The Energon Pub

I'd been working on the paint job for the last couple of weeks or so. It's pretty much done, save a few touch-ups I might do later. I was thinking about painting the waste in black, but with the hip guards pinned together then wrapped around the outside, it looks like a bitch to take apart.

Anyway, progress pics:



I painted the arms in a brighter white to better match the body. I still don't get why they molded the head and upper arms in that nasty off-white plastic. Lower arms are also repainted in black and touched up in silver (a nod towards G1 Red Alert's silver arms)



"Hey, not a bad repaint job! What's that? Something you don't approve of? What could possibly have been done wrong?"



"Oh yeah. THAT..."

This is where that Alternator's Meister head is desperately needed. That and a label sheet to complete the look. I might spring for some G1 reprolabels even though they're small. Seeing the ones I have on my Red Alert, they look like they would transfer over well enough.


Car pics





I also plan to 'customize' a license plate using the reprolabels license plates I have leftover. If I do it just right, I should be able to splice one together.

Looking okay so far?

AWESOME!

verrr nice

i'm working on this right now too. but will have...

1. mod head
2. g1 accurate legs and paint
3. door mod

nice work thus far. and btw, did you paint your g1 RA's head red? i thought it was black?

I did, but I'd previously swapped it with G2 'Swipe's head before. The red is a little brighter, so I recently sprayed it with Krylon to make it match better.

And it's funny. The original Leg transformation for Alt. Prowl better matches the leg configuration of G1 Red Alert, but I just never liked the way the legs looked on Prowl. As for the doors, I'll be pretty interested in what you do to make that work.

You know, instead of ordering G1 labels from Reprolabels, why not order oversized G1 labels sized for an Alternator?

Truth. Reprolabels will make a custom set for you, it's just going to cost a bit more.

TFMaster's Acura door mod would work well for Red Alert.

And it looks easy enough. Just punch out the metal cap and put in an extended pin with the right thickness.

As for Reprolabels, they said they were working on an Alternator-specific Red Alert set. But I did ask them about buying JUST the factory labels and maybe enlarging them. (though they only responded about their upcoming Alt set) I might try pushing the second question again and see how much it'll cost.

I can't find a detailed explanation on TFMaster's door mod anywhere. Anyone got a link for me? BTW, it doesn't transform does it...not with the door mod.

The doors are removable to acheive transformation. Look at his Alt. Sideswipe gallery to see how it works.

When I did my BT prowl-Red Alert Conversion, I got my labels from Policecarmodels.com, and it turned out really well. Give them a shot

Did you find your head yet?

.billy

No, I haven't. I did mention it to a friend of mine that's practicing on repro parts, but I wouldn't mind getting an actual Meister head either.

Bam: I'll give that a try and see how much they are. Thanks.

Well, I did try the policecarmodels.com. They didn't really have any decals I liked at all, though they did have a pretty good sized selection.

On the really-good-news front, I found my Meister head. Traded with Epitaph from TFans. I'll post pics of that later, as I plan to show the progress pics of that little idea all at once.

In the mean time, I got the doors attached to the arms, ala TFMaster:



Sadly, I scuffed up the arms a bit while working on him. I'll have to get that cleaned up.





Comparison shot. I still like the legs reversed, though. It's just better in the knee articulation.

I'm almost done with the head. Need to add some bits and then paint.

Well, I was holding off on this update (which I've shown at a few other places) until I could get a hold of some likeable stickers or decals. I might just cave and buy some G1 repros and make them work, but I'm not sure yet.

Anyway, I got a trade for the Meister head I'd wanted for the Wheeljack head I had left over from my Mustang Prowl. Took the visor off to start.




Here's a pic before modding, just for reference to the changes.



I decided that while I liked the red-coloring of the cartoon Red Alert, the actual cartoon style head looked silly. (that piece on his head just looks like a red bow to me. Not doing it...)

I decided to try and mimic the G1 toy version, which is the same as G1 Sideswipe. The above shot shows the head after everything was shaved down, plus some sloppy pencil work showing what was removed.



I also decided to mimic the circular 'ears' on the side of the G1 head, so I ground down some pin caps, drilled some holes and stuck 'em in.


Here, you can see I had already started painting. I'd forgotten to take the pic before hand to show what it looked like, but then this layer of paint went on too thick and I had to start over. So I used the oportunity to take the pic I wanted.




Here we are, fully painted. You can see how the antlers came out compared to the original.



Now, I've since repainted the face in silver after scraping away those noticeable red splotches. Once I get the decals/stickers I want, I'll take some new pics.



Full body comparison



And the legs facing the original way to match the G1 version better. (Though the crotch is now backwards, but eh...and I still prefer it the other way around )



The doormod as already shown previously.

The pins I used were stripped from an RiD Heavyload's front wheels. The length is perfect, though the thickness of the pin is too much. I had to grind them both down quite a bit, so anyone wanting to do this mod may wish to find a different set of pins.

Also, I found out that with this particular mod, it was probably better to mod the head's socket instead of the ball, as it is rather high into the Meister head. I did it in the reverse and sanded down the ball joint. As a result, the bottom of the head would scrape against the ball platform and strip the paint right off. I sanded down the platform and still had to cut away at a little more of the underpart of the Meister head. The piece now moves more smoothly, and the light coat of paint underneath hasn't scratched yet.

Well, there we are so far. A few touch-ups and some stickers...and I think he's all done.

That looks great! You did an awesome job of matching to the G1 version!

I was just thinking that you could most likely unscrew the waist and upper legs and reverse them to make them look like they are the right way around!
Either that or fill in the screw holes with some epoxy and paint.

Actually, that's what I did. That's why the 'proper' way has the waist in reverse. I did the mod-trick where you reverse the lower legs so that the back end of the car shows forward--it allows more knee room and better poseability.

The second pic is just to show what the toy would look like if I left it as originally intended. But as mentioned, I prefer the modified way for the poseability. Plus, I like the look more.

Wow, that's just brilliant - the head matches almost perfectly, well done!
Maybe you should paint the backs (formerly the fronts) of the legs black, to be a little more geewunish (especially if you ever want to reverse the legs back again...)?

Pun-3X wrote:Actually, that's what I did. That's why the 'proper' way has the waist in reverse. I did the mod-trick where you reverse the lower legs so that the back end of the car shows forward--it allows more knee room and better poseability.

The second pic is just to show what the toy would look like if I left it as originally intended. But as mentioned, I prefer the modified way for the poseability. Plus, I like the look more.

Whoops, Brain Fart!!!!! I see that now as I look back over the photos!

so are you going to paint the eyes blue? To me whenever I see a bot with a silver face and silver eyes, he looks blind.

Eyes are already painted. That was also part of the clean-up I had to do. Just haven't taken any new pics since these.

I LIKES.

It's what i plan on doing but im using the Sideswipe head (as to me it looks like the same as the original except these are suposed to be Earth Rebuilt Autobots) so there would be some diffrence in technology since i figure both the Audio recievers and scaning equipment is built into the "Fins".

nice work
! now you need an inferno.