The Energon Pub

I did this a couple of years ago, and submitted it to the Transtopia galleries. When the Botcon figure came out, I noticed the great head sculpt, and it inspired me to make a new head for mine, even though I hate the paint job on the BotCon figure. Here is my updated Alpha Trion with the Key to Vector Sigma (cyberkey). He still needs a name for his companion.

WOW, THAT IS SOOOO AWSOME!!!! Way better than the Botcon figure. I love the golden key!!!!

Really like the colour scheme and I think the darker tones suit them both but I love what you've done with the "nameless companion" - any chance of a close-up?

That's because I used the proper colors in the proper places. The BotCon figure seriously screwed up the color placement, particularly on the torso. Too much violet and too much white. The only white Alpha Trion has is his beard, moustasche and around his eyes, nowhere else. This is the reference I used from TF: More than Meets the Eye #1

Would you consider Xaaron an appropriate name for the Minicon?

wow...

What kind of paint are you using? I LOVE that paint job so much!

he looks.. majestic

waaaaghlord wrote:Would you consider Xaaron an appropriate name for the Minicon?

Well, I certainly don't call it a Minicon because this is a G1 character. As for the name, I was hoping to use an official name for it. I currently refer to it as a simple drone.

Kalon wrote:wow...

What kind of paint are you using? I LOVE that paint job so much!

I started with a base coat of Tamiya gloss black to the entire figure except the clear pars and the brown parts, then drybrushed on Tamiya Chrome Silver to everything but the clear parts. The red and violet were done using Tamiya red clearcoat and Testors Model Masters Metallic Violet which is relatively translucent, more of a wash than paint. Blue clearcoat was also added to his optics.

The object was not only to give him a G1 accurate paint job, but also make him look like the ancient, warrior sage he is.

Nice... I wish the BotCon exclusive had had some magenta or something to break up the the white and purple.

Excellent job!

As for naming the little guy, how about Centurion?

Optimist_Prime wrote:Nice... I wish the BotCon exclusive had had some magenta or something to break up the the white and purple.

It needs more than that. It needed a complete repaint. all the white areas should be grey or silver for starters, not white. On the pectorals, the violet area should be grey and the white should be violet. The colors should be reversed. The bowl should be solid crimson, as should his obliques, and hip guards. His abs should be grey, and his codpiece crimson with only, a little violet detainling. The upper arms should be crimson as well. At the very least, the image below is how they should have done him.

Aargh! Great job matie! Aargh!

Tramp wrote:

waaaaghlord wrote:Would you consider Xaaron an appropriate name for the Minicon?

Well, I certainly don't call it a Minicon because this is a G1 character. As for the name, I was hoping to use an official name for it. I currently refer to it as a simple drone.

Not quite sure what you mean by official. I was thinking that Xaaron fits because that character had quite a similar role in the Marvel comics to A3's in the cartoons.

Tramp wrote:

Optimist_Prime wrote:Nice... I wish the BotCon exclusive had had some magenta or something to break up the the white and purple.

It needs more than that. It needed a complete repaint. all the white areas should be grey or silver for starters, not white. On the pectorals, the violet area should be grey and the white should be violet. The colors should be reversed. The bowl should be solid crimson, as should his obliques, and hip guards. His abs should be grey, and his codpiece crimson with only, a little violet detainling. The upper arms should be crimson as well. At the very least, the image below is how they should have done him.

Looking at the cartoon, white is a more accurate color than gray or silver. So I don't think that Botocn was wrong to use white. They went by cartoon colors, you went by Dreamwave's profile book, to each their own. I myself am just happy that Hasbro finally created an Alpha Trion, even if he is only a repaint/remold.

That being said. Your Alpha Trion looks good. And how about A3 for the partner's name. It was Alpha's original name and would be a neat homage to the cartoon.

waaaaghlord wrote:

Tramp wrote:

waaaaghlord wrote:Would you consider Xaaron an appropriate name for the Minicon?

Well, I certainly don't call it a Minicon because this is a G1 character. As for the name, I was hoping to use an official name for it. I currently refer to it as a simple drone.

Not quite sure what you mean by official. I was thinking that Xaaron fits because that character had quite a similar role in the Marvel comics to A3's in the cartoons.

