This is my first big Bash on here and it is a very special work for me. I decided around the first of April to work on a custom Animated Bumblebee. Bee is already designed to be a Police car (with the emergency light on the roof) so why not use it to create a new Police Character out of him. I had the paint scheme all set up when I was hit with some bad news. I lost a very good friend to a heart attack. I met Mark while I was going to an interview for our city police department. We both had interviews with the chief that day. I was nervous and he gave me some very positive ideas to help calm my nerves. I was 22 years old and Mark was 42. We both got the job that day. He helped me get through all the rigorous training with firearms, driving and studying for the exams. He basically took me on as his third son. A few years later- my wife and I decided it was time for us to have children and well being a Police Officer didn’t fit in our lives any more. Mark and I stayed very close and our home was on his beat so he always stopped by for dinner. It was great! Mark decided two years ago that he wanted to do contract Security in Iraq(better pay). We stayed in touch by cell phone and Facebook (which is so addictive!). April 27th we had been chatting back and forth and we cut our chat short due to Mark having a few things to do and got offline. The next day I got the call from Mark’s son on April 28th with the bad news Mark had been working out in the gym by himself and had a heart attack. This was really hard for me. I was closer to this man than my own father. I had not worked with my latest kitbash (Bumble Officer) since then. I had an idea back in July that I should turn this kitbash into Mark’s old Patrol car and kind of Honor him in my own way… I had contacted a buddy .. a fellow basher Eric (Ezilla82) and bounced a few ideas off of him as well as Plowking and Spurt Reynolds. I wanted make sure that I did a respectful job on this guy and it took a lot of work. First off.. Ani-Bee is a tight fitting bot.. and was a challenge to work with. Listed below are some of the things done to this guy.. A) Sanded off Bee’s horns B) Removed the “stingers” (I hated this part of the figure) C) Sanded down the entire body- especially the joints that fit very snug D) Primed the parts (Krylon for plastics- This stuff is awesome!) E) Created a mouth plate from sculpting clay Ok… sculpting clay is not fun to use!! The stuff I purchased was from a local craft store (Michael’s) and it must be heated in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes in order to harden. WARNING!!! Do not leave it unsupervised.. my first attempt ended in disaster- the entire head melted in like 4 minutes! Thankfully I have a few spare Bee’s laying around. During this same time I also lost another head at the same time- so I will not be using the sculpting clay anymore. Thanks to Big E, I’ll use Apoxy Sculpt from here on out! The paint applications it received a lot of help from Spurt Reynolds. The primer coat I used was Krylon which really bonds to the plastic. I used Citadel paints to for body and head (the blues, white, black and silver) The tail lights I used blood red and a red clear coat (testers) to give it a brighter color. After completing the paint job on this guy- I had to Officially given it the Police look. Thanks to the wonderful people at policecarmodels.com I was able to get everything needed such as car numbers-emergency 911 and Police decals. This was fun…I had forgotten how easy it is to rip a water slide decal! Thankfully I ordered enough of the decals… And now I have completed this new character.
I really like that repaint man. I'm sorry you've lost someone very important to you. We've all been in the same boat. But that's a very nice tribute!
I'm sorry to hear about your mentor passing. Your tribute is a great jesture and honorable, not to mention it looked kick ass!!
it's a sad story man, sorry for your loss. But the figure is a great tribute, I think. It looks amazing, and the decals really give it an authentic look.
this is a great guy and actually looks better (and makes more sense to me) than the original bumblebee
Wow! He looks great! Hasbro should get on this as an official repaint noW! The colors look great on him!
He looks great, especially for a first custom, and your story really got to me. Some people might find a custom Transformer to be an odd tribute, but you're in the right place for people who would appreciate it. Really good job! I made that same mistake using Sculpy. If you bought Apoxie Sculpt, you've probably got a pretty good supply, but you can find a cheap alternative at the hardware store. My favorite is a wood fixing putty called Quikwood. It sets in about 20 minutes. But for really cheap space filler you can use Mighty Putty, and it sets in 10 minutes. It's great if you need to do something simple and don't want to wait an hour for it to set up. Once again, nicely done. He's really handsome.
Thank you so much for the great feedback! This is the first time that I've ever posted one of my customs... so now I have to do the same for the rest that I have bashed. I also have a few customs in the works right now... So much to do and so little time!
