Decided to start painting one, and man oh man, this is a difficult figure to take apart. Pins galore. Unless you're ready to do a ton of tape work, run away from this monster of a figure. He's got incredible details though, and lots of cool spring loaded or hinged panels for bot mode. Just opening up the forearms alone, there are 2 spring loads in there for the sword and button/trigger.
Yes, don't remind me of the arm setup. That was a very painful chunk of time. (Those spring ends, even though they're folded, still have a very sharp point and will puncture your skin. Like a balloon.) You have more guts than I do. I painted him by hand and said "Screw it" to the rest. I can't even imagine what he looks like on the inside. Blargh.
don't get me wrong, I love him too, one of my favorites (I admittedly bought 5 more last night) but he's a nightmare. It reminds me of the first repaint I did on the original Prime, several later it was a lot easier knowing all the innerworkings, right now I have like 8 plastic cups all labeled.
No no. I get what u mean. He is a 'nightmare' to work with rite? But I chose to rely heavily on tapes. I didnt disassemble him one bit. Apart from his ball sockets and feet, he is largely intact. Almost done with my first one. SO so excited!!!
Anything extra on him? I decided to go with a combo of TFTM prime and ROTF prime. Which means; articulated hands, rubber tires, gun(s)...few more things too. All these parts are easily compatible between the 2.
Well, not really. I decided to keep him mint for now . Apart from some uber cool weapons, nothing's changed. He should be a bang though. I cant wait to see him in truck mode though. Kinda hard to visualize with all that shading. Heheh!
for the record with some minimal modding the RUBBER wheels from the original TFTM can be swapped right in. They look a hell of a lot better in my opinion.
I cant wait to see what you do to yours! The paintjob will be nothing more than stunning! Im going to start working on one as soon as i can afford to buy another. The one i got yesterday was a belated birthday gift. Once i sell a couple of these customs i have been working on i'll use the money to buy another prime to repaint. Im not surprised he's a nightmare to work on though, ive been studying mine and theres so much sanding to be doen to prevent paint rub and all those springs and pins are gonna be a pain! I already took the swords out of mine though and that was simple as ABC.
I don't see many problematic area, matter of fact, most of the pegs which hold him together in alt mode...won't even need to get painted. Dying to see some of your customs Drpee
I have three im working on all at once right now. Ones really cool and very original so i hope people will like it. The other two not so much but still cool. I just like to take my time and im a bit slow as i get distracted easily...like now. I want to get them done in time for the big ROTF customs flood though.
I found this great super-sized Prime for reference if anyone could use it: it's amazing how fucking accurate the toy's detail is. I just threw away my TFTM version it looks so damn bad now.
Yep, had that referance on my comp for ages. Its made of epic win! And yes the toy is amazing. I cant stop staring at it. I wouldnt throw away the old version though, its still a cool toy. My goal is to make the new toy look EXACTLY like that cgi render. But with maybe some added pearl in the paint to make it unique.
pretty much. you'll need to shorten the pegs on ROTF Prime's "axles" and remove a few plastic pegs AROUND the front 2 axles, then add in new pics.
I can understand the desire to have rubber tyres but imo the wheels on rotf leader prime are far more realistic and accurate looking than the tftm1 leader primes wheels i dont think its a worthwhile compromise.
no way. one of the biggest criticisms around about the ROTF prime is the lack of rubber wheels. look at TFTM's wheels, they are puny and not correct at all. look at the space around them to the wheel wells...
