The Energon Pub

I'm a fan of a show from the 90s called Team Knight Rider, if anyone knows it. I got interested in it becuase, for me, it had a lot of good points in it's favor. EXCELLENT actors, good voice actors, decent plots and in the later episodes decent effects. The characters, human and vehicle, were all well rounded and the humans all had full backstories that we got to see in bits and pieces that made you just want to find out more. Heck, they even had a cool returning villian!;)

In any case, when the 07 movie came out, my sister, Van, bought me an Ironhide toy becuase I own a black F-150 (use that truck too, landscaping and interior design means truck=needed). I saw the toy and went "ATTACK BEAST!!" Thus I have two Ironhide's in the house, and one of them is done save a remodel on the head/face;)

But you can't have TEAM Knight Rider with only one character, so I started hunting through the original movie toys for the rest of the vehilces. Domino was easy, she was a dyed 07 camaro Bee with a Jazz had... was becuase the dogs got to her:S So soon she will be a slightly modified, repainted Cliffjumper with a Smokescreen head;) The cycles I had to wait on till this most recent line of toys, no motorcycles of the right size or design! But a pair of repainted Knockout's and they were done.

I'd thought that Ratchet would be a good Dante, but the Voyager was too big in scale... then the axe attack (or the rescue) Ratchet came out and he was perfect in scale in both modes!

Of course there was some mild kitbashing needed.
The first thing I did was cut off a wedge of his upper legs to allow the knees to bend 'normally' for at least a few degrees. Originally Dante had some arms from a random superhero toy to replace the elbows down arms the toy comes with but I was never really satisfied with that, or with the repainted Ratchet head. I finally got what I wanted when the new Cannon Bee toy came out. Dante quickly had his unbending superhero arms replaced with Bee's twist and bend joint arms (finally attached with the power of hot glue!)
I also took the cybertron-modeTFA Megatron head I'd been using for Dante and cut off the bottom, back and sides of Megatron's head. Cannon Bee's head and little antenae became the new head top, and Cannon Bee's ball and socket joint became the new neck and inside of the head. It's impossible to see really but Dante's eyes are the same metallic blue as his ford ovals.

To color Dante the first thing I did was take him apart, including carefully removing his top-rack and his grill guard (they used WAY too much glue on this toy) and dunk him in a bath of RIT black dye. The lime green became a few shardes darker, his rack and guard became black, his tires and much of his joints and grey palstic also became black.

After doing that EVERYTHING got a single coat of Testors silver, and I did my best to get into every little nook and cranny. After letting the first coat set, I transformed Dante to SUV mode and gave that mode a coat of white, then a coat of his distinct pale silver, then added on the little details like his ford ovals (the one on his grill is an oval made with hot glue) flat black on his wheels and then a few silver highlights, like his hubcaps. Once that had set I transformed him to robot mode and used Testor's silver on all the parts that weren't Dante silvery white, save his lower legs, which I made black to even his color balance. Once that final coat and detailing set I reattached his grill-guard and rack and gave the rack some minor detailing (silver to accent the bars and his hubcap) and a coat of flat black over his spare wheel. The next day I covered up his wheels and hit him with a good thick coat of gloss.

The only problem I have with Dante is the boys HEAD is too big, so I have to store it in the space created by his arms in SUV mode.
Big dump of links to follow (and to stave off potential questions... my RL initials spell the word 'JEDI';))

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024213257.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024213501.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024213129.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024213224.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212750.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212806.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212721.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212733.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212659.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212709.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212629.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212646.jpg

http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u90/jedi_sheng/TKR/?action=view&current=20091024212612.jpg