The Energon Pub

Alright, I've checked to see if two older "Sentimental Digibash Request" threads still exist, but could only find one of them... (In Fan-Fiction none the less?) So, I thought I'd re-post my story & update the process so far!

Mid-May 2007
I start getting a bit sentimental after seeing a few different G1 Prime recolors/repaints. I don't know, thoughts of my grandfather & the old truck pop into my head at odd times (usually while trying to sleep!), and I eventually...

June 10th, 2007
I post my "Sentimental Digibash Request" thread on Seibertron.com & TFW2005.com forums. In this thread I post up a bunch of the pictures I have of "the Kitty Truck", an old semi that had meant a lot to the family.
Those pics:




-I was hoping to get a clear shot of the printing on the side of the cab here... "Annis Trucking / Glenwood City, Wis / can't make out the numbers...


-My great-uncle Eldy, owner of "Annis Trucking" & the "Kitty Truck", along with his brother, my grandfather.


-This photo it appears everyone in my family has (including me), and that would be me in the picture, sitting in my grandfather's lap after my first ride in the truck with my grandpa... (See where the sentimentality comes in? )

mid-June '07
The user "JimmyJimJim" takes me up on my digibash request, and gets pretty close!



His work prompts me to try my own digibash using Gimp, but I got some of the detailing a little 'closer', although a lot sloppier!


It's at about this time that I realize that my digibash request thread is becoming a possible conceptual "WIP thread"! Speaking to Dec0y13, of Reprolabels fame; he offers to create a set of Reprolabels to turn Prime into the Kitty Truck!

Late-June '07
It's at this point that JimmyJimJim blows me away... His next digibash nails the Kitty Truck's look!




I am in awe at this point! I didn't think a toy could look this close to the real thing!

The project basically goes on hiatus, since I didn't plan on starting out as a repaint project; I didn't have a G1 Prime figure to repaint... I'd just wanted to see what could be done...

Oct. 4th, 2007
This is the day that I received a surprise prize in the mail, my second Pepsi Optimus Prime from the Mountain Dew "Transform Your Summer" contest!

This is when the project begins to take form! I now have a Prime figure I feel I can 'sacrifice' for the Kitty Truck repaint! Creating a "Sentimental Digibash Request (Continued)..." thread, I 'tentatively' being work...

Oct. 8th, 2007
Stipping the paint from my Pepsi Prime, using 91% rubbing alcohol; and removing the 'posts' from his trailer, I post images of my stripped Prime...





If you look closely at this photo of Prime transformed, you'll notice I didn't remove all the blue paint from the sides of the grill, but did end up removing some of the 'chrome' from the sides of Prime's grill after all (which I was trying to avoid).


Unfortunately, during disassembly of the Prime figure, I broke the front windshield! I'm relatively sure I'll replace the window down the line, probably using a CD case or something 'better'...


On this same day, I think about that picture of a young me sitting on my grandfather's lap... And think "Could I put some kind of homage into the figure regarding this?"...

October 28th, 2007
I finally order a set of stickers from Dec0y13 for the Kitty Truck! Dec0y says he has enough art from the pictures & threads to create the custom decal set...

Also, Sherade takes me up on another request, this one to recolor an image of Prime into the Kitty Truck, for the use in a Tech Spec Bio... Which he mistakenly creates a digibash of Masterpiece Prime into Kitty Truck colors...

Didn't look too shabby (although was missing the signature white whiskers), but what I noticed was the paintjob on the head!
Asking him nicely to do another one on G1 Prime's head, he presents me with the following image!

PERFECTION! This blew me away, and I have every intention of doing something pretty close to this on the final project...

Mid-December 2007
Dec0y13 contacts me regarding his progress on the custom set. Good news: he's basically wrapped up the artwork side of things... Bad news: he's lost his G1 Prime figure to use as a sticker template! I 'trace' my own Prime figure for him, creating a template for him to use, following his own directions to make them...

It doesn't look like much, but he thinks he can use it! I mailed it off to him a few days later, and haven't heard much in the way of updates... But that doesn't surprise me, I've told him quite a few times to take his time. That, f he had better projects to work on, WORK ON THEM! I can wait, he's doing me a big favor (IMHO) just in creating this custom label set, since it was the reason I felt I'd be able to do this repaint in the first place!!!

TODAY
Well, that pretty much brings us up to speed... I did the ever-so-minor 'head mod', allowing my G1 Prime to look to the left & right! I have recently (just a couple days ago) picked up a can of "Pumpkin (safety) orange Krylon Fusion" to paint up Prime's cab into the base color for the Kitty Truck's cab. I haven't decided if I'll be dying/painting Prime's blue parts to black like I initially planned in the early digibashes, but think the blue shouldn't look too shabby as it is... I'd really like to get the project completed before late March, so I could enter it into the Dairycon Art contest...

Painting should be taking place sometime soon, but I have to find a sutiatble place to do it... I'm thinking my father-in-law's heated garage should work nicely, since there's no way I'll be able to do it outside in the -5* weather!

Good to see it's still alive. I was hoping to see it painted, but hey, Its good to see you have begun getting it together.

