The Energon Pub

Spent some time adding some paint apps to my DOTM Deluxe Bumblebee, trying to make him not look quite so drab and dark grey. Used a lot of flat aluminum, flat black, and added some yellow to chest and hands to make it a bit more movie-accurate.

Final product is a very 'clean' and shiny looking Bumblebee.




Side-by-side with original:


And painted up his Mechtech gun to not be such a wimpy looking grey piece of plastic:


Would love to hear opinions!

I'm not a fan of that particular figure, but I do like what you've done with the grey areas!

I did something similar to Topspin and Roadbuster, will show them off in March, when I get back to Italy.

Va'al wrote:I'm not a fan of that particular figure, but I do like what you've done with the grey areas!

I did something similar to Topspin and Roadbuster, will show them off in March, when I get back to Italy.

Thanks bud!

I'd like to see those Wreckers you've painted up.

That's a mighty fine paint job there. If I may make a suggestion, you might want to clear coat the silver to give it a bit of protection against constant handling and transforming.

NOTE: You mentioned that this is Tamiya flat silver. Now Tamiya's TS-84 Metallic Silver cannot be coated with clear spray, although I'm not sure about flat silver. If you do decide to clear coat it, I recommend testing it out on a piece of scrap plastic first.

Another thing I'd humbly suggest is to maybe wash it over with some Tamiya smoke. IIRC, the metal parts on Bayverse TF's have rather dark, and usually sport grime and damage. IMO, the smoke will darken up the silver and give it a more screen-accurate feel.

Thanks for the tips, bud! I appreciate it. I've been apprehensive about starting to add 'grunge' or 'wear' to my figures because I know once I do, it will open the floodgates and I'll feel the need to do it to ALL of them.

LOL! I know where you're coming from! After detailing up my first TF, I started eying all my other ones, looking for little unpainted parts and stuff to paint!

BTW, what shade of yellow did you use on Bee's knuckles and "ribs"? I'm assuming you're also using Tamiya paints for this. The closest color I could find for that weird-ass yellow on Bee is Camel Yellow, but it's only available in spray can form for Tamiya's TS range.

SKYWARPED_128 wrote:LOL! I know where you're coming from! After detailing up my first TF, I started eying all my other ones, looking for little unpainted parts and stuff to paint!

BTW, what shade of yellow did you use on Bee's knuckles and "ribs"? I'm assuming you're also using Tamiya paints for this. The closest color I could find for that weird-ass yellow on Bee is Camel Yellow, but it's only available in spray can form for Tamiya's TS range.

Well, here's the thing about that yellow...

It became quite clear that there was no way I was going to find a yellow that matched perfectly, so I did what I had to. Mixed one drop at a time of gloss orange in to a small amount of gloss lemon yellow until I had the shade that looked right. Fortunately, it paid off pretty well. The final product is really damn close.

Jones wrote:Well, here's the thing about that yellow...

It became quite clear that there was no way I was going to find a yellow that matched perfectly, so I did what I had to. Mixed one drop at a time of gloss orange in to a small amount of gloss lemon yellow until I had the shade that looked right. Fortunately, it paid off pretty well. The final product is really damn close.

Thanks for the tip!

I'll have to get a bottle of each one of these days and try that out. My DOTM Bee is still a midway WIP, with only the gray base coat done. Still haven't found time to start dry brushing it.

The gloss orange/lemon yellow is a more economical way to paint up his knuckles and ribs; I can save the camel yellow for large areas like the car parts on the DMK Bee I've yet to build.