Hmm I'm not familiar with that cape, but I do perhaps think the 'shampoo bottle' quality of the Reflector KO is sometimes exaggerated. Probably the cheap looking colours set folks against it to start with. It's not the worst plastic I've seen (some KOs are really brittle and crumble easily, which is far worse IMO). Most of it is actually fine, only the lower legs show the inadequacies when you try to clip them together. There you go! Tigerblade's look fine to me, so you can do it this way. Also worth mentioning that if you like the dark shade of purple they used in the KO, the set is available in several combinations of colours. If you mix and match two sets you can make three bots who each have purple heads, purple torsos and purple lower legs, so you would only need to paint the arms and thighs grey/silver. Paint apps on the KO are very slapdash, as to be expected, but they even have the green paint already in the chest.
Man, you guys are making it hard to not do this. TigerBlade, did you use testors paint by chance? If not what kind of paint did you use?
Just Revell enamel pots. Had to mix to get the purple I wanted tho. The plastic really isn't that bad....not the best obviously but not the worst I've seen.
FINAL UPDATE! In this pic you can see how I cannibalised the PE KO for every scrap of useful parts. The black piece with the ball joints on is off the camera lens which I will not be using. The ball socket which the hinge plugs into is cut out from the shoulder of the KO. I had two sets of the PE KO, and it's a good job because I have used bits from both sets (as well as doing a lot of practising without worrying about ruining stuff). I have incorporated the oversize G1 Reflector flash bulb, mainly to give the third and final bot something to fill his lower legs! Handily it is already molded in two halves. Similar to the camera cover, each half is put on a ball-joint/hinge allowing them to fold away into the legs. Next stop - Finished photos!!
Great to see you building again and set to make another masterpiece. Considering your past work, this will undoubtedly be perfect when finished.
Been quite a while since I checked on this thread you have made some great progress! Love the new faces you gave them
Ha, thanks! I have to give lots of the credit to Perfect Effect though for designing such a nice base figure originally. Thanks man, you'll see a completed thread either today or tomorrow! Cheers, yeah when I started this I wasn't intending to go quite so far with it, but ideas kept coming as I was working, and it's turned out to be a more involved project than expected (and better for it I think).
Lol yes it's a long time ago now! I worked mainly with sheet styrene, and sometimes Milliput clay for odd organic shapes/filler areas like the back of Reflector's head.
ohhh I have milliput aswell, but I was wondering how you get such sharp edges , like for example what did you use for the crotch ?
Milliput did the job, but it was a bit messy and crumbly. If I were to do sculpting again in future I'd probably look at using air drying clay or something, especially on visible/important areas. All the white you see is sheet styrene, of various thicknesses, cut into shapes and welded together then sanded.
and also like im so interested in how you managed to do this ! like how did you do that round crest on his forhead and how did you shape the eyes so well
I was never fussy with paints, often using whatever type had the best colour match... but generally Tamiya or Humbrol spray cans. Just styrene again. The forehead part was just a matter of attaching a block there then carving, sanding etc until it had the same contours as the rest of the head. Eyes and nose were cut from different thickness styrene (thin for eyes, think corner cut for nose).
Ohh alright im looking for styrene now for my own customs , never used it before but will give it a try, and what do you mean by welded together ? does that mean you glue them? (im guessing thats how you construct really thick chunks out of sheets )
Yeah it comes in sheets of different thickness. There's also a liquid called Pro-weld which you brush onto the join and it bonds the surfaces together, like glue but specific to styrene.
