The Energon Pub

Comments and advice would be awesome, this is my first attempt!
Took a couple nights to do, but boy does he look better now. Wouldn't have been as good if I hadn't read through the forum here for tips.





I hadn't finished the head in these pics but the lighting isnt as harsh:

Very nice. It's what BB08 shouldve looked like out of the box. I'd send you mine so you can pimp mine as well...if I bought one that is

Wow. That does look great. Awesome work ... and it looks like you're pretty good with a camera as well, which helps make your work look that much better.

Wow, that's pretty... Really well done, and not overworked, either. I know when you're blackwashing it can be tempting to panel-line the whole thing, and it doesn't always work; nice to see you've resisted the urge.
Amazing how much a loving lick of paint can do to prettify a bot...

Thanks for the comments!

Ramtough - I've seen some repainted BB's on ebay going for not too much more than their original msrp, might be an easy way of getting an 08 bb. Seems nobody will dish out the cash unless its made by Jin.

Seibertron - Thanks! I did try to make the pictures look nicer after taking some in bad light and you could hardly see any of the detail lol

Ramrider - I know exactly what you mean. Whenever you're done washing the lines on something and you're left thinking "Hmmm what can I do more washing too?" is when you should probably stop haha

awesome work. Im working on enhancing my movie ratchet doing the same sorta stuff, and i learnt the same way you did by reading through here.

Arent we all so awesome!?

This is your first attempt? Wow... it's VERY good. I'm actually debating whether this encourages me to work out my Bumblebee, or realize I can't get it nearly that good...

I agree with the panel lining comment above... you came up with just the right amount. When I did my Arcee, I fought real bad with the level of detail I wanted to use, it IS really easy to get caught into the trap of going overboard.

I suspect I'm gonna use your pictures as a map when I get around to working on my 'Bee more.

A little tip for if you do want to do a similar effect over the whole thing; it probably can work, but blacklining everything will almost certainly be going overboard. If, however, you use something with a smidge less contrast, it could work well. In miniature painting, I often shaded my yellow figures using burnt sienna ink; that may work on BB too.

Ramrider wrote:A little tip for if you do want to do a similar effect over the whole thing; it probably can work, but blacklining everything will almost certainly be going overboard. If, however, you use something with a smidge less contrast, it could work well. In miniature painting, I often shaded my yellow figures using burnt sienna ink; that may work on BB too.

I just wanna say that i LOVE blackwashing.
I did my first blackwash tonight and it looks awesome. I'll probably be posting pics as soon as i have the bot mode done in a different thread, since its not bumblebee.

Blackwash? Is that what you used on the robot parts?

cool, very cool ideed.
How about giving his arms a little more yellow? To make it more accurate.

I was planning on doing that but I wanted to wait until I painted his car exterior (which hasnt been touched) so it would match. Unfortunately I havent figured out exactly how I'm going to paint it and get a nice smooth glossy finish yet, and I'm too scared to try spray painting it lol

Tracy - washing is where you dilute paint or ink, so its not as strong, and usually you fill in little lines or cover detailed sections because the thinned paint will fill crevices and outline things really well. Drybrushing is what I did on the metal, I painted the plastic black (even though it was already black plastic, its good to repaint it black so when you dry brush theres a good primed surface for the paint to stick to) then took a brush with some metallic paint and rubbed it on paper until it wasnt leaving much paint anymore, and kind of rubbed the brush all over the black parts.


Ramrider - I never thought of using a darker yellow to detail the car! I might have to try that on the panel lines on the car body now.

C L!!!


I cant even try!!!




do i see some resenblence here??
(see pic)

If there's a resemblance its probably because its the same figure and we were probably working off the same reference pics. Although quality is where the resemblance stops lol he is a lot better than me!

It's Obivous Damienl did it...