This is a tutorial for people who have the comic coloured version of Reximus Prime. It will provide some tips for repainting him to be cartoon accurate and guide for taking him apart so repainting is much easier. Let me get this out of the way first: Q: “I want to swap the blue parts with the black ones from the soon-to-be released toon Reximus, but keep the silver paint of the X version. Is this possible?” A: No. At best you can manage a partial swap. Because of the way the legs are engineered, the upper blue leg cannot completely be separated from the lower silver parts. I have not found a way to separate the legs yet. It is held in place with a hinge which I'm not comfortable with attempting to remove. Anyway, back to the tutorial You will need: 1. JIS screwdriver. A good general investment to make if you're a TF collector. 2. Paint. I used Testors flat black acrylic paint and Tamiya for the optional silver. 3. Paint brushes. Something soft is best to avoid brush strokes. 4. Floor polish. Known as Future/Pledge in the US, and Klear in the UK. 5. Air duster. Helps to stop dust from settling on the new paintjob. 6. Rubber gloves. Prevents contamination from the oils on your hands. 7. Matt varnish. Used for removing the shine that the polish creates. If you don't mind a glossy shine then you can skip this. 8. Sandpaper of various grits. 9. Sandwich bags to help keep parts organised. Some of these are optional but I find them helpful to have. A word about paints/dyes I have tried various paint brands and I recommend you go with an acrylic, preferably a modelling acrylic. I have never tried RIT dyes. I had concerns about the plastic warping. I have tried vinyl dye and had good results with the VHT brand. No issues with adherence to ball joints. An advantage with dyeing is that you don't have to worry about paint rubbing off. Unfortunately I accidentally inhaled some of the chemicals from the aerosol and I got sick. So be sure to ventilate. A disadvantage of dyeing is that it is permanent. If you muck it up there is no going back. Disassembly As I disassembled each section, I placed the parts into individual bags. This will aid in remembering which screws go where. These are just cheap sandwich bags I got from the grocery store. Head This is probably the trickiest part, but that's not saying much. Start off by removing the two screws at the back of the head, then the one holding the visors to Reximus' face plate. Inside the chest cavity there are two screws holding Reximus' neck to his body. Remove those. There's a screw attaching the head to the neck. Remove that. Don't bother removing the head from the ball joint. When you're finished, you should have the following Hands You don't need to remove these two screws by the wrist but I feel that it helps with reducing tightness so you can remove the wrist piece. You might be able to get away with skipping removing these screws but I did it anyway. The wrists are attached to the rest of the arm by friction alone. It's tricky but pull the arm pieces apart until there is enough clearance the pull the wrist free. Dissembling the hands and wrist pieces is pretty self explanatory The process for the other hand is mostly the same. Be very careful with the light up hand. The wires are very fragile. Here is a reference for the electronics Legs Three screws you need to remove here. One on the knee, one on the thigh and another on the hip. Once the screws are removed, the only thing holding it together is friction. Gun Very easy, just two screws need to be removed here and the rest is easily pulled apart. Preparation I do a light sand (2000 grit) all over, because it gives the paint something to bite into. You can skip this part if you want, but I recommend you do it. I've noticed that if you don't sand the surface, the paint has a tendency to bead up on the surface and not cling properly. There are two areas on Reximus where I do a wet sand. The space where his wrist and hand touch, and the space where his hip and leg touch. This is because I want for there to be clearance so there is no paint rub between the two pieces. If you don't care about paint rub you can skip this step but I think paint rub spoils the look of the final piece. Reximus Prime probably has grease and oils all over him from your hands and from the guy who assembled him in the factory. This can interfere with paint adhesion. So I wash the pieces in a mild degreaser, for example washing up liquid. Don't use hand soap, because this probably has perfume in it which will interfere with paint adhesion. Painting tips -For best results, thin your paint. Thickly applied paint will show brush marks and is more prone to chipping. But overly thinned paint will take ages to apply and you may get tide marks from pooling. So don't overthin. Just apply enough water or thinner until it flows off the brush. -Be sure to wait until the previous layer has dried before moving onto the next one. If you don't, you will get little bits of paint residue from the previous layer and it looks bad. -Usually it is not worth the effort to paint a ball joint. But in this case, if we leave the ball joint on Reximus' fist unpainted, it looks really noticeable. I find that Klear really helps with paint rub. I give all the pieces a layer of Future/Klear to protect against knocks and scratches. -Remember to only paint pieces that will be visible. Do not bother to paint the insides of the hands, for example. Because of the high tolerance where the pieces meet, the pieces would not close properly together if you did this. -Patience is key here. Waiting between layers of paint and varnishing will pay off with a smoother looking paintjob. When you have finished painting, leave the pieces for a week or so before reassembling. Acrylic paint dries to the touch in minutes, but actually takes days to cure fully. Here's my finished Reximus Prime
