The Energon Pub

When I watched first saw the trailer for the game War For Cybertron I immediately noticed how battered Optimus Prime looked. When I got the toy it almost seemed a travesty to turn this bright, shiny toy with it's lightly sparkling blue and red into a damaged war machine with chipped paint everywhere. Some people like their figures to look pristine, new and perfect but I prefer a touch of realism on my customs and I used just about every trick I know to make this look as close to what I see in the trailer as possible:

fine detailing with a tiny brush
drybrushing
paint chipping
washes
colour blending to get the glow effect
decals (for the faction symbles)
drilling a hole in the barrel of the gun (thanks to Vegetacron for the idea)
scratchbuildling an axe from... can you guess? Like any other custom figure of mine needing extra parts I used cuttings from an ice cream tub. This time, however, I branched out and used a strawberry punnet as well because I needed transparent plastic for the blade. For the shaft I used parts of missiles and a leftover cog from DotM Ratchet's Mechtech weapon.

As well as a time consuming and challenging paint job and scratchbuild I used a variety of techniques for the photoshoot such as using a bright light (my 300 lumen bicycle light) and a diffuser (a piece of paper held over the light) so give bright ambient light. Different techniques allowed me to make the axe appear to glow in some shots and bring out the crackle details in others. The result: my best custom so far and my best photogallery yet.
























These details are hand painted.



There are LOADS more pictures of him here so be sure to take a look. Of course, there are also plenty of my other customs to be seen if you follow the link in my sig.

Thanks for looking!

Damn. Just... damn.



That ax is the coolest thing I've seen in forever, and that paint job! I can practically smell burnt, rusty metal through my screen. I'm impressed and jealous.

Look at it again and it is still impressive. Good, good work.

One question, though. Why didn't you cut the cab out (like I did for my Nemesis Prime)? I feel generally it looks much better when the cab is removed (all right, ignore the bling) and it is still attachable in vehicle mode.

paul053 wrote:Look at it again and it is still impressive. Good, good work.

One question, though. Why didn't you cut the cab out (like I did for my Nemesis Prime)? I feel generally it looks much better when the cab is removed (all right, ignore the bling) and it is still attachable in vehicle mode.

There are two reasons for this, Paul:
1) I don't like part formers
2) I didn't even think of it!

Skyfire77: you win the prize for best comment ever!

Front page, well deserved ^_^

how did you chip the paint without harming the plastic!?

Blurrz wrote:Front page, well deserved ^_^

Thanks! That was a nice surprise! I didn't think I'd ever get spotlighted, especially after the last one said about how Transtopia looks for original and unusual ideas, which I don't have. I just take figures and make them look more real rather than repurposing figures.

starwarrior1227 wrote:how did you chip the paint without harming the plastic!?

I probably didn't. I scratched the paint off most corners with a blade and then attacked him with a nailfile. That's why there are scratches there. Finally I retouched the chips with metallic drybrushing.

Here I am, giving all my secrets away. I should start charging.

Only 2 things set this apart from a truly "master class' rating:

1.) The Eyes - They could have been done alot differently. Either by using a brighter blue, or by adding some depth to them by using 3 different hues of blue

2.) Drilled Holes - if you could have drilled out the holes for the 2 exhausts and the gun barrel and then painted the insides. Also, you could have made the figure truly unique by adding gun barrel holes to the exhaust. For example:


Don't take this as flamming, as this is far, far from it. The piece you have here is extremely nice and by no means is it bad, i just wanted to give you that extra mile of advice to keep in mind for your next project.

EDIT: 3.) Also adding a brown or flesh colored ink wash to the tips of the exhaust would have been pretty wicked too.

Also, if you're not a fan of it, you may want to check out Games Workshops' Warhammer 40k Miniature line and all the media and articles out there on how they paint their miniatures, as the same rules kind of apply to modding your Transformer toys. They put out a magazine called "White Dwarf" that has some really nice painting articles in it.

the wfc optimus figure is amazing but this paintjob is garbaje
¬¬ sorry but is the truth

have seen a fair few G1 figures that looked similar to this. That it looks like a 20+ year old toy that's been abused and discarded and gone through several car boot sales is very impressive considering it came out last year, isn't metal in any way and, from what I've seen of the original toy, is quite shiny and new looking.

