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The thing that annoyed me about First Edition Bumblebee is his banana arms (tt seems strange to complain about these limbs without the phrase 'monkey arms' being used). His forearms are bent like a banana and the same colour. This means that if you pose him shooting at something he tends to look as if he's trying to shoot around a corner. He needed to point his arm up in the air to shoot straight forward. After examining the animation I also noticed that the longest elbow spike is at the back of the arm, not the side. To fix this I embedded magnets inside his forearm and underneath the gun so when the weapon isn't present the method of attachment is invisible. Of course, rotating the forearms to put the long spike at the back meant that he had... monkey arms! Normality is restored. I fitted ball joints to the wrist to fix that.

In the animation Bumblebee is so gloriously shiny that I couldn't possibly hope to recapture that on such a tiny figure and capture it on film so, for once, I took some artistic licence and broke away from my usual goal of achieving total screen accuracy. Rather than a pure yellow paint job I've opted for a sparkling yellow/gold. All black stripes and glowing turquoise details have been hand-painted because the originals weren't quite in the right place or the right thickness or just not there. Unfortunately the curved lines over the rear wheels aren't long enough, which I noticed when it was too late. I decided that no-one else would notice as long as it isn't pointed out.
Oh damn.

This was my first custom with spray paints and it's turned out quite well. It's certainly a lot quicker than painting with brushes, well, it would be if it wasn't for all that masking that had to be done...

















There are a few more pictures here as well as plenty of other customs to look at. Please let me know what you think!

That is brilliant! I love that metallic gold finish, it really stands out and looks great with the black details. Excellent work again

Thats awesome, but I would really like to see someone mod the wheels to fold into the legs on hinges. I mean, there is totally enough room too! that way, those fake wheels would be irelivent!

The more I compare the stock version to yours the more impressed I am with how much you managed to improve the arms.

That's really, really cool.

He's like a G2 TF:P FE BB (now that's a title)

What type of magnets do you use and where do you usually find them? Also wondering, what type of tape do you use for masking? I usually use 3M's clean release painter's tape(the blue stuff) as its gentler on painted surfaces, but it does require caution as the edges can pull up easier. Just picked up a roll of Tamiya masking tape, the really thin stuff, to try for curving around wheels and such easier. Its almost like using pin striping.

KnightStrike wrote:What type of magnets do you use and where do you usually find them?

Rare earth magnets. The ones I use are cylindrical, which means you can drill holes for them. I get them, and almost everything else I own, from ebay. For bee I used 2x1mm.

KnightStrike wrote:what type of tape do you use for masking?

I used micropore tape for the car mode because I didn't have any masking tape. It was a bad idea because it left residue. For the robot mode I used regular celotape which didn't leave any residue. At no point in this custom did I need to put tape on something I'd painted.

Tip: for masking the windows I covered them and the surrounding area, then I cut away the excess with a scalpel.

Nice job as always! You really pimped the hell out of this ride...hmmm, Bumblebling.

For some strange reason, I like his paint job in bot mode more than his alt mode. Maybe it's the metallic flakes that seem almost too large for his car mode's scale.

Nice job on giving the hands some ball joints. If there's anyone out there who hates monkey arms as much as you do, it'd probably be me.

I really love the bare-metal effect on the gray shoulder parts.

But what would a comment be without the nitpicks? Believe you me, I had to search real hard for anything to complain about.

The only thing is that I would have preferred his gray metal parts to be a little more matte. Same thing with the blasters.

And that's all the negatives about the fig.

You mentioned that you decided to go for the gold paint job because you didn't think you could get that same kind of gloss as depicted in the animation.

Well, if you can get your hands on a bottle of FFP or Klear, your problems are solved. Seriously, that stuff brings out the sparkle in anything. It's almost as impressive as those scale model cars where the modelers spend hours buffing the finish with wax. I mean, there's a good reason why it's become the darling of modelers worldwide.

Try it; you'll want to put a diamond ring around its plastic squeeze nozzle and marry it.

Good job mate. Nice to see you do something bling.

So you finally give air brush a try? How is the air condition? My work desk isn't close to the window so I couldn't do it and if I do, my wife will kill me. She isn't even happy when I'm doing the spray in garage.

paul053 wrote:So you finally give air brush a try? How is the air condition? My work desk isn't close to the window so I couldn't do it and if I do, my wife will kill me. She isn't even happy when I'm doing the spray in garage.

Paul, were you referring to me or Myk? Coz I was recently looking around for an airbrush, and intended to use it in an air-conditioned room. Thing is, I don't recall posting anything about that here.

Or were you talking to Myk?

Haha! I think he's been hacking our emails! No, he was talking to me. IT IS MY THREAD YOU KNOW

paul053 wrote:Good job mate. Nice to see you do something bling.

So you finally give air brush a try? How is the air condition? My work desk isn't close to the window so I couldn't do it and if I do, my wife will kill me. She isn't even happy when I'm doing the spray in garage.

