The Energon Pub

News Credits: 8 · by **Jin Saotome** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:06 am

It's Ultra Magnus, my first ever version of him! I've had 1000's of requests for an UM but I didn't want to do a repaint of a prime like everyone else. So I searched and searched for the perfect form. One day I was on David Willis of Shortpacked's LiveJournal chatting about the new Star Wars Transformers, the Turbo Tank in particular. Someone suggested I make it into an Ultra Magnus and whatta ya know, it's exactly what I was looking for. Here's where I'm kinda 'meh' tho. I tried a new approach to the custom instead of the drybrushed/paint wash theme I usually give my figures. UM was done in primary colors with some line-in detail and other shades of the same color over top. I've keep getting asked people on the TF boards ask me to change my style from making 'weathered' TFs to cleaner one. You know, like you'd see from a factory (ok, a little more detailed). Gundam-kit-esq I guess.

I'm not impressed with the end result, nor did I have fun painting the figure as if I had gone all out with wild paint wash shading and drybrushing. It was just as boring to me as what you see in on the shelf at Wal Mart. I could mistake this for the Titanium UM without a second look. So lesson learned, changing your style doesn't make you a better painter, it just makes you a sucker, heh. Stick with what you like, not what other people think you should do and develop it to the best of your ability. Ultra Magnus was made from the Turbo Tank body, Cybertron Long Rack head and front grille, Jazz's spearguns, and various fodder pieces. In keeping with my 'partsformer' theme, the chest 'v' and waist grille magnetically attach, whee!

More pics and alt-mode! ----> Ultra Magnus

by **rhinox555** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:21 am

Awesome! you just did my favourite character.

by **Broadblasts short shorts** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 9:54 am

New painting technique??? - I can't deal with that right now!!!

you could always dry brush over it, I can't imagine a 'bot who's led the Wreckers being too pristine anyway- weather him up!! (or should that be down??)

and is there a way to have a couple of missiles deploy from his backpack thing??

by **rhinox555** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 10:40 am

whitch "series" would this fit into though? cybertron maybe?

by **Nemesis Sturmvogel** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 1:32 pm

Nice Work

by **tentagil** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:09 pm

It looks pretty sweet. But yeah it definitely looks odd compared to your other stuff. One thing that kinda throws it off is that you washed the gun/smokestacks, but everything else is clean. If you just put a wash over the rest of him to dirty him up a little it would all tie together better and I think it would look nicer.

News Credits: 2 · by **Frostic_Prime** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:09 pm

Huge fan of your work Jin, nice to see you on the board.
I love the smoothness of this custom--great idea with the figure aswell. If you're thinking of another ir'd be pretty sweet if you could kitbash one into a Magnus and add armor on to him, possibly like Classics Jetfire (hint hint), and create a removable helmet.
Keep up the amazing work man.