w.i.p. ironhide

So after stalking the radicon forum for years and drooling over the countless amount of awesome customs that have been created; I've finally took the plunge and busted my cherry on this DOTM cyberverse ratchet. I thought I would start out small with this mold and repaint it into ironhide. I've seen a bunch of threads where people have use paint markers; so I decided to go the same route. Instead of just straight up using the marker on the plastic, I created a puddle of paint and then dry brushed it on. I took my sweet time and put about 2 coats on so far. But as you can tell from the pics I still have to put a couple more on because the neon yellow is still showing up underneath the red. Also just so you know I will be breaking up the red with some white detailing, and painting the rims and lights. I have a couple of questions for you guys. For the clear coat whats the best one to choose? I was going to use some clear gloss enamel (spray paint) that I have. The next question is what do you guys think I should do with the head? Personally I can't stand it and to me it looks super fugly. It doesn't look like I can just take it off. So I was thinking I could take a another slightly bigger cyberverse head, hollow it out so that I could put it over the ratchet head like a helmet.
C & C would be greatly welcomed and thanks for looking!

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This is sn excellent way to start off customizing mate, thanks for sharing!

roses are red, violets are blue, bend over

is that not legends ratchet cuz that was the mold for the 1st and 2nd movie ratchet legends

Great work. Brushing on marker is the best. I might recommend adding a drop of water or Future (if they're acrylic paint markers) to thin it first. Reduces brushstrokes.

Thanks

Its DOTM cyberverse/legends (whatever you want to call it) ratchet that I'm repainting into a ironhide


Thanks for the advice; I'm going to try this out.

So how is your Ironhide progressing?

Nice first custom. Are you trying to make this into a G1 Ironhide?

Sorry this got put on the back burner after I got back into school full time. I'm planning on get back to it this weekend.

Thanks! That was the direction I was going. Keeping faithfully to the G1 colors; as much as possible with a DOTM cyberverse figure.

I like your progress thus far. As far as finishing, I prefer using testors dullcote. It gives a nice matt finish. I find glosscoting leaves the finished project sticky and prone to dust collection.