The Energon Pub

I just picked up Nightwatch Optimus Prime yesterday, and I love the idea of making him Ultra Magnus. I suck at painting, so the most I can hope fo ris some mild detailing to make him more Magnus-like.

Now I know this is probably blasphemy and I should be struck down or smote or something, but here's the big idea, to make him into a car carrier, but without a trailer. Like this:



That model appears to be roughly the right size (1:32), so I'm buying it to yank the car rack off and fit it onto NW OP/UM. Can't tell if it's plastic or metal, but the site says "die-cast cab", so the car rack could go either way I suppose. I hope it's plastic so it will be easier to work with.

My ultimate goal is to make the car rack transform as UM's armor, but for now I'll be happy to just have it fit onto his alt mode. I thought of scratch-building it, and I might, using this model car carrier as a guide and for parts like the ramps, etc.

I think the bright chrome of the car rack will contrast nicely w/ NW Prime/UM's dark colors. Here's a quick chop:



Comments please!

Col idea. He could carry BB and Jazz on the trailer.

OK, I've narrowed down the donor truck, it's the one in the first pic at the top. The scale is just about right-on, and it's a very nice-looking chromed plastic carrier rack.

Here's a quick digibash of the end result, using Prime instead of NW Prime:



Or see it here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v429/ ... ockup2.jpg

Viewed in full-size, that pic is almost life-size. Bec. of the Leader OP mold's sleeper section, I'll have to take out about 2 inches of the rack's midsection. This will still leave 2 useful racks- the upper at 8in. and the lower at 5, give or take a qtr inch.

Making this transform into wearable armor is going to be a bear, but it's doable and I really want to do it. First I gotta find someplace to buy this donor truck for less than $30, which is what it's going for on eBay and a couple other die-cast places I've seen. Then cut it to length and make it fit onto Magnus/UM. Then start mapping out how to carve it up and where to mount the parts on bot mode UM. Fun.

Thoughts please!

Thats a good idea- I was thinking that the Nightwatch repaint reminded me of UM. Let us know how it turns out!