit. Also, a latching system is now in place for the tailgate/ramp. Parts kindly donated by craftsmith now serve to lock the ramp in pace (as seen near the top rear of the trailer in a few pics).

I thought about using foil tape, but ultimately decided against it. it was just too much of a contrast and didn't really look right in tests. If my current idea doesn't work, I can still use it, but for now, I have a different technique I used:




Believe it or not, the silver and the blue striping are both masking tape; I'm just waiting for them to dry fully, which is why they have slight wrinkles. I found that painting silver, then silver/ pearlescent mix (50/50), then coating the work with DecoArt Triple Thick Glaze gives it an almost chrome-like finish. Not quite there, but good enough for this project. The blue is DecoArt Metallic blue painted onto masking tape , which was then cut and applied to the silver in strips, then coated at the same time with the glaze.



Progress pics:






Inside the bay:














The displays are all G1 sticker scans, with the diagnostic of Optimus turned vertical (and some work to make the outline look more like Optimus!). After printing them to scale, I glued them to the back of clear plastic, and mounted them to the inside areas of the Combat Deck.


Classic G1 display:




Classic "Your skidplate is electro-grass, and I'm the nuclear-powered lawnmower!" display:




Not a good time to ask Prime about his opinion of Megatron:



I then did more work, with decals kindly donated by craftsmith. The ones on the side of the trailer had to be done by hand (very complicated and not my best work); the one on the front of the trailer was one of the ones sent to me:






I also took the time to devise a new hitch system for the trailer: only the peg slips in and is held by Prime's lower legs. The rotation system is held in the trailer, where it turns on a pinion/collar system:



The peg fit into place (trailer detached so you can see the pin in place):




The pin rotates very freely, yet stays in the trailer quite well. This prevents Prime's legs from having the lock mechanism "popped" open.


Right side symbol:




Left:



The only way I could do these was to scan the labels into the computer and reprint them at 185% on masking tape. I then hand-painted the details in (which explains the soft lines and unevenness) and applied them to the trailer.

Then, I finally managed to engineer a fold-out pylon to support the front end of the combat deck when the trailer is transformed:








(Yeah, I know it looks like a leg. )


In any event, it now supports the deck and trailer modes, so I don't need to put anything under it when it is displayed alone in either mode:



Stay tuned...

Just wondering, do you know how much have you spent on this? It looks pretty good except in a few spots but it just seems like all this would cost a lot unless you had most of it sitting around already.

Honestly, I lost count of the cost quite a while ago. And yeah: some spots are a bit rough, but those will be addressed in the final tweaking I'm planning once construction's over.

UPDATE:


Meet Spike Witwicky:








I finished painting him, and wanted to show him in scale to Prime.

Also, I added some visibility stripes to my trailer (idea from Jbarb78):






Then I went a bit farther and placarded it:






I also did some more detailing to the underside of the trailer:





I finally 'bashed in some proper headlights:-







Still a little choppy, but serviceable. I need to repaint the truck grille and smooth out some stuff.

Then I went ahead and I did some edge-wear on Optimus:




Stay tuned folks...going to wrap up the MP-01PLUS project in a bit, after I get some last minute stuff done and smooth out and repaint some trouble spots.

"The assembled legs (retracted) and pelvic joint:"

Hi may i know how did you remove and retached the leg to the crotch join of OP?
Thanks.

I used two MP Prime waists: I cut the entire lower section from one, and cut the remainder from the other, then glued the two together. Here's my original post:

Wraith Verge wrote:Yeah, it took a lot of guts, but as the SAS motto says :"Who dares, wins".


Now, for some update pics:

I began by marking MP-01's waist for the trim line:




Then, I cut down the spare crotch section I had from my stash of repair parts:




The assembled legs (retracted) and pelvic joint:




Same assembly, with new pelvic block in place and sanded for fit:




I began cutting the "skirt" with the dremel tool; note that I had to revise the trim line on the pelvic piece:




Skirt flaps trimmed, ready to be glued together permanently:




The inside of the new pelvic assembly, needing some remedial sanding:




A closer look:




The two test-fitted together (revealed the extent I would have to revise the cut:




Glued (devcon plastic welder) and sanded:



I then sanded the upper hip joint housings so that the outer leg armor (when attached) would rotate smoothy around it:



Where the project stands now:



The legs look a bit skinny right now, once the leg armor additions up top are completed, that should be remedied. The current leg armor is just a dummy made of masking tape as a temporary stand in. I also may have to sand the pelvic block a bit more to get it to look appropriate.

Continuing work on this folks, stay tuned.