And I find it hard to beleive I made the MP Prime Bash, compared to what I now can do.

You can always feel free to try again... I *was* looking for a re-colored drawing of Optimus into K.T. anyways...

No, I haven't painted it yet. I'm still waiting on the custom sticker sheet. I have picked up the paint, and am waiting for somewhere nice & warm to paint, since it's all of -5* outside!

Soon though, I'm hoping to bring it to Dairycon at the end of March (assuming I go)!

Update!

Dec0y's sent em an image of the prototype custom sticker set!


Now, there's a minor change that's going to be done before I give it the final O.K. - the "whiskers" have to end in the front a little staggered, the bottom one ends further out, while the top one goes further in towards the grill, and dives down by the lower whisker...

Outside of that, it looks spot on! I can't wait to begin painting now! The inspiration to actually start painting is almost in hand!

Another quick update: Spoke to Dec0y earlier, he'd said he'd have the artwork finished up pretty quickly and send it off to the printer. He's not sure if the Reprolabel set will get to me in time before the Dairycon convention at the end of the month, but we're crossing our fingers that they will...

UPDATE:

I have just completed the initial paint applications for the Kitty Truck! I have turned my Pepsi Prime into an orange & black Optimus Prime! Since I'm still new to the whole repainting scene, I made a few mistakes and whatnot... Nothing huge (in my opinion, for my first successful repaint), but here are the WIP pictures before & after painting!

Here are a couple pictures of my little painting rig, made from alligator clips & a couple of clothes hangers.



Now, I'll admit it's a little sloppy (especially the torso piece), but the paint apps turned out pretty well for my 'first' project...

The above image was taken before I touched up the black overspray(?) that you can see on the orange bits...

This is that torso I mentioned. I originally taped off the front of the torso (which would be around the grill) and painted it orange, let it dry, and taped off the orange area & painted the rest black. Needless to say, the black paint bled into the orange area, and I'll have to take care of that later... Not too worried though, since it'll be covered up by the custom sticker set anyways...

These parts took very well to the black paint, and they only required two coats of paint to cover... The legs could use a bit of a touch up, but the wheels will be going back on and cover the 'goofs'...

Here we are, taken just before I packed things up to bring back home...

Anyways, I'm pretty happy with the results so far, and may touch up bits of it later on when I add the details (orange crest on the head, mouthpiece, & eyes, as well as touching up the silver/chrome on the grill, and painting the vents back onto the legs). I didn't really know how fun this could be, I'm really happy with my work so far!

Well, I figured that the paint was definitely going to be dry enough to do a quick mock-assembly. There is nothing holding these pieces together other than friction & the fact that they're lying on a napkin on the floor.




I have to do a couple of touch-ups though...
-The area around the grill will need to be repainted, after the black spray paint bled underneath the tape, and onto the orange paint beneath.
-There's still a bit of black overspray on one of the shoulder pieces that will have to be touched up.
-One of his feet will have to be stripped and repainted, in the picture above (with the flash) you can see a blotchy area on the front. -This would've been something I wouldn't worry about, since there's going to be a sticker applied over it (like G1 Prime). However, if the custom sticker set doesn't arrive in time before Dairycon this weekend, I'd like to still have him looking 'decent' enough to enter into the art contest.
-Finally, I think I may have to repaint die-cast metal that makes up the windows of the truck. The paint is probably not cured enough, and chipped away around the 'hinge'... Does anyone have any advice for me to keep the paint from chipping?

Anyways, all-in-all, I'm hoping to get him to look like Jimmyjimjim's digibash...


For the time-being, I'm looking for short-term solutions to keep it looking good for the Dairycon art contest, but I'll be looking forward to a more permanent solution afterwards...

Thanks for looking again, I'm still really excited about this guy!

Hello again everyone! First off, sorry about the size of the images, but we'll have to deal with them as they are for the time being. If you want to check them out, they're loaded up on my PHOTOBUCKET page if you'd like to see them all in one place...

Anyways, I got together with a friend of mine today and touched up all the pieces that needed it, as well as doing a few things I wasn't anticipating...

First off, the front of the belly piece that the grill fits into has been sanded down to bare plastic and repainted orange.

It looks wonderful, if I do say so myself!

We then touched up most of the black and orange pieces, sanding them smooth & in some cases back down to the bare plastic...

Any sign of the black overspray on them is gone, and all the black pieces are now nicely coated (with no signs of blue showing through, like I noticed on the 'vents' on his legs).

We touched up the grill, using a silver marker pen, but the colors didn't quite match up as well as we'd liked... So, we spray painted all the chrome with a some non-descript "metallic" can of paint we found in my father-in-law's garage. The only original chrome left on the figure are the wheel rims & the legs themselves.


It was at this point that I decided to do something I'd originally thought about when I stripped off Prime's paint. When I originally did that, I had the bare metal on Prime's feet showing, and thought it looked pretty spiffy... So, while we were painting the rest of the chrome pieces, we painted his feet silver as well! -This also helped with the paint chipping off when I applied the Krylon Fusion on the metal, since the paint we used was good for metal as well!

-Sorry, I think it looks pretty spiffy again & can't wait to see what it looks like assembled! I think it might tie in the 'chome' to the whole piece!

