First off, I gotta thank Jei (blacklion29 @ Sector70 & Radicons/TFW) for his awesome Wheeljack custom that helped inspire this (as well as most every other WJ custom before and after). Second, the recent MC kit builds by Dave (Tom Servo) and Justin (Demonss) at Sector70 really helped push me to jump back on this. I had originally planned this out shortly after seeing Jei's WJ custom. I had all the stuff I needed, but just never went through with it until seeing the MC kit and what Dave and Justin were doing with it. I knew I could build something similar, so I went for it. This is still a WIP, so please feel free to chime in with any tips, comments, or CC.
I used my old junker Energon Downshift head and Universe Sunstreaker for this custom. I cut off the "ears" and built a couple of new ones from sheet styrene. Once done, I glued them into the sides of the head around the same area the old parts were. To transform with the larger head pieces, flip the head 180 degrees and turn the chest piece to allow it to slide back into the chest cavity. The ball joint socket on Energon Downshift wouldn't fit onto the ball joint properly (almost no movement and the head tilted up a bit). So I filled the ball joint socket on the head with ProCreate sculpting putty, filled in the screw hole on the back of the head, and allowed it all to dry. Once it was done, I took a rounded dremel drill bit and cut a nice new hole into the bottom of the head. Now the head snaps on tightly and has full range of movement like Sunstreaker's head did. I also used a hobby knife to trim down a bit around the nose and face area--I didn't have the Cybertron Downshift head that most use, so I decided to pimp the Energon Downshift head a bit instead. I decided to hit the hood of the car and remove the headlights. I filled the gaps with putty and after drying, sanded it flat. I also sanded down the hood a bit to be more flat and sanded the front end of the car flat (the nose area) to help this look unique compared to Sunstreaker.
I cut a piece of styrene sheet to form part of the front end of the car and make it more like G1 Wheeljack. This part is still a WIP and is still in one piece until I build more onto it and see if I'll need to cut into it and how. As for the roof of the car, I sanded it down just a bit, then cut a piece of styrene sheet to form the rounded roof that G1 Wheeljack had. I added smaller pieces of styrene cut and glued to form the top edge of the chest/roof and side pieces. I then took some thin styrene sheet and cut a rectangular piece out to be placed in the middle of the chest (where the faction symbol will eventually go). And last, I took a piece of the thicker styrene sheet and sanded the edges down to shape it into an intake, then very carefully used my Leatherman tool to sand/grind the underside down a bit, which now makes a nice and tiny opening for the intake. I also painted the Sunstreaker rims black with Testors Flat Black enamel. I never liked the bicycle type rims, so I wanted to do something similar to what G1 Wheeljack had--black rims (something I may actually do to Sunstreaker and Sideswipe at some point). I used a G1 Wheeljack launcher and missile (spring was shot, so I glued it in), with the handle of one of the Lambo bros guns cut to size (which allows the G1 launcher to peg right into the shoulder). I'm also planning to build a new spoiler that will either glue or fit over the existing one and I'm planning to build the WJ bot wings from scratch with styrene (just like the other parts involved).
Anyway, this is still a WIP--worked a few days on it, then got busy with things here, so it's sitting as-is right now, but I'm hoping to jump back on it in the next few days sometime. Hope you guys enjoy it!
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