The Energon Pub

[Ramrider]

New to the Fusion line is Ramjet! Based on an original version Armada Thrust, he's undergone some cosmetic surgery to get him resembling (as much as feasible) his old self. The pics here are only quick snaps (my batteries were dying), but I should get some better ones up soon.


Jet mode:

The biggest job, natch, was rebuilding his wings to give him that classic Draken-style look. I sliced off his original wings, and made new ones from thick styrene sheet. I scored panel lines with a scalpel, and cut grooves in the wingtips so I could angle them downwards, then cemented them into place.
The 'engine pods' on the wings are taken from Signal Flare's Energon weapon, and the tail rudders are just Thrust's original ones cut and glued on the wings.
The missiles are also pretty heavily modified. Obviously I didn't want them attached to his legs in 'bot mode, so I cut the launchers off and filled in the gap in his legs; then I cut down the launchers so they could pin into his knees in jet mode, and his arms in 'bot mode. I did other mods on the missiles, but more on that in a mo...
Oh, and I used one of the teeny Reprolabel insignias on the nosecone. Obviosly by removing the original wings I'd lost his only logo in this form, and I didn't think he'd look right with them on his wings with all the other stuff already there. So on the nose it went - besides, there was already a handy little raised section perfectly shaped to take it. It's like they thought it through...



Robot mode:

Nothing major going on here. I ripped out the stupid wing-spinning Minicon mechanism - I thought it was pretty moronic on Thrust originally, it's completely useless with the new wing layout. So after tearing out the post and such, I cemented a piece of styrene over the gap and trimmed it for some detail.
Oh, yeah... the missiles. In 'bot mode, I decided I wanted him to have the option of guns (while the G1 toy didn't have 'em, the Dreamwave MTMTE says he uses laser rifles). So I trimmed town the missile shafts and used styrene tube to form gun barrels. Now when he transforms, his jet mode missiles can flip round to be used as guns.
The other thing I decided to do was give him some nice battle damage to reflect his masochistic tendencies. So he's got a healthy(?) dose of chips and scratches all over him, including a particularly nasty facial scar, and a heckuva lot of paint wear on his wings!




And although I've posted this in the Finished Customs forum, he might not be quite done yet. I'm toying with the idea of casting hands for him for robot mode, possibly modded from recast G2 Inferno fists. If I can make it work, then he'll be geting a set of them, along with ones for Thrust and Dirge. If not... well, rocket fists it is.

[tentagil]

very nice, and I like the little battle damage decos all over him.

[Dark_Fool]

Nice work Ramrider, how's fusion going?

[RavageX-9]

the pictures are a little bright. would love to see more detail. How come his cone-head is tipped so far back for a conehead?
also, haha! I recognized the engline blocks. No wait, I didn't. I thought they were Skyblast's weapon. Actually, Skyblast's spear would probably look much sleaker. Ah well.

[DendrakeDarkenz]

Sweeet! Makes me wanna make one myself... are U going to make another base on the G1 Thrust too?

[Skullgrin140]

Awsome! I'd buy that in a heart beat!

[Ramrider]

Thanks, all.

very nice, and I like the little battle damage decos all over him.

Thanks. I figure there are some characters that suit relatively pristine jobs, and others that deserve to battered to hell and back. Ramjet is clearly one of the latter. I wasn't sure how well the chipped paint look would work, but it seems to have done the job.

how's fusion going?

Dribs and drabs, really - I'm working on stuff as I get the time and as the inspiration takes me, so I've got probably a couple of dozen projects on the go at anyone time. Hardly an ideal way of doing things, I know, but when I get an idea, I can't wait to start on it. But I have quite a few figs that hopefully are not too far off now. And the story's coming along a little, although it needs a lot of polishing.

the pictures are a little bright. would love to see more detail.

Yeah, sorry about that. Like I said, I took the pictures fairly quickly before the batteries died. I plan to take some better shots in the next day or two when I have time. And add to that the fact that since I had to completely restart my computer with a new hard drive, so far the only picture editing software I have on it is Paint, and I found that even just by cropping and resizing, I lost a lot of quality. I'll be getting Paint Shop Pro back on soon, though, so shouldn't be a problem for long.

How come his cone-head is tipped so far back for a conehead?

Mostly because I've always considered coneheads to be one of the many things the cartoon did that were just stupid. Were the toys coneheads? Clearly not. Did they look ridiculous as hell if you made them into coneheads? By the gods, yes. With these fellas, although they look far less silly as coneheads than the G1 lads did, I still prefer to tilt the cone back to reveal the head properly. Diff'rent Strokes, and all that...

also, haha! I recognized the engline blocks. No wait, I didn't. I thought they were Skyblast's weapon. Actually, Skyblast's spear would probably look much sleaker. Ah well.

I'm not sure about Skyblast's spearhead working better, I can't help thinking it might have worked out too high... still, that's a moot point, really, since I didn't have the spare Skyblast bits anyway.

Sweeet! Makes me wanna make one myself... are U going to make another base on the G1 Thrust too?

Go for it, bud. You'll probably do a better job than I have, but it's always interesting to see different people's takes on the same project.
Naturally, Thrust will be making an appearance, as too will Dirge.
Actually, this was originally going to be Thrust, but I got half way through painting him (based on the original green Thrust), then managed to pick up a red Powerlinx one for a fiver. So I decided to scrap the existing Thrust and turn him into Ramjet, and use the Powerlinx one for Thrust, since red paint works so much better over red plastic.

[TM Rawhide]

Looks good Ramrider. Indeed, a damaged look suits Ramjet perfectly and it has come out pretty good.

I'm actually surprised something decent can be made from this mold. Look forward to seeing the other two coneheads.

[Ramrider]

As promised (albeit somewhat delayed) here are a bunch of improved pics of Ramjet. Hopefully you can see a lot more detil here that you could in the flash-happy offerings I put up before.

Robot mode, face-on:


Close-up of scarred face:



"First one to mock the hat gets a centre parting they won't forget!"


Back view:


Vehicle mode shots:

[RavageX-9]

a little too dark now. you need to work on your lighting. hm... you painted green parts black that had balljoints that you didn't paint. why didn't you dye them?

[DendrakeDarkenz]

how did u disassemble the lower legs?? there's these 2 pins on each leg

[Ramrider]

Actually, I didn't. I considered it, but I'm far too lazy... I disassembled most parts where possible, but things like the pinned-together legs stayed that way and I just painted round it. It's surprising how much clearance you can grant yourself just by repeatedly scraping the edge with a scalpel, though.

As for the knees... he's a keen gardener, and that's the grass stains, alright?
Seriously, I was planning to dye some parts, and still might, but I don't have the dyeing facilities at the moment. When I've got the spare cash I might go back and do a few of the components to neaten it up (although not too neat, of course).