The Energon Pub

Here's my take on everyone's favorite smack-talkin', cap-poppin', illiterate racist robots - Skids and Mudflap!

Pretty much straight-up repaints for both of them. I tried to make them look clean in alt mode while dirty and weathered in bot mode. I used some subtle blending and highlighting techniques on some bot mode parts for this. I also added decals on Skids' license plate and autobot symbol hubcaps for both cars.

There's still improvement to be made on my side for keeping the alt modes clean. I also need to get an airbrush so I can re-paint the car bodies and so my clearcoating will be smoother. Comments and criticisms are very much welcome.

Please click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pics.

Skids






Mudflap







Here are a few group shots of the Twins posing together, as well as beating the crap out of each other.







Thanks for looking! You may see more pics of this and my other customs on the following pages:
My Flickr page
Radicons Customs Gallery

i love skids and mudflap! and i love any repaints of them. nice work! im going to repaint mine as soon as i get get a break from school.

Great job! I really like the Deluxe molds but the colours(especially Skids' bright green limbs) ruin the sculpted details.

These looks a lot better then the exclusive Dirt Skids and Mudflap.

Thanks for the kind words guys! Glad you liked it.

Convotron wrote:Great job! I really like the Deluxe molds but the colours(especially Skids' bright green limbs) ruin the sculpted details.

Me too. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of detail (and good design-work) that went into these molds the first time I got them. All they need is a little custom painted love.

Yeah, the movie line toys, love or hate the aesthetics, have wonderful amounts of sculpted detail. If only Hasbro would show more love to the bot modes for paint apps.

Convotron wrote:Yeah, the movie line toys, love or hate the aesthetics, have wonderful amounts of sculpted detail. If only Hasbro would show more love to the bot modes for paint apps.

Then the toys would've costs more.

shonenfan4 wrote:

Convotron wrote:Yeah, the movie line toys, love or hate the aesthetics, have wonderful amounts of sculpted detail. If only Hasbro would show more love to the bot modes for paint apps.

Then the toys would've costs more.

Ideally, you'd get what you pay for. Right now, what I'd pay for a RotF Deluxe class figure isn't quite worth it. If I pay $15 now for an under-painted figure in bot mode, I'd be much happier paying $20 for the same figure but with good paint apps in bot mode.

I think it would be generous to say that 15% of an average Deluxe or even Voyager class figure in the RotF line has paint apps in bot mode and the majority of the paint is likely on the head component. I'm not including faction symbols or vehicle paint on kibble unless that kibble is integral to bot mode.

Convotron wrote:

shonenfan4 wrote:

Convotron wrote:Yeah, the movie line toys, love or hate the aesthetics, have wonderful amounts of sculpted detail. If only Hasbro would show more love to the bot modes for paint apps.

Then the toys would've costs more.

Ideally, you'd get what you pay for. Right now, what I'd pay for a RotF Deluxe class figure isn't quite worth it. If I pay $15 now for an under-painted figure in bot mode, I'd be much happier paying $20 for the same figure but with good paint apps in bot mode.

I think it would be generous to say that 15% of an average Deluxe or even Voyager class figure in the RotF line has paint apps in bot mode and the majority of the paint is likely on the head component. I'm not including faction symbols or vehicle paint on kibble unless that kibble is integral to bot mode.

This would be where the premium figures comes into play, the toys that we bought for our collection were originally intended for kids to play with. If we know kids, as we were ourselves, the paint job would've been damaged from playing with it within a few weeks or months. Not to mention parents would not buy their kids that expensive TFs.

True, Premium fits that need if there's a Premium line...if there was going to be a Premium line for RotF, I'd get Deluxe Skids and Mudflap for sure. I'm interested in Tuner Mudflap simply because the promo photos make it out to be more painted but I've learned that such photos never show what we'll get.

Also for play wear, I think even adults could wear down the paint relatively quickly with semi regular transforming. That's one of the things that have been holding me back from venturing into the custom painting world. Despite the coolness of work like mampy's, I really like to display and transform my figures so I don't know if I could resist the temptation if I had a great custom painted figures like Mudflap and Skids here.

Convotron wrote:True, Premium fits that need if there's a Premium line...if there was going to be a Premium line for RotF, I'd get Deluxe Skids and Mudflap for sure. I'm interested in Tuner Mudflap simply because the promo photos make it out to be more painted but I've learned that such photos never show what we'll get.