The axe is pretty neat too, but the paintjob makes it. Expecially cool considering there's been minimal modding here. I love seeing how someone's built an in-scale to G1-Galvatron, fully toon-accurate, 10,000 points of articulation version of Unicron as much as the next guy, but it's sometimes very cool to point out how that which appears to be a "simple" repaint can greatly enhance a figure.

Great work, Mykltron!

Wow....Just wow...I only have one word to describe it...


HORRIBLE !!! MY GOD I ALMOST PUKE !!!

The only cool thing about it is that frickin axe,the rest...Let's just say a rusty and broken-down knock-off would look far more better than that...

vegetacron wrote:Only 2 things set this apart from a truly "master class' rating:

1.) The Eyes

2.) Drilled Holes

3.) Also adding a brown or flesh colored ink wash to the tips of the exhaust would have been pretty wicked too.

Thanks for the suggestions.
1) I'm not happy with the eyes either, they didn't turn out as well as I hoped.
2) why would I drill holes in him? I was going for accuracy to the trailer and I didn't notice any holes in his pipes. Nor in the gun:

3) Why brown or flesh? I wanted a sooty, burnt look.

f-primus-unicron wrote:the wfc optimus figure is amazing but this paintjob is garbaje
¬¬ sorry but is the truth

Can you say why it is 'garbaje'? For someone claiming to have an intelligence rating of 10+ your spelling and grammar are remarkably poor.

CrimsonPrime wrote:Wow....Just wow...I only have one word to describe it...
HORRIBLE !!! MY GOD I ALMOST PUKE !!!
The only cool thing about it is that frickin axe,the rest...Let's just say a rusty and broken-down knock-off would look far more better than that...

Can you explain why my custom is so displeasing to your digestive system? Can you do better?

Why have f-primus-unicron and CrimsonPrime decided to flame me? I didn't boast that I'm really great - a moderator chose to put my work on the front page.

f-primus-unicron wrote:the wfc optimus figure is amazing but this paintjob is garbaje
¬¬ sorry but is the truth

CrimsonPrime wrote:Wow....Just wow...I only have one word to describe it...
HORRIBLE !!! MY GOD I ALMOST PUKE !!!
The only cool thing about it is that frickin axe,the rest...Let's just say a rusty and broken-down knock-off would look far more better than that...

First of all, both of you are 100% incorrect. First of all the point of this project, as far as I understand was to make a battered and beat up looking prime and in that respect, it was an obvious success. I'm not sure I've ever seen prime look that damaged. Second, he looks damn good looking that bad. I, frankly, amd surprised that anyone could be so rude as to come out and insult another seibertronian's hard work. Seriously. Shame on both of you.

Great job on this piece Mykltron. Don't listen to our grammar-challenged haters.

im not a natural english speaker ok? not everybody speaks english ok?
ok why is garbage? because its the same as every "battle" damage repaint customizers do, it doesnt looks like a robot after a battle, i like the paint details, really, but the wheathered effect just doesnt work, it doesnt looks "real", for me it looks like a scratched all paint, maybe, some white glue over the paint would work, you can believe me or not
for the axe, that is surelly amazing
i wasnt trying to insult you, sorry, i just say what i think
maybe i just dont like "battle Damage"
i really wasnt trying to insult your work
and SORRY because im not a native english speaker ¬¬ (this part is sarcasm, because english could be the most important language, but not the only one in the world)

Awesome work, Mykltron! I'm looking at the cover of my copy of WFC and comparing it with the pics on my monitor, and your OP fig looks almost photo-realistic.

Now before I go any further, I realize I probably don't deserve to criticize any part of this work, considering my best successful repaint of a TF [so far] consists of touching up DOTM BB with some dark gray, drybrushing it, and adding a coat of clear gloss to the alt mode.

That said, I think you could have gone easier on painting the head. The paint was a little too heavy for my liking. And that's my only criticism here.

The way you painted up the "glowing" parts was awesome. I can't believe how realistic it actually looks!

All in all, WFC Prime here looks every bit the part of a battle-hardened Cybertronian warrior. And those paint chips, I don't think I've ever seen anyone attempt something like that.

Don't listen to the haters Mykltron, that is true detail work at it's finest. He really looks like he took on the 'Con army singlehandedly!

Hopefully you do some more work with the other WFC figures!

