This doesn't match the intricacy of some of the other customs here, but I thought I'd share anyways.

I recently got a hold of the white Metals Transform Car KO of Hound and immediately thought that it would make a great Search and Rescue vehicle. I took a look at TFU.info to see if there were any existing TFs that would be appropriate. I found Checkpoint from a K-Mart exclusive S.W.A.T team set. A Jeep would never do as a S.W.A.T. vehicle, but the character's look seemed a good fit to what I wanted to do so I repurposed Checkpoint into a Medic.

I also decided that I wanted a bit of home on this too so I decided to base the vehicle here in Natick, Massachusetts. The fire shields on each door are both customized for Natick and I've added authentically styled Official Massachusetts license plates. I also put together a reproduction Inspection Sticker with numerous TF Movie and Botcon references - sadly it's so small that it's illegible. I'm going to contact Reprolabels and inquire about a custom set of labels for this project.

I'm hoping to add a winch and a light bar if I can find the parts.

Right now all I have are paper placement labels so that I can figure out where everything will end up.

 

I like the idea behind the search and rescue, its adventurous yet sopphisticated. You are doing well, i cant wait to see the outcome but IMO i feel thatt you should do a head swap with another robot since i do not believe that the stickers on the head will make it look to good, such as how you tried to give this one the whole ratchet look.

 

Thanks - I'm still not sure about the head decals myself. The head swap idea is not bad though - I'll just have to figure out if there's a head that I can get a hold of that would fit.

 

yea youll find a way to make it work, i mean just a regular paintjob is very hard to me at least haha so keep up what youre doing dude

 

My first thoughts were to use an Alt Prowl head, esp. since your character is Checkpoint.  

 

Kewl, :-D Makes me think my plan for Takedown (my profile character representation of myself with Ricochet's head [I have enough of those]) will work perfect with Binaltech 4A, once Im able to find the ability to get one. Got a lightbar, and was planning to use Towlines communication array for a generator and light tower. For a sort of homage to the volunteered based Emergency Support Unit I was with for 5 years. Till work and my mother's health curtailed my response ability.

But until then, my altered version with wrap-bashing

 

good job... thats pretty cool.

 

Looks nice!

 

Looks neat.
I've never heard of Metal Transforms--what quality are these KO's, and where can I get them?

 

That would be the most appropriate but, sadly, I haven't seen Prowl (or Camshaft) at retail for quite some time and don't have any spares. Perhaps I'll put up a Wanted Ad if I decide to go that way.

Nice! I was debating whether I wanted a winch on the front or a Swindle-style front. The main reason that I'm leaning towards the winch is that I'd love to add one to my Reprolabeled Binaltech Hound too! Where did you get the light bar for your custom?

Thanks for the kind words! They've given me the encouragement to start working out another concept with Classics Megatron. I'll probably start that after I get Checkpoint completed

They're a line of Chinese knockoffs - they even come in boxes styled to match Binaltech. I got mine from ke-shop on eBay, the price was steeper than I like to pay for KOs at around $30 but most of that was due to the weak dollar. I have yet to see these offered by anyone not in the UK.

Quality is a mixed bag - you may have noticed a brown spot on the left door - that's cardboard that got glued to the toy before it was packaged and then torn off. The reason that I decided to transform Checkpoint with the windshield still connected to the center of the roll bar is that the right seat won't fold all the way forward like it should. The side mirrors are extremely soft and feel like they'll rip off if not handled carefully. On the flip side, they are die-cast and the main body feels pretty solid. Their KOs of Dead End and Lambor have some very interesting detailing. Also, the manual is hilarious - it reads like it was written in Japanese, translated to English, translated to Chinese then translated back to English again. I don't have it with me at the moment or I'd post a quote.

 

Sweet!

 

Could you post a link for it? I searched for "ke-shop" on eBay, and found nothing.

 

http://stores.ebay.com/Ken-and-Eva-Shop

This is their shop, but they don't have any up this week (which is a bit odd because normally they have a slew up each week).

 

i think they just ended because i had my eye on the same white jeep and the white viper....wish they had other KOs though

 

They've posted more of the KOs now - Here's the new listing for the version that I'm using for Checkpoint.

PS:

Thanks!

 

Yeah, that ebay store tends to post new auctions for them each week. If you just wanted one, it's not too bad, but more than one they compound (not combine) shipping.

 

Nice and clean! Cool to hear that those KOs sound fairly solid too.

 

Updated pics!

I added a roof, lightbar and winch to the KO and replaced the "4x4" graphics with slide decals from the 1/24 Jeep model where I got the winch & roof.

Unfortunately I screwed up my Reprolables order and all of the decals came out at 150% of what they should have been so I won't have any of the logos for a while.

 

Thats really nice looking! You did a good job!  

 

I discovered that Reprolabels did include one set of labels that was in the correct scale but inverted so I was able to add a few of the graphic decails tot he bot mode.