OVer at TFormers, Blitzwing wrote a review of the figure, and later mentioned that there was going to be discussion among the BotCOn crew to give the minicon that came with him a proper official name. IF possible, I want to use that name.

The problem with using Xaaron, is that he is already an established character, namely one of the Emirates in charge of a given city state. He's a full-size Transformer, not a minibot. It doesn't fit.

Massdestruction wrote:

Tramp wrote:

Optimist_Prime wrote:Nice... I wish the BotCon exclusive had had some magenta or something to break up the the white and purple.

It needs more than that. It needed a complete repaint. all the white areas should be grey or silver for starters, not white. On the pectorals, the violet area should be grey and the white should be violet. The colors should be reversed. The bowl should be solid crimson, as should his obliques, and hip guards. His abs should be grey, and his codpiece crimson with only, a little violet detainling. The upper arms should be crimson as well. At the very least, the image below is how they should have done him.

Looking at the cartoon, white is a more accurate color than gray or silver. So I don't think that Botocn was wrong to use white. They went by cartoon colors, you went by Dreamwave's profile book, to each their own. I myself am just happy that Hasbro finally created an Alpha Trion, even if he is only a repaint/remold.

That being said. Your Alpha Trion looks good. And how about A3 for the partner's name. It was Alpha's original name and would be a neat homage to the cartoon.

No, it isn't. First off, the only true white you're seeing is around his optics and his beard and moustasche. The rest is light grey which is used to imitate silver, it's not true white. Other screencaps show this more clearly, including these—







If you will notice. The pectoral armor, and all those other places on the body which you think are "white" actually match the "skin" of his face, which is grey (silver), they are not white.

Tramp wrote:

Massdestruction wrote:

Tramp wrote:

Optimist_Prime wrote:Nice... I wish the BotCon exclusive had had some magenta or something to break up the the white and purple.

It needs more than that. It needed a complete repaint. all the white areas should be grey or silver for starters, not white. On the pectorals, the violet area should be grey and the white should be violet. The colors should be reversed. The bowl should be solid crimson, as should his obliques, and hip guards. His abs should be grey, and his codpiece crimson with only, a little violet detainling. The upper arms should be crimson as well. At the very least, the image below is how they should have done him.

Looking at the cartoon, white is a more accurate color than gray or silver. So I don't think that Botocn was wrong to use white. They went by cartoon colors, you went by Dreamwave's profile book, to each their own. I myself am just happy that Hasbro finally created an Alpha Trion, even if he is only a repaint/remold.

That being said. Your Alpha Trion looks good. And how about A3 for the partner's name. It was Alpha's original name and would be a neat homage to the cartoon.

No, it isn't. First off, the only true white you're seeing is around his optics and his beard and moustasche. The rest is light grey which is used to imitate silver, it's not true white. Other screencaps show this more clearly, including these—







If you will notice. The pectoral armor, and all those other places on the body which you think are "white" actually match the "skin" of his face, which is grey (silver), they are not white.

Yes, the screenshots you show do appear to be gray even though the ones I got from here in Seibertron's database appear to be white. So it looks like the cartoon showed him both ways. This just shows my point even more. Definitive coloring doesn't exist for many transformers. So Hasbro and Botcon weren't really wrong to use white, they just made a choice between the possiblities.

I am not trying to take anything away from your choice of colors. I probably would have prefered your silver bits be a light gray (your screenshots show it as light gray and silver paint can appear dark in certain lighting) but you like the silver and I have no problem with your choice.

To reiterate, I like your bash and I'm not going to argue about differences between light gray and white. But I do also like the one I picked up at Botcon too. That's my 2 cents.

Personally, other than the head and the use of clear purple parts, I can't stand the BotCon one, and not just because of the over-use of white, but also because the rest of the color placement is off too. Too litle Crimson, and too much violet in all the wrong places. IF you notice, Alpha trion's upper arms are crimson, not violet like on the BotCon figure. Notice that the colors on the pectorals are reversed from the screencaps on the BotCon figure (mostly violet with white detailing instead of mostly silver with violet detailing). Notice that the BotCon figure has violet and white obliques and a violet sternum (the bowl) with only a litel red, whereas the original has crimson obliques and sternum. Notice that the abs (the Cyberkey port) on the BotCon figure is crimson with only a little white detailing. On the original design, his central abs are pure silver. Notice on the BotCon figure, his hip armor and codpiece are mstly violet with only a little crimson detailing. On the original design, his hips are pure crimson and his codpiece is mostly crimson with only a little violet detailing. On the Botcon figure, his feet are mostly crimson with a little violet. On the original, his feet are sure silver. The color placement of the BotCon figure doesn't match up with any image of G1 Alpha Trion. Really, the only thing they got right on him was the head and the clear parts.

