after seeing the fastpack mod for classics Jetfire done by board member hXcpunk23, I was inspired to try my hand at it. I was going for more of the classic toon look as well but keeping the fastpack like the macross ones with the boosters side by side didn't feel right to me. so I tinkