Well, folks, pleased to meet you. I'm currently working on filling out the ranks of my Animated toys, and one particular character I'm eager to try my hand at is the medic who made the twins who they are now and served as little more than an incendiary at the beginning of Transwarped, Red Alert. Now, here's what I've managed so far, using a spare Black Arachnia(from a failed attempt to lengthen her string which only ended up freeing her spring!) and a junker Ratchet from Ebay. Now, for most of it, I've actually been surprised at how well it's been coming together, as I've actually managed to almost pull off Red Alert's vehicle mode. My stumbling blocks should be pretty obvious at this point, the replacement of the BA bit as the front of the "van" and somehow getting another joint into the skirt so it can turn around(I flipped a piece so as to show how I want it to transform). Otherwise, I've pretty well got it mapped out in my head, including her "power"(I'm going to make little secondary tool arms with swappable heads that store in the forward roof/backpack. You can see the start of the arms where BA's shoulder claws used to be). So, suggestions, comments, questions? Thanks for anything! Edit: Added new pictures of part I'm gonna work on next. I've decided to just go ahead and cut along the piece and try to install one of these pins I've got floating around here, bulking it up afterwards with some Apoxie Sculpt. I'll let you all know how it goes when I've done it.
Looking promising! I love how seamlessly alot of the animated parts seem to fit together. The legs work really well.
Thanks, can't remember who suggested Ratchetbits to me, but they've really turned out swell. Getting some of them off of Ratchet was...not pretty, however XD;
Haha! Speaking of not pretty and Ratchet, you've just reminded me I need to get a soldering iron. My Ratchet has permanent voyager bulkhead feet since the screwheads wore out and now he looks dumpier than ever!
A suggestion... When I remade my TFA: BA into Nightbird, I used several joints from a TFA: Jazz, as they were insanly common here. From the way you flipped her around and over... you might want to look at a toy with a ball-jointed elbow or the like, maybe place the socket so that the groove allows her that extra bit of flex? *looks at her NB, then your image* Allllright, I think I got it. ------------------------------------------------ You'll end up lenthening he rhips for this, but it should work. Pretty much disassemble her hips (take the two screws out) The balljoints that her legs use are connected to each other, which is good for this Now, looking into the inside of her hips (that sounds kinky but moving on reguardless ) You'll see that in between the ball-joint of her waist(functions like a swivel) and the screw that holds the post for her leg balljoints in place there IS a decent gap. What you want to do is find a SMALL swivel joint; a joe or simular wrist... I've got a toy I'm slowly chopping up for joints from a company called 'Real Heroes'. This one is a Navy Sealin a wet suit now the swivel right inbetween his elbow and shoulder is JUST the right size to fit in here without lengthening the hips much, if at all. ----------------- After getting your swivel joint (on a side note you could also use How to Make Cut Joints and Magna-Joints! for this) measure exactly where the swivel will be in her hips. In mine the swivel will be between the balljoint post screw and just under the pin-hinge for her bustle. Carve out the post for the larger screw, you're going to end up gluing this to the swivel and itself rather then screwing.carefully carve what you can away from the swivel joint until it fits roughly in the space provided by the inside of the hip Put the two hip halves together, odds are high that the two halve won't meet anymore, this is okay. Take a thin marker (I use a fine point sharpie) and draw a line on the hips where the swivel is. take the hips and joint apart and using a fine bladed dremel or hacksaw cut the hips along the line. Take the lower part of the hips, which should have the hole for the balljoint post and nothing else, and reassemble her legs Re-assemble your upper hips (should include the pin-hinge for her bustle), make certain that the ball-joint of her waist is free of glue AND still tight. If you've got 2-part plastic epoxy this is the perfect time for it and a clamp. After gluing and clamping the hip together swivel the new joint and the waist joint to make sure both still work. Leave it alone for an hour or more (I usually leave it over night to cure) Now I'll be honest, I never trust epoxy to hold on it's own, so what I do is take super glue and baking soda and put the glue along the seams, then sprinkle with the B-soda. (Originally I just used super glue but I recently saw Jin Saotome's 'filling in gaps' tutorial and experimented and that worked) the B-soda hardens the glue almost instantly and creates as firm, if not a firmer, bond then super glue alone. It also lets you fill in gaps that you don't want. Just work slow and yo can fill in surprisingly large gaps. Let THIS cure for a few hours. Now use the epoxy and attach the top of your hip joint to the bottom of your new swivel. This is the stage that might lengthen her hips a bit and will be hard to clamp, but once that sets you should be able to use the new swivel as is, or you can go along the seam with super glue to strengthen it I'd tend to suggest sanding after you're certain the swivel works just right. I haven't done this to my toy (I only have the one, and I like her as nightbird) but I did open her hips up and carve up my spare 'Seal' arm joint and it SEEMS as if it should fit just about perfect and give you the range of motion you seem to want from your image of her 'proper' alt mode. I might be viewing it wrong, of course, so if I am, feel free to completely ignore this --------------------------------- Keep posting, please, I enjoyed Red Alert in the Jettwins comic as well and am glad to see a toy of her!
Ratchet bits = win. Hey, Hyre! Seconded on how well Ratchet parts work with Blackarachnia’s core. I’m intrigued by how you’ve worked some of Ratchet’s backpack into the design, in addition to how Blackarachnia has a different upper-body transformation.
Indeed, I've been quite surprised at how cooperative all the pieces have been so far. If I can get this pin set in properly, then the skirt will be pretty much perfect save for not having the gap from the show.
Just to be clear, folks, the back's gonna change. BA's old abdomen(the "backpack") is a placeholder, I'm going to replace it with a backpack more suitable to Red Alert's alt mode.
I know, but it doesn't look like Red Alert then. I may revisit this mod with another BA and Ratchet and make a different character all together with the original backpack, but that'd be a long while from now, I think.