Blinglebee! If someone else had done this I'd probably say it was too bling for my taste. What a hypocrite!

It's not actually airbrush but spray can. I used high quality paints that come in cans with good atomization. I spray outside and it works fine as the air conditions here aren't as bad as in Malaysia from what I'm told. I even did some spraying while it rained - standing under an umbrella ella ella.

Mykltron wrote:Haha! I think he's been hacking our emails! No, he was talking to me. IT IS MY THREAD YOU KNOW

You never know...they're watching...everywhere...EVERYTHING!

paul053 wrote:Good job mate. Nice to see you do something bling.

Mykltron wrote:I spray outside and it works fine as the air conditions here aren't as bad as in Malaysia from what I'm told. I even did some spraying while it rained - standing under an umbrella ella ella.

Yeah, rub it in, why don't ya.

Mykltron wrote:Haha! I think he's been hacking our emails! No, he was talking to me. IT IS MY THREAD YOU KNOW

Yep!

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:You never know...they're watching...everywhere...EVERYTHING!

And yep!

Oh! So it's the spray. I thought it was this. Sorry when I asked about air condition, I mean the air condition inside your room after you air brushed. Lol on under the umbrella. That's why I did them in garage. But in winter time when it is really cold, it's not fun.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:Nice job as always! You really pimped the hell out of this ride...

Funny you should say that. The paints used have been used in the TV show 'Pimp My Ride'.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:But what would a comment be without the nitpicks?

Er... perfect?

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:Believe you me, I had to search real hard for anything to complain about. The only thing is that I would have preferred his gray metal parts to be a little more matte. Same thing with the blasters.

Skywarped and I have discussed this via email. I watched T.M.I. today and I still think that the grey parts need to be shiny. Mirror shiny.

Mykltron wrote:Funny you should say that. The paints used have been used in the TV show 'Pimp My Ride'.

Seriously? And Bee actually survived getting coated with automotive paint? I keep hearing stories of how certain "hot" industrial or automotive paints melted the plastic of their model kits or TF's.

Or did you prime it with something first?

Mykltron wrote:

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:Believe you me, I had to search real hard for anything to complain about. The only thing is that I would have preferred his gray metal parts to be a little more matte. Same thing with the blasters.

Skywarped and I have discussed this via email. I watched T.M.I. today and I still think that the grey parts need to be shiny. Mirror shiny.

I can't argue about the rest of the TFP cast, but as far as Optimus is concerned, I still think many of his gray parts are matte. The parts on his torso, especially his collar/trapezius area, is a dark matte gray.





Note the matte on his hand and fingers.



Another image of his collar/shoulder area.

Honestly, I think this might be more of an inconsistency by the animators than anything else, especially between the live-action animation and the promo pics.



Here's he's all shiny, but in the vidcaps, he's got quite a few matte areas, such as his fingers and hands.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:I can't argue about the rest of the TFP cast, but as far as Optimus is concerned, I still think many of his gray parts are matte. The parts on his torso, especially his collar/trapezius area, is a dark matte gray.

Yes, I agree. Those parts around his neck are pistons and such - internal workings. His hands get used a lot so will be scratched more. I'll bear these in mind when I work on him.

I want wrist swivel on mine, so he looks more accurate, too.

Autobot032 wrote:I want wrist swivel on mine, so he looks more accurate, too.

It's nowhere near as complicated as the operation to make his weapon magnet-attached. Do it.

Mykltron wrote:

Autobot032 wrote:I want wrist swivel on mine, so he looks more accurate, too.

It's nowhere near as complicated as the operation to make his weapon magnet-attached. Do it.

Where'd you get the ball joint from? I have a couple of junkers willing to make the sacrifice... I'm assuming you used epoxy or super glue to put the balljoint and the hand together?

That's great work! I wanted to do similar, but without using gold. I couldn't find any metallic flake yellow paint, so I just applied the Reprolabel stickers, a little silver paint and then hit it with a shiny clear coat. Glad to see how well the gold actually looks though. Keep up the good work.

Autobot032 wrote:Where'd you get the ball joint from? I have a couple of junkers willing to make the sacrifice... I'm assuming you used epoxy or super glue to put the balljoint and the hand together?

This is the only place I've found that sells ball joints. They have various sizes available.

I just used superglue but the post of the ball is embedded in a hole drilled into the wrist for extra strength. You could just saw off the hand and glue it back on at the right angle if you could live without a ball joint. I think he'll still transform okay.

korisifu wrote:That's great work! I wanted to do similar, but without using gold. I couldn't find any metallic flake yellow paint, so I just applied the Reprolabel stickers, a little silver paint and then hit it with a shiny clear coat. Glad to see how well the gold actually looks though. Keep up the good work.

Thank you! I can't find any coloured metallic flake paint either which is why I used clear gold. I tried clear yellow but it came out with a greeish tint. I should have sprayed the gold thinner, then it would have been a bit more yellow.