UPDATE ON PAGE 2 So now I have photos, which would officially make this a WIP. After seeing ZiZi's Brawn over at Sector70 I decided to make my own. I was attempting to transplant Universe Hound's arms onto Energon Strongarm, however the ball joints were too different. Wondering the best way to proceed I decided to hack off the Energon's ball joint post and drill out the post. The hole was just the right diameter for Hound's ball joint post- too bad I cut them too short. Now, I mutter an obscenity occasionally- drop an "F" bomb when things go rough- nothing that I am proud of. However, I can't recall in recent memory saying that many "F" words that many times in succession. The reason I am using Hound's arms is because of the swivel. I want Brawn to have that swivel-arm battle grip that Strongarm doesn't have. I cut Hounds sholder peg off it's ball and drilled a hole in the ball. Later I cut the nail down to an appropriate length and glued 1 end into the ball and then the other end into Longarm's sholder. For the most part, success! The down side is that because of the hollowing out of Hound's sholder ball joint it lost it's shape. It does its job, but some arm movement is smooth and then it gives me heavy resistance. I probably should have used epoxy, but I felt intimidated. However, the cyanoacrylite seems to be holding well.
Neat! As a side issue, have you considered flipping the rear wheels around, so the ball joints are lower? Or drilling a new hole? Just a thought, because one of my issues with this mold is the way his arm joints/shoulders are actually placed well above his neck. His proportions should look a bit better with them down half an inch or so. zmog
I appreciate the compliments. While in a state og angst over my first iniyial bad cut, I toyed ith the idea of rotating it down. However, at the end of the day I fear that having the arms lower down might interfere with the transformation after you swivel the arms under the jeep and fold the legs back up. After all, they were engineered to be in the place where they are for a reason. Besides- dunno if I am crazy about pin removal after barely saving a bad cut with a trimmed down nail.
Yeah, they do pretty good so far. I got the other arm on today, and I am happy to report that they fit quite nicely under Strongarm's body.
Here's an update: So far, I am happy with the Bot mode, but... look at the car mode: can anyone else spot my engineering flaw? LOL! Back to the drawing board.
Not fitting quite snugly enough, huh? Don't sweat it, the really awesome builds always go this way, you solve one engineering challenge, which creates another, then you solve that, and so-on. Eventually it comes full-circle, and it's mind-blowing what you've accomplished D/L
Nice work so far. I like those arms on him. I can't quite figure out where the feet are from though. Can you help me out here?
Yes, I know exactly what you mean. So far I am turning a Scout Class into a Deluxe class, and I am very happy with some things right now, and am putting more thought into some more of the... challenges... issues... that I am facing right now. And wondering if I am up to do that which is necessary. Me neither 8^D The feet come from the Reverb from the ROTF line.
Looking good so far, love those little engineering challenges, I'm actually working on turning this fig into classics Brawl too after seeing the prototype pic for a botcon exclusive, Mine is looking ok, managed to add about 1cm to the height by changing the legs/crotch but I love what you've done with the feet there but a bit stuck working out how that works with the transformation. Great work, can;t wait to see you're progress.
Best of luck to you. This mold isn't always forgiving. I'll take some snapshots as soon as I can. Busy tonight, the next couple of days and nights are spoken for as well. I'll post them in a few days... even tho I am thinking about re-doing it again.
Update time. I've finally ironed out enough to consider this an assembeled, transformable figure. I'm happy with most of it, and other parts... I'll just have to live with. Altho I am far from calling this done, I am at a stopping point fot about a month or so so that I can focus on a wedding that I'm supposed to videotape and edit. Hope y'all like it.
That is might impressive man!!! Very inspirational. My only comment would be the head. It's a bit skinny and tall. I always pictured Brawn to have a shorter wider head, kinda like Armada Smokescreen. I'm really looking forward to seeing this all painted up.
Wow... this is really interesting. The merging of 2 different figures is yielding some cool results. One of the things that always bugged me about that Energon Strongarm mold was the way his front wheels were smaller than his back ones. Always looked wrong. Considering changing that? zmog
Thank you. But I agree with the head. I was considering fabricating a new head, but got lazy and went with Cyclonus. As it turned out, any wider of a head would interfere with the transformation so I'm gonna run with what I have. Yeah, I have considered it. Even tho it's not on my list of priorities, I haven't taken that off the table. I do have an additional Strongarm that I have been pulling from to fix screw-ups.
Are you going to put the "ears" back in, and then cut/file them off so it fills those gaps in the side of his head? Also, with regards to the thickness of Brawn's head, I think Turboedguy (or someone at least) took my Cyclonus/Brawn head swap idea one step further by sanding down the top of the head so it's a little bit rounder (less tapered) and also did the same on the bottom of the helmet and chin. The overall effect was a Brawn head that looked squatter and thicker, but without actually increasing the dimensions at all. Might be a worthwhile tactic for you here. zmog
Oh, that's just (1) small piece of a whole lot of clean-up I have to do. Thanks for the suggestion- that never crossed my mind. Definately worth considering.
