The Energon Pub

Hi all, complete newb (can't even call myself a kitbasher) here. What I thought would be a little project for the summer has turned into quite the undertaking. Got about a dozen Alts that I plan to bash to various degress. Still, I've got a lot to learn before I attempt a few of my plans. Hopefully posting here will help me get bashing, instead of sitting in front of my Alts trying to figure out where to start.

Here's what I hope to eventually finish:
A Stunticon team. No merging, just 5 bots. Plan is to make them all vehicles from the dodge family.

The Dinobots. Only have Slag planned for now. Thinking of doing all Fords to mirror the stunticons.

Beast Wars homages. Seen a few nice ones done here that have given me some ideas.

G1 autobot cars. It's what got me interested in the line in the 1st place.

Things are going slowly but surely. I'll post more updates and pics as things progress.

Been kinda nervous about it, but I finally took out the dremel and put it to work. Have to say tho, things turned out kind of ugly.


Those are the soon to be heads of Drag Strip and Dead End. Traded heads between the Viper and Mustang. The Mustang will get a reshell if I ever find the new Dodge Daytona in a model kit.
I've added some tamiya putty to smooth out the mess I made dremelling. Only problem is, 90% of the packaging is in Japanese.
A few questions about Tamiya Basic type putty:

I'm assuming I just apply it to a surface and wait for it to dry?
Should I shape it or detail it while its tacky? Or just wait till its dry to sand dremel?
How long till it dries completely?
How thick can you apply it at one time? Can you do multiple coats and the time to wait in between?

dont feel bad I've made many things ugly with my dremal, just take your time and dont get frustrated everything is fixable.

not sure about the putty

welcome aboard bub

Well hopefully my dremal work will get better with some practice.

Once I finish the putty work on these heads, looks like I'm going to take my 1st stab at painting. That and some minor neck surgery are my next big 2 hurdles.

Should have some more intersting pics later in the week.

I dont know what the other guys will suggest but I've had a lot of luck with krylon fusion for plastic paint.

Fusion is pretty much a staple on this board but I think Lobo has been finding some different paints better!

Bought a can of white krylon fusion for base coats, but I think I ended up with gloss, instead of matte. Will that make a difference. Also found some litte can of testors spray enamel on clearance at Wal-mart for 2 bucks a can. Local hobby shop has the same stuff in car exterior colours, so I may end up using it mostly.
I'll probably just start with the small bottles of testors and a brush to get these two finished off.

I use Acrylics exclusively. As taught by my Movie Miniature Model making instructor, Enamels can eat into the plastic, eventually destroying it.

Not to mention that Enamels are thick, take longer to dry, and are harder to clean up.

Also those cursed enamels will eat a brush no matter how much you clean them all the chemicals make them ratty fast.

Not only that, but enamels don?t adhere or cure properly to all types of plastics. It won?t cure on urethane or vinyl based plastics, for example.

Just waiting for the paint to dry on my new head for Dead End. Didn't realize enamel had those drawbacks. Guess I'll find out soon enough if I run into problems.

But speaking of problems, I managed to strip the head of the screw holding my ricochet's codpeice together. Drilled the head off and got the pieces separated, but I can't get the screw stump out of the hole. Trying to avoid cutting the whole its in, but looks like that may be my only option. Unless anyone has any suggestions?

You might try an easy out. Don't know how well they work on headless screws, though.

I'm learning more everyday. Hadn't heard of an easy out, but I'll have to look for one. Not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last that I strip a screw head. I ended up dremeling a notch in the top and twisting it out with a flat head. It took a little work tho, the cutting wheel on my dremel doesn't flat. Any cuts I make with it are fairly wide and rounded off.

With that taken care of, I've also started on a diaclone coloured Bluestreak. Been doing some part swapping with my first few bashes to avoid having to do too much painting. Well the fact that I thought sunstreaker looked really good in red helped that. Bluestreak looks like he'll need a bit more work.

I don't know if its the rally decals or the shade of blue? Might look better once they're scrubbed off. Calves seem too white as well. Tinting the back windows should fix that.
Or should I just keep him G1 coloured? Had plans to use streak's body for slag.

Well, after his little run in with alt sunstreaker, Dead End has received a new head.

A bit of a rough sculpt and slightly small for the body. But not bad for a first go at this. Started a gallery of pics here.

Looking good!!!! You've come a long way since those first pics of his head
!!!

Dead End Redux: NOW, with new and improved Purple visor action!



And just because I was starting to make good progress, I just had to go and muck up a couple other things. At least these should be easy fixes.
Been going to work on Alt Sunstreaker. Here's his new legs so far.

Seems like when you lay a coat of enamel over a different coloured coat, it strips it. Actually even over the same colour, noticed it first laying down a second coat of the gold and then when putting the yellow over the gold. Is that just a case of the 1st coat not bonding to the plastic?

And my current technique is to paint a bit too far then clean up the mess after. Which is probably a bad idea in the long run. Been trying the tooth pick technique as well, but having a tough time getting the paint to where I want it. Have to redo the stripes on the lower leg.

Put red in the cracks then tried to paint lightly over the raised in yellow. Was so thin tho, it just flowed into everywhere, as you can see on the left. Tried scraping the grooves to reveal the red on the right, but didn't wait for it to dry. Which just turned into an orange mess. Anyone suggest another method, or should I just work more carefully, lay down one colour, then fill the gooves once its completely dry?

Last thing for now , is there a way to clean up the streaks after taking off paint with isopropyl?

Thank you all again for the help

Anyone have tips for getting blood off of hardwoord floors? Figured after a couple of nicks last night, I'd better get my leather work gloves. Still managed to stab right through it and into my index finger. Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. At least its not too deep, but it bled pretty quick.

Anyways, finally had a bit of time to get back to bashing. Sunstreaker is coming along. Working on finishing up his arms and hands. Was gonna go with black for his feet, but now I think I may do transparent red like the rims. Any opinions?

I think the only way to get that out is to not stab yourself repeatedly but that's just me!

I like the sound of the red but I'm not sure if that would draw the focal point of the figure down too much!

I was thinking he'd look a bit too stark with all black arms and black feet. Black and a highlight colour might add too much with everything going on on his legs. Figured the red might frame things with the rims facing forward on his shoulders.
I may just finish his arms and put him back together before I decide. Guess I'm lucky they didn't end up blood red.

My 2nd bash is nearly done.

Paint work is rough in some spots, but I think it turned out alright overall.

I'll have to take some more pics and write a little backstory for the colour choice when I get a chance.

And with sunstreaker nearly done, I can get back to working on stunticon heads.

Breakdown:


Dragstrip:


And plans to mod a skids head into wildrider and hound into motormaster.

Still a few neck issues I'm going to have to work around though. My first work with styrene is probably the next step.

That's some nice looking paint-work there Retread! And that Dead-end head is really cool - good job!

I really like that dragstrip. Even though I know it was a sideswipe, it looks 100% different now.