Hey Mykltron, Awesome work!
see, that's what people would pay for!
Anywho, your also part of this "Transtopia Masterclass" thing?
Can you tell GetRightRobot thanks for all those paint and primer tips?
Id'e really appreciate it, he gave me a long list of do's and don'ts on his Fort Max custom a few days ago, and I never got to thank him for just how helpful they were, because I can mod, but I can't paint worth a damn. his tips helped me improve A LOT! my paint work looks so much better! though it can use a lot more work...
Anyway, always looking forward to new customs from you guys!
Each one is it's own piece of seibertronian historical treasure, that again, belongs in it's own museum!

You made it look like a diecast figure that has been through hell, which in its own right is down right amazing. That said, I wouldn't buy a diecast figure that looked this beat to hell to begin with.

It is amazing how real you made it's damage look though. Congrats.

Art that can be posed! Impressive job, Mykltron!

Edit; Just remembered to add this, but a quick question: how was the axe done? It doesn't look like the one FansProject did just recently...

Look at that, just look at that.

I'm so willing to delude myself that this custom paintjob actually has die-cast bits on him - superb job on the wear-and-tear Mykltron!

I also admire how you've scratchbuilt the axe, though I must say the shaft looks rather... basic.

Really love the energon veins, though it's right on the edge of reminding me of The Fallen. :S Amazing detail work. Turned out fantastic overall. Beautiful, just beautiful. :')

Awesome custom! Great job.

1) I'm not happy with the eyes either, they didn't turn out as well as I hoped.
2) why would I drill holes in him? I was going for accuracy to the trailer and I didn't notice any holes in his pipes. Nor in the gun:
3) Why brown or flesh? I wanted a sooty, burnt look.

Because you are going for a more "realistic" look with realistic wear and tear. IRL, exhausts and guns have holes in them, due them serving a purpose other than to just look cool. If you look at that picture, you'll see his gun has a hole in the barrel. Exhausts have holes in them. You see, the more real you get to modding and painting your Transformers you get, the more visually appealing they are. The more furbished and well made they are.

The ink wash is in reference to Citadel Colors, made by Games Workshop in conjunction with Boltgun Metal.

Here, please reference the following links...they'll give you a couple ideas (also, an idea of what i'm talkin about), if yer open to them and pay attention to the details and processes listed:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/conte ... id=1216213
http://www.paintingclinic.com/operation ... marine.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yITRhnATlCw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RBA6SE1 ... re=related

I spent close to two years (40-60hrs a week) painting out 2 different armies and although the hobbies are different and etc, the painting and methods of creating utterly badass figures is parallel enough so that you can learn from the other hobby just enough to make what you are trying to do here, that much better.

If i had the time, money, and resources i did when i was kid...hooo booy! I'd personally paint and mod some serious **** up for ya to use for inspiration. lol

I really get a kick out of how he looks like something my 25 year old and very played with Hot Wheels toys would turn into. Would expect him to be all Die-cast and weigh about ten pounds.
I would be proud to have this guy in my collection. Thumbs up for all the hard work.

f-primus-unicron wrote:im not a natural english speaker ok? not everybody speaks english ok?
ok why is garbage? because its the same as every "battle" damage repaint customizers do, it doesnt looks like a robot after a battle, i like the paint details, really, but the wheathered effect just doesnt work, it doesnt looks "real", for me it looks like a scratched all paint, maybe, some white glue over the paint would work, you can believe me or not
for the axe, that is surelly amazing
i wasnt trying to insult you, sorry, i just say what i think
maybe i just dont like "battle Damage"
i really wasnt trying to insult your work
and SORRY because im not a native english speaker ¬¬ (this part is sarcasm, because english could be the most important language, but not the only one in the world)

I don't think any insult was intended, especially without the knowledge that English isn't your primary language. Honestly, the spelling and grammar on the internet among those with English as a PRIMARY LANGUAGE are so horrid anymore that I think a lot of us just jump to the comclusion that you are just an English-speaking person who doesn't care about grammar/spelling on the internet. Now we know (and knowing is half the battle!) that you don't speak or write English as a primary and we can adjust our expectations as such. Like I said though, you still are doing better than a lot of the English-speakers out here...

Back on topic, I personally think this is a fantastic job. The metal fatigue effects are great. Props where props are due!