... I honestly don't know if this falls under Minor/Repaint or Heavy/Scratch... but since most of my stuff is under Minor/Repaint, including the Sides and Dino threads where I customed their weapons partially... Minor/Repaint it is... Smokescreen always felt more like Hot Rod/ Sideswipe in the show to me, even though his original color scheme made him look like Jazz/Mirage. His new one looks a bit more unique at least, and I'm kinda praying that there'll be an official release of it so I don't have to paint him myself, hahahaha But given the Hot Rod similarity, down to him almost becoming a Prime, I took a long hard stare at the mold, and... I think the designers probably DID have Hot Rod in mind at some point. the head is just repainted without any mods, and it already sorta looks like the IDW MTMTE Hot Rod/Rodimus. Putting him together was interesting for me. His ingredients include: - Beast Hunters Smokescreen - largely unchanged, aside from a minor forearm mod, where you snip the flaring fin off. - Clocker's pipes. I used the movieverse one. Was a bit of a headache to decide if I wanted to drill holes into Smokes, or snip the pipes down to size, but I decided on the latter in the end. was a bit easier to handle. main changes involve sanding a hole to fit the remnant of the fin on his forearms, and sticking on a rare earth magnet onto the pipes, so it's attracted to an underlying pin in the forearm. - Fansproject Sidearm - Firebolt scales awesomely with the Smokescreen mold, and fits snug in his hand, and I decided on using the large wing fins as the rear wing, attached using rare earth magnets to the existing pins on the mold for the shoulders. You can probably use the other fin piece, but I kinda like the aesthetics of this more. first time I've used rare earth magnets, and they seem to work pretty well holding his fins on, and his pipes too. I decided that it wouldn't be fun for me to mod his feet to try to make a peg point for the fins in alt mode, so I hereby invoke subspace theory, which is probably how Ultra Magnus hides his shoulder pads in his alt mode... The pipes fit on the doors pretty much like they did for his G1 self, so that works ok. Paint scheme was a bit of an issue for me, which is also kinda why this took so long. I decided after much deliberation to go for a G1-ish look, with elements of MTMTE to bring out the mold details... but I think the flames came out SHIT. I MIGHT either sand em off and redo them, or start from scratch and do a more subtle color scheme... For those interested: - Tamiya Metallic Red as base - Tamiya Gloss Aluminum for the pipes - Tamiya Brilliant Orange - fair warning about this one?... I'm not sure if it's the can I got, but this seems rather runny, and doesn't stick onto the plastic too well. works better if you coat it onto another color or a primer. - Gundam paints - black - Pilot Silver and Gold marker - ripped the tips off and used the ink directly... And for fans of MTMTE, included a pic of Hot Rod with my first Prime universe customs, Drift.
I was waiting for someone to do this! Turned out great and much better than the Wheeljack mold for him
noooooooo not you hot rod now i can't faaaaaaaaaaap in all serious though its great (i just hate hot rod as a character)
Thanx guys. XD Thanx! yeah, I think the Wheeljack mold is great, but he's not really sleek enough for characters like Hot Rod... but the Smokescreen mold works fine for almost all the racers. Yeah, he still transforms, and pics will be up soon. Heh, thanx man. I still think Smokes was meant to be someone else, most likely Hot Rod or Sideswipe since they were planning for a new Prime... but I think they decided to play safe and call him Smokes... even though he behaves like Roddy/Sides... lol, I kinda know how you feel?... I think Hot Rod is generally ok as a character, but he was always a bit of a dick. Then he became Rodimus... and he came across as weak compared to Optimus... so yeah... I don't know if I like him or hate him sometimes...
Actually now that I think about it, as great a job as you did on this repaint, I have to say I feel the Wheeljack mold or a Wheeljack like mold would be a better choice for the character. This is too smooth of an alt mode. Rodimus needs to be more hard edged. But your opinion may vary. This is still a great job. I love the head on this so much.
Heh, now now, I did say Hot Rod. Rodimus though? He'd need more beef, so using the Wheeljack mold would work well. ... and it'd be easier to make the trailer to fit onto the alt mode too...
Sorry, I use the name Rodimus far more than I use Hot Rod. I wasn't referring to Rodimus Prime. I was referring to Hot Rod. Rodimus is just a better name in my opinion. And since they seem unable to use the name Hot Rod I am perfectly happy with them renaming Hot Rod to simply Rodimus.
hmmm. I still have the original movie's Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime distinction in my head, though... so I personally think this sleeker mold works a little better for Hot Rod, while the Wheeljack mold works better for Rodimus. But yeah, personal preference. I LOVE how some of the other Radicons have done Hot Rod/Rodimus using the WJ mold too...
