NO LONGER for purchase on Shapeways at Windblade's Lab (by tfw2005 user F-Primusunicron)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several years and one dream come true later, I am proud to reveal the final conversion head for TFA Leader Roadbuster Ultra Magnus into a proper, standalone and unique Animated Roadbuster!

It all started several years ago. I was lamenting the end of Transformers: Animated long after the series finale. I'd been googling toys and stumbled upon the Leader Roadbuster Ultra Magnus toy. Mulling it over in my mind for a bit, I considered the TFA tradition of putting a new head on a body and essentially creating a new character (Ratchet/ Ironhide/ Autotrooper, Bumblebee/Wasp, etc). In the case of this particular toy, a simple headswap and minor color palette changes could easily allow for a proper Roadbuster in the TFA universe.

So I started throwing together some sketches and came up with the following pair; one more G1-inspired, and the other with a DotM inspired "hat" ala the movie Wrecker. I decided in true Animated fashion that the Hat version would be best as it mashed together several iterations of Roadbuster visually.


Eventually I put together the following character model...



...followed by an Allspark Almanac inspired bio.



About a year ago now I linked up with fellow fan, tfw member, and artist F-primusunicron. He very kindly translated my sketch into a 3D model, and after numerous pages of discussion and some tests later, Roadbuster is ready.

 

A few things of note. F-Primus Unicron placed the head on a hybrid ball joint, attached to the neck swivel inherent to the toy. This gives Roadbuster a pretty good range of motion in his head, allowing for some great expressiveness in posing. ALSO, take a look at the hinge at his cheek- while it doesn't have a huge range of motion (it'd fall off otherwise), the jaw DOES move up and down manually for additional expression.





IMPORTANT INFO FOR ADVANCED CUSTOMIZERS
The conversion kit is designed in such a way that if one were to purchase the visor in clear plastic it would allow for EITHER light piping, or for the extra-handy customizer, an LED light. I snipped the existing wires out, personally, because I didn't intend to have Roadbuster shouting that he was Ultra Magnus. I did, however, purchase the clear visor per F-Primusunicron's request. I managed to tint it to a blue I felt was reasonably close to the existing blue on the toy, and I'm actually pretty happy with the result. Though the plastic didn't print as smoothly as I may have preferred, the light piping functions very well (though my photo doesn't do it justice)!


Rest assured, there are NO clearance issues with this toy. The shoulder cannons can flip over and the head has plenty of room on both sides, if you decide you want to display Roadbuster in such a way that it explains his namesake:


Folks, this thing is awesome. For awhile I thought this would never happen, but through the kindness of a stranger who was just as excited about this prospect as I was, we pulled it together. A HUGE THANK YOU to F-Primusunicron for all he did to make this a reality- as you go to purchase this set, PLEASE check out the rest of his shop, he has some really fun accessories for other figures.

 

Anything new TFA in toy form is fine by me

 

you forgot the moving jaw for more expresions

edit: actually, one just need to pass the wire through the neck joint, then plug the upper halve and there you go, install everything else, just that easy, the moving jaw is not linked to the original gimmick sadly, but you still can move it manually

 

Nice! I hadn't been tempted by the roadbuster repaint before, but I am now! My TFA autobots have started to get outnumbered by cons for some strange reason...

 

My goodness that is rad!

 

No, THIS is Rad  

 

you didnt show the jaw articulation

 

Oh my Lord... YES PLEASE!

 

Hard to show in photographs, but I'll update the text to state that it exists :]

 

That just looks amazing.

I foresee a severe shortage of that Ultra Magnus repaint to come. :Lol

 

Bought!   I've been waiting on this for, well, for years!

 

Well then keep an eye out, talks of another conversion kit have begun for a certain... Dishonored Cybertronian.

Please, be tempted! I want as many people as possible to enjoy this- the masses want new TFA, this conversion kit is a good start!

Many thanks!

Well since you asked so nicely, SURE!  

Yea, the prices on ebay are already pretty rough, start checking your local thrift stores and garage sales!

Me too! I'm so excited this exists now, the wait is over!

 

I'm so happy this exists.

 

mistenewuser provided me all i needed, from the sketches, the meassures for the neck connection, and available space, to, test prints, all i did is make the 3d working version of his idea XP and it came out great

 

This is awesome...good to see TFA getting some love...look foward to seeing more kits of the TFA nature...

 

This looks awesome. I have been waiting for this to come to fruition. Is there a recommended paint to use or colors to purchase this in? I'm less likely to do the LED and will just rely on light piping.

 

it depends, they have orange, and green colors available, but it wwould be th whole piece
and i made available the visor in solid colors as well, but as you can see, light piping works, so it depends

color wise there are, orange, green, red, purple, blue and yellow, dont remember any other aside white and black

 

Since painting will be done, does it make more sense to purchase this in white rather than any of the solid colors?

I think I'll go with the transparent visor.

 

I just used testors paints and mixed colors until I got close to the desired shade. For jthe transparent visor, I diluted light blue paint heavily with Future floor polish (or anything similar) then painted it on, it tints the plastic nicely without losing the transparency.

For the best results with the Orange, I mixed yellow and orange and added small hints of brown ontil I got the burned pumpkin color of the toy. I put a top coat of the acrylic floor polish once everything was done