Yesterday, I tipped everything out on the floor and started pottering around, seeing if I could devise a framework for a functional TF. I came up with something, but a lot of the components had inherent limitations. So out with the rotary tool and epoxy resin. After a bunch of sawing and gluing, I came up with the start of a tankformer. In robot form, he's a hair taller than Energon Landmine. Here we go...
Tank mode. The treads are the pieces that really spurred my imagination for this build. You'll see in robot mode what inspired me about them...
The front of the tank folds up behind his head in robot mode. At the moment it's two separate pieces, but they'll become one when I build up the front armour. I'm especially chuffed with the way the feet and front armour line up; that was a very happy accident.
Robot mode. The Tank treads become chainsaw blades in this form. I intend to build the arms up on the inside of the blades (think most of the Micromasters as an example). For the record, this won't be his actual head; it's a placeholder taken from my E-E Ironhide -> Fusion Hound conversion. He's a bit lanky at the moment; I think that's mostly his legs, but I'll be building them up to give them more mass, and hopefully make them fit together in tank mode.
A crouching pose, to give an idea of the articulation he's got so far... I plan to add extra joints above the chainsaw hinge, to give him a twisting joint for the elbow/upper arm.
I'm thinking about giving him these missile launchers, taken from an old War Planets toy...
So far, I've no idea who this guy's going to be, whether an original character (most likely) or an upgrade of a G1 mech.
but I might be able to remake one of them.
