The Energon Pub

News Credits: 9 · by **Mykltron** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 7:25 pm

It's great to finally have a Skyfire (he was always Skyfire in the cartoon, but for some reason the toys are always called Jetfire) for my Classics collection with decent articulation and the ability to stand with no fear of toppling backwards. Unfortunately, due to Hasbro's continuing efforts to save money, he's hollow with lots of awful gaping holes in his arms and legs. Also unfortunately, the jet mode is based on an f-14 Tomcat, similar to the original toy, yet the robot mode has taken lots of design queues from the cartoon model. So he's part-way between Jetfire and Skyfire.

- The cavities in his thighs, calves and feet have been filled with tiny screws and bolts to add weight and stabilise him;
- Hollow parts of his thighs, upper arms, forearms and hands have been covered with plastic sheets cut from ice cream tubs;
- Ball joints have been added to his wrists because his immobile hands were at a stupid-looking angle;
- The leg guns have been permanently attached with pins between the boosters on top of the jet to fill in that gap and look a bit more like Skyfire's spaceship mode;
- The arm cannons now attach to the forearms or the sides of the boosters with magnets;
- Classics Voyager Skyfire kindly donated his gun so that this superior mold could look more cartoon accurate;
- A hole has been added under the jet to store the rifle;
- Rhinestones have been added to the guns for a glow effect;
- He's had a complete coat of white to make him look a bit less plastic and cover up some of the red markings;
- Silver and red details have been added in the right places to mimic the cartoon;
- A dirt wash brings out the panel lines and makes him look well-travelled.

Originally this toy weighed a paltry 294g. Transformers: Animated leader class Megatron weighed over 400g and he was a disappointingly small figure. Classics Voyager Skyfire weighs 264g, this Skyfire now weighs 366g and he feels much better for it.

Before you ask, no, I don't weigh all my TFs.

What you're looking at here is rhinestones sunk into 3mm wide holes that I drilled by hand into posts 3.6mm wide. I don't have a vice, work bench or modelling drill, just a masonry drill and a steady hand.
Yes, I'm that good.

There are more pictures here, please take a look and leave your comments below.

News Credits: 1 · by **SKYWARPED_128** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 7:41 am

The added paint apps look amazing.

I also like the battle damage on the various parts of the fig.

Nice work!

by **donny1975** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 5:38 pm

Nice work! He is looking really good.

The use of hardware in the cavities is a good idea. Question did you also back fill the cavities with glue/epoxy to keep the hardware from rattling around? Or something else?

I was thinking of doing something similar with styrene and some fishing weights...

Love the addition of the rhinestones to the tips of the gun, it looks really nice.

News Credits: 9 · by **Mykltron** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 7:04 am

Thanks for the comments, guys!

donny1975 wrote:The use of hardware in the cavities is a good idea. Question did you also back fill the cavities with glue/epoxy to keep the hardware from rattling around? Or something else?

Yes I did. I didn't want him sounding like a baby's rattle! Also, the lower legs are open at the bottom so something is needed to hold the bits in. I just squirted superglue in because it'll find it's way around easier than squashing epoxy resin in. I started using blu-tak but it just didn't work.