Also for play wear, I think even adults could wear down the paint relatively quickly with semi regular transforming. That's one of the things that have been holding me back from venturing into the custom painting world. Despite the coolness of work like mampy's, I really like to display and transform my figures so I don't know if I could resist the temptation if I had a great custom painted figures like Mudflap and Skids here.

Well, it depends on how "detailed" you want your paint apps, I suppose. The Premium line from TFTM never appealed to me except for the remolded heads/weapons. This is because I've been exposed to the work of customizers like Jin or FR.

I also understand the hesitation of trying out customizing for fear of ruining your toys in one way or another. I'd just like to point out that (with the proper prep work, materials, and technique) you can minimize (and almost avoid) paint chipping in all but the most 'rubbiest' of joints/contact areas. I've regularly posed and I've transformed my customs numerous times and for the most part there are no noticeable paint chips. Of course, they're still are meant to be 'played' with by adults. I don't go banging my figures against each other in an effort to make them 'battle'.

mampy wrote:I also understand the hesitation of trying out customizing for fear of ruining your toys in one way or another. I'd just like to point out that (with the proper prep work, materials, and technique) you can minimize (and almost avoid) paint chipping in all but the most 'rubbiest' of joints/contact areas. I've regularly posed and I've transformed my customs numerous times and for the most part there are no noticeable paint chips. Of course, they're still are meant to be 'played' with by adults. I don't go banging my figures against each other in an effort to make them 'battle'.

Thanks for the info! Yeah, the main thing holding me back from starting to customize is the fear of ruining the work. I've read about some finishing sprays to protect the paint so I'll keep researching and in the near future, I'll start trying out some paints on figures.

Convotron wrote:Thanks for the info! Yeah, the main thing holding me back from starting to customize is the fear of ruining the work. I've read about some finishing sprays to protect the paint so I'll keep researching and in the near future, I'll start trying out some paints on figures.

Actually I've found that the more important things to do to protect the paintjob are
- Sanding down critical rub-areas
- Using a good primer and basecoat, applied in multiple thin coats. I use automotive paints for this so they're very strong. You might also wanna explore using enamels or lacquers.

Research is always a good idea. You can also practice on some junker toys or KOs first. Good luck!

Thanks for the pointers! I've taken so many notes and bookmarked so many threads and sites by now, I'm pretty much ready to embark on my customizing journey. Time to get a junker or KO to start experimenting.

shonenfan4 wrote:

Convotron wrote:Yeah, the movie line toys, love or hate the aesthetics, have wonderful amounts of sculpted detail. If only Hasbro would show more love to the bot modes for paint apps.

Then the toys would've costs more.

...and we wouldn't need to paint them! I'm quite glad they don't make the toys look like this cos they'd be very expensive and I would have less hobbies!

Mampy, I Skids and Mudflap are hideously ugly but at least your work makes them look real! A well painted Movie fig always looks great and these are no exceptions! The logo on the hubcap is a nice touch.

mampy wrote:Here's my take on everyone's favorite smack-talkin', cap-poppin', illiterate racist robots - Skids and Mudflap!

Pretty much straight-up repaints for both of them. I tried to make them look clean in alt mode while dirty and weathered in bot mode. I used some subtle blending and highlighting techniques on some bot mode parts for this. I also added decals on Skids' license plate and autobot symbol hubcaps for both cars.

There's still improvement to be made on my side for keeping the alt modes clean. I also need to get an airbrush so I can re-paint the car bodies and so my clearcoating will be smoother. Comments and criticisms are very much welcome.

Please click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pics.

Skids






Mudflap







Here are a few group shots of the Twins posing together, as well as beating the crap out of each other.







Thanks for looking! You may see more pics of this and my other customs on the following pages:
My Flickr page
Radicons Customs Gallery

Dude one word.............AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

I'm with Mykltron! If the figures were perfect out of the box, what would we have to occupy our time? I love having an excuse to paint figures; I'd feel at least some resistance to trying to touch up an already more or less 'perfect' figure.

And I don't know what you guys did with your toys as kids, but I never managed to chip or scuff the paint on my figures. Granted, some of it is unavoidable (can you say vinyl Jurassic Park dinosaurs?)... I suppose I just didn't 'battle' my figures hard enough to give them legit battle damage. Maybe my future progeny will show me how it's done, so I can absolve past wrongs and get the battling right next time!

Very impressive. Nice camera shots!