Finally, we managed to get some paint on the head! We painted up his mouth plate & head crest with the same 'metallic' silver we used on the chrome parts, added the orange to his brow ridge, and painted his eyes with a metallic green Testors paint...


For some reason, it looks like we got some orange specks on the head with the flash, but there's no orange on it at all as far as we can tell... it's odd... But it looks pretty spiffy in person... The orange paint application could be a little cleaner, but still pretty good for us! -I'll may touch up the silver on the mouthplate but I think I'll definitely add another coat of orange to the brow, the black is showing through right now).

Once again, I can't wait to get this sucker together and see what he looks like! -only thing that I can think of that might look 'off' would be the original chrome on his thighs, but I can't do anything about that without either 1)taping the hell out of the rest of it, or 2) somehow removing the axle that holds the whole bit together... So, I'll make do with what I have and go from there! I still think he'll look killer!

Coming along great!
The head needs touch ups, but you are really doing well.
I like how well the orane works, I was skeptical at first.
Worth the wait!

Well, here are a few pictures of the finished paint job (other than the touch-ups to the head). He's not assembled yet, since I'm letting the paint set a bit more, but he'll be completed on Thursday...


Again, just to show the paint job...

Here are a couple shots of the legs & feet, showing off my 'metallic' feet... What can I say? I think it looks pretty neat!

Just to say, last pics aren't workin'.
Anyhoo, I'm really waiting to see the sticker job.

Well, they're showing up on my end... Anyways, here's a link to my Photobucket account with the three pictures...
http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/Methusalen/Kitty%20Truck%20WIP/

I am really impressed nice work

First off, thanks for the words of encouragement Sounders! I know he's going to be an Autobot, so I hope the RDD doesn't hold that against me!


He definitely isn't the same Pepsi Prime that I started out with a while back...


Alright, here he is assembled. Let me say that even though I sanded the shoulders & elbows a little bit, I probably should have done it a bit more... The joint in the arm itself is pretty stiff, and I'd noticed it rubbing against the arm. -Good thing that's a spot that won't be seen! The elbows rub a bit too, but not too badly IMO... The ankles are a quite a bit stiff as well, but I'm not worried about any kind of paint wear there either... (So I got lucky!)

I still have to touch up his head, which at this point will have to be limited to putting another coat of orange on it, since the metallic paint I used on the faceplate are at my father-in-law's...

I will be cutting a new windshield for him as soon as my wife wakes up from her nap, using a Dremel tool to cut the front glass out of a CD case.

-I really think this turned out very well (especially for my first successful repaint), and I can't be happier with it...

As soon as I get that windshield done (and installed), touch up the brow, all I have to do is wait for the custom sticker set to arrive!

These forums cut off the pics,i can only see his wheel.
Though if you choose "upload an attachment" next time,you'll be able to show your bash to everyone.

Thanks for the advice about the attachments, I wasn't aware we could do that here... I edited the above images for anyone who's interested in checking them out...

I've also got another small update! I've cut out a windshield from an old CD case and glued it into place! I have to admit, it looks pretty good (from the front anyways)! This project is coming along better than I'd anticipated!

Hey,that looks pretty cool,perhaps you can use Frenzy Rumble´s drybrushing tutorial on the black parts,i tried it today,the paint is drying but the result already looks awesome.

The only part of the figure that I think that would benefit from a silver dry-brushing would be the vents on his legs. Remember, there will be a custom Prime-based sticker sheet that I'll be applying once it arrives! -That and; at this point in the game, I'm afraid to screw something up by trying to add more detail to it, you know?

Thanks for the advice though, it's appreicated!

Well, even in it's un-stickered form, I placed third in the Dairycon Art Contest! If you'd like to see my competition, check out page two of my photobucket account from Dairycon! From a total of about 20 figures, I beat out a couple of nice figures, like a Alt. Soundwave based off a Hound/Swindle figure, a Cyb. Wheeljack from a Downshift. I had thought those guys would have been my main competition, but I beat them out! First place went to a blue repaint of Cybertron Optimus Prime into "Spot" (this year's Dairycon exclusive, a fan-fiction character based off Hot Spot), while the second went to a neat art piece called the "Heart of Cybertron", which was made up from a TON of twist-ties with a neat description behind it...

I won a little box of random stuff, a busted up Energon Starscream (who's head I kept for future ideas), a box with K.O. RID & Robot Masters Sideways, Spychanger Spychanger Optimus Prime, some McFarlane figure that I didn't recommend (and threw out since it was broken & missing pieces), a Star Wars novel, a piece from Powerlinx Optimus' trailer, and a pink Army National Guard t-shirt! It was a blast!

aaahh,dairycon. where rednecks reward you with broken plastic.

Looks great, even without stickers.
And third? Amazing, because I';d be surprised if I was able to place at least 10th.

rhinox555 wrote:aaahh,dairycon. where rednecks reward you with broken plastic.

Yeah, I think part of the art prizes are donated from other Dairycon attendees. I was very happy with the KO Sideways' & the Spychanger Optimus!

dude this looks awesome cant wait to see it completed