Some mods I did to Bombshell. I REALLY like this figure. There were a few things that bothered me though. SEE UPDATES THROUGHOUT THIS THREAD The first thing I did was tap out the screw that held in his stinger. I hollowed it out and shaved the edges a bit of the black plastic to allow clearance for it to tilt forward over his head. Like the cartoon he can now launch some cerebro shells. Next I gave him some head articulation by adding a socket to his chest. The reason I did not have the ball going into his head is because there is no room whatsoever. I used a ball on socket from a junker Hegemon but don't really recommend it because the plastic used for the ball and stem is HDPE which glue does not bite into so well. I had to rough up the surface quite a bit. I hollowed the neck by making a small hole, then slightly bigger. The shape of the drill bits being pointed would have made a mess of the plastic part in his head that turns so I used the specialized dremel bit as shown. I could have knocked the pin out of his head but was afraid to damage he head as I had scratched the legs. When gluing the stem into the neck after lots of test fitting I used the glue sparingly because I did not want the turning part in the head to lock. I applied glue with a toothpick. Now Bombshell can look left to right but also tilt his head down to launch shells or look menacing. I really did not like the 5mm pegs on his knees. I removed the pins and cut the pegs off keeping enough of the other end so that I could slide it back onto the pin with the flat end facing the upper leg and mirroring the other side of the knee. I did scratch the paint a little bit tapping the pins out. next time I'll try backing with a soft cloth. The hands were cool but I was already going for it and figured why not try to make them look better. I used Generations Jazz hands as replacements. First I cut the old ones off and sanded his stumps smooth, polished on the reverse side of paper. I took the Jazz hands and sanded the ball away so that I had long pegs. Then I drilled holes into Bombshell's stumps. I kept test fitting all the way along. I cut the pegs so that they just went in through the first band of plastic because it was all I needed for bite and I liked seeing into the vents on his arms. They look fine in beast mode. I usually turn the hands slightly. Has anyone folded his rear legs away like in the picture below? It feels a little scary but they can go in the hollow. His gun is Alternator Hound's with a 5mm peg. Not the best matching to his G1gun but I liked the color match to Bombshell.
That looks sooooo much better! When I first got Bombshell, I tried folding the insect legs inside the robot legs like that, but I noticed some bad stress marks starting to form so I pulled them out and won't be trying it again.
Hey thanks! I may try to paint the grey plastic silver at some point but I am pretty happy with him now. I have not seen any stress marks yet from folding in the insect legs but, it does make me a bit nervous. I wish Scrapnel could have looked as good. There is something not quite right to me about his head.
I did that, and realized I could chop off the purple plastic that obstructs the legs and it did nothing to make the figure more unstable, simply a bit cleaner.
Great idea! Thanks. I just did it after reading this and the insect legs do turn into the leg cavity much nicer. I'll post a picture shortly. ...And posted. Not sure if you went this way or removed more of his leg. I didn't want to go too far just enough to help it feel less of a stress.
Modified Bombshells arms to have cannons like on the show and original toy. I put them on a swivel because they would have interfered with ground clearance in bug mode. It was a tough job hollowing out grooves in the arms for the posts to travel on. The posts came from model sprues and the cannons were cut down antennae from an extra four star KO Kickback (see below fr. Super Toy Archive). I also shortened his gun and got rid of the scope. It conveniently fits into the hollow on his leg for beast mode storage (while legs are folded up).
My friend asked if I could modify his Bombshell's snout to be removable to be used as a gun. The clip came from a CHUG Wheeljack accessory, I holloed out the black head pieces and slotted it in. The snout had the pin removed and a piece of model sprue shoved on. The 5mm pieces came from an oversized Blitzwing accessory. I carved out the inside fork of the snout section where the post was put in so that it could clear the clip and turn up and down. I know that in the cartoon his cerebro shell ejector/snout and his handgun were different but did think it was a cool thing to try as it made for a nice weapon storage. Also his Bombshell retains the arm cannons so it COULD be a hand held cerbro shell injector gun.
Thanks for all the positive comments friends! Just a quick note about turning his legs into his leg cavity. Over time it will loosen the hinge. This is because turning the legs end increases the pressure between posts that hold pin so that the gap increases between legs and are not pressed together as tight against the post ends. I fixed the problem by pushing out the pin a tiny bit (out of top of leg) and putting a tiny bit of glue on the pin end at the top of leg to bulk up its thickness. On the opposite end at the bottom of the leg I put a little glue inside the hole. Gently tapped the pin back in and it was nice and tight. All this tapping of pins is pretty tricky. I like to put a soft cloth underneath so that you aren't scraping/damaging the other end. There is a thread somewhere on here on removing pins. I'll try to put a link to it. And there you go: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/tutorials-how-tos/214537-how-remove-pins-rivets.html