And, even those screenshots you showed, they use grey not white. What you thogut was white was just because you are seeing a longer distance shot with less detail.

With the Botcon figure you have to take into account that the various colours of the plastics have to match the gang moulding layout of the original Vector Prime releases. A closer to G1 look could still have been achieved but it would have taken a lot more paint aps, in some cases whole components of the toy. Also looking at the bio supplied with the Botcon toy it hints toward this being intended as a Timelines incarnation of A3 seperate to his G1 incarnation. The bio card is certainly in a different style to all of the other Botcon pieces that are intended to fit into their Classicsverse. Either way it's still a really nice homage piece and probably my personal favourite of TFs that I've acquired all year. Colour placements off or not you take one look at this guy and know he's Alpha Trion.

As far as an announcement from FunPub about a name for the Botcon version of the Minicon goes they have said that a name was decided on and that it should have been posted in the members section with new artwork and bio a couple of weeks ago. So far this hasn't happened but the club does generally deliver on it's promises, even if not always to schedule. I'll be sure to let you know when an announcement is made, although again if the Botcon version is intended to fit in to Timelines rather than G1 you probably shouldn't feel beholden by their choice of name.

Don't think that I'm knocking your custom when I stand up for the Botcon version. You've done some nice work and your's is definately the more toon accurate of the two pieces. I'm just really glad that twenty two years after the character's first appearance he finally has a proper transforming toy out there. My only disappointment is that Hasbro saw fit to put out no less than three versions of Vector Prime between general release and store exclusives and that it took FunPub to get this obvious and popular remould/repaint done at all.

Well, unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to BotCon. Being a freelance graphic designer, means I live feast or famine, and things have been dead lately. Regardless, I would rather them apply more paint aps even if it meant painting whole parts.

One curious thing I did notice is that even the BotCon version doesn't refer to his partner as a "Minicon" in the bio, and I'm glad.

For anyone interested, here is the bio I wrote for his custom bio card based mostly on the DW bio in TF: More than Meets the Eye #1 with multiple changes and additions:

“Until that day, until all are one.’

Profile: Ancient and wise beyond measure, Alpha Trion is believed to be one of the Original 13, the first Transformers ever created by Primus himself. He has seen the planet Cybertron go from war zone to utopia and back countless times over the ages, and though he has never officially affiliated himself with any modern faction, he is revered by the AUTOBOTS™ for his legendary wisdom and compassion. Throughout time immemorial he has secretly guided the Council of Elders and in the choice of new Primes, ensuring the protection of Cybertron and the Matrix. He created both Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus, and is very fond of his “sons”, and maintains a special bond with them both. He alone guards the key which will unlock Vector Sigma.

Abilities: Alpha Trion’s wisdom and power are legendary, and is one of the few who know the true nature of Vector Sigma and the Matrix. He has detailed knowledge of Ancient Cybertronian history, mythology, and science, and is the only one who knows the way through the ever changing labyrinth within Cybertron which leads to Vector Sigma. He transforms into an ancient Cybertronian star cruiser capable of interstellar flight and is armed with a crystalline sword which will cut through almost anything. He is also armed with two double-blaster cannons in his feet. His drone transforms from space fighter to robot mode and can also attach to various weapon mounts on Alpha Trion himself and act as a plasma cannon, granting him extra fire power.

Weaknesses: Alpha Trion has no known physical weakness.

Oh, and Massdestruction. One more thing. in animation, greys are routinely used to stand in for silver or metal because they can't use metallic paints on animation cells.

Nice work Tramp I kinda perfer your Alpha Trion than Botcon's version

that looks great

Well, it looks like I finally have the official name for Alpha Trion's partner. I'm not completely thrilled with it, but it isn't bad either, and I did say I wanted his official name, so Beta Maxx it is, just like the BotCon version. I think something like "Sage" would have sounded better but what'cha gonna do?

This is so effing great. nice work. I might have to give this a go.
thanks for showing us an alternative.

cheers