The Energon Pub

I had an extra Meister sitting around, so I decided to use it for a Bumblebee. I read some of the tutorials in the Bromen forum, and it was actually pretty easy -



Will primer and paint it tomorrow.

I am pleased so far.

Now with paint! Haven't drawn the mouth on yet, but it's basically finilshed.

Change of plans... Bee's going to have a Subaru body, and will have some Minibot friends...

Your pics aren't showing up...

yep...

The links should be working again.

yep they're showing. The ylooks great. Good Job on your first scratchbuilt head

Pretty good going!

I gotta tell ya the truth man. It needs a lot of work and he sticks out like a sore thumb in that group shot.

How bout a clear close up shot?

It does need work. But no-one's first try is gonna be perfect.

It's about as good as I can get it - the face is a bit flat compared to the rest of the head, but it still looks like Bumblebee.

I might try sculpting a new head for him when I get some smaller bits for the dremel and can do finer detailing, but I think it's fine for the moment. Keep in mind that I've never ever sculpting anything before this. Given that, I was extatic that the head even looked remotely like what I was trying for

Wait the other heads weren't sculpted? You still did a good job though. I wouldn't be able to do that

Err... the other heads are Ricochet and Decepticharge...

Finally got back to this.

Bumblebee robot

Bumblebee car (for the moment)

I'm going to add some black stripes diagonally to the car mode (to make it look more like a bee).

It'll look something like this

Finished!

Car left
Car right
Robot front
Robot back

Nice Work dude!

That's really nice, the black stripes suit him.
Are you going to try redoing the head at some point, after you've had a bit more practice with the sculpting? As good as it is for a first attempt, I can't help thinking that fantastic bodywork deserves better.

At some point, yeah. First attempts at anything are typically shots in the dark, so to speak. When I make another one, I'll have a much better idea of what I'm doing. I've also bought some smaller detailing bits for the dremel, and those will help a lot.

As it stands though, the head is still the part I'm most proud of since it's scratch-made

If I may make a suggestion about making new heads. You might want to consider fabricating them out of plastic instead of sculpting them out of clay. All of the heads I scratch-build are fabricated from styrene tubing and sheet styrene. There is no real sculpting involved.

Good idea, actually. As long as you can get styrene where you are it's definitely worth a try. You could even try combining the two approaches; for instance building up flat areas and a framework with styrene, then padding it out with putty work.

The only thing I use putty for in my TF kitbashing is as a gap filler. I don't use it for fabrication at all. Even my faces are fabricated from styrene, including the mouths, cheeks, and noses. I use colored clear acrylic rods to make all of my optics.

Only problem with that is that styrene is not available anywhere around here. The head that he has now was made with epoxy putty. I made the general shape of BB's head first, and then added more parts as I went (face, forehead, horns, etc.).

Next time, I'll try it a bit differently - starting with a block and whittling with the dremel. If that doesn't work, I can try again a different way

You don't have any hobby stores that deal with model trains and building dioramas for them and such? You don't have a Hobbytown USA near you? They would certainly have styrene. You may also want to check online sources. Styrene is a must for kitbashing.

Nope. Only hobby-related store is a Hobby Lobby about 45 miles away. I've checked with them, and they don't carry the stuff.

Have any recommended online stores?

Yeah, Check Plastruct's website. They are one of the major manufactureres of styrene parts used in model making. Here is their web asddress: http://plastruct.com/