There are two types of Transfans: a) comic fans who love Darkwing and Dreadwind as much as I do, and b) cartoon fans who couldn't care less. Well, hopefully everyone will care about this little project of mine. In a way it's a continuation of my 1988 redux since I'm fairly certain that Darkwing was next after the first eight. In any case, my mother bought him for me on a trip to Stockholm, just as she had done with Smokescreen some time before. I then got Dreadwind some years later. But I was foolish enough to sell Darkwing along the way, something I'm regretting now. I always liked these two guys. The comic wasn't exactly shock full of personality, especially among the Decepticons. The only real characters were the various leaders, Soundwave, Starscream, Bludgeon and then these guys. They started out battling Powermaster Optimus Prime on Nebulos and then had various guest appearances, being rogue ops of some kind. They really shone in the last few episodes, discussing philosophy, killing off Getaway, that sort of thing. In fact, I don't even think you see them defeated, as they probably took off when things turned ugly. Anyway, the Botcon Dreadwind really inspired me. It's ridiculous how well the Jetfire mold works for him, almost better than for Jetfire himself. Then when Silverbolt was released and has the same general transformation as Darkwing, I knew what I had to do. I promptly got myself a loose copy and started figuring out how to connect them. This turned out to be fairly simple as well. I replaced the pins that held Jetfire's rear wings to his feet with magnets. I then positioned Silverbolt's legs in the space between and measured up where corresponding magnets would go. Together with some slight leverage from the wings locking into each other, these hold together perfectly with a few rare earth magnets. I don't think I can shake them very violently, but apart from that they're fine. There are very few mods apart from that. I added the typical shoulders to Dreadwind from a deluxe Gobot. I also gave Dreadwind his typical look by adding a styrene mask below his eyes. I then took them apart as much as I could (which isn't too much, I could basically just tear off their limbs) and masked the rest. Then I spray painted everything. The colors are a bit off in these photos. Darkwing's wings is a rich purple rather than the bluish here, while his torso is metallic blue. I decided to go with metallic colors after seeing the spray paints (mint and purple) turn out that way, and mixed up fitting blues and grays to go with it. I'm very happy with how these guys turned out. There's still some minor retouching to do once I get more white paint, but I wanted to get the photos over and done with before my three-day weekend ended. I've also added con symbols to them, but I may replace them with new silver symbols to keep with the whole metallic thing.
very nice use of colors, though I am not liking the Dreadwing combo. It took me a LOOONG time to figure it out, but there are better ways to put those 2 together. nice job A+
Really nice job on those two, I like the colours you used for him as well, and i think they look really sick in ALT. modes! Great job!
That NEEDS to be this year's BotCon exclusive. Or even a main-line repaint. i don't care, I WANTS IT.
I know you said "over and done with" but you really ought to show pictures of the areas you modified. I can't really tell how they're together by the photographs, and seeing is believing.
http://xs234.xs.to/xs234/08491/magnets620.jpg http://xs234.xs.to/xs234/08491/magnets2307.jpg I replaced the pegs with magnets, which clips Dreadwind together in plane mode. Darkwing has magnets on both sides of his lower legs, which correspond to Dreadwind's. Apart from that, I just had to trim off the pointy part between Dreadwind's engines, since that part sits against Darkwing in the combined form.
shame they can't clip together somehow, so they're more stable. It looks great though man. Thanks for those pics.
Haha, they actually went and made it: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans...9344-universe-darkwing-robot-mode-pics-2.html
This custom is the first thing I thought of when I saw the official dreadwind repaint! Good job predicting the future. What are next week's lotto numbers? ;-)
This is so awesome, Hasbro decided to complete the set too . . . sorta. I really like this bash, man. Everything is nicely done. I've come to expect that from you though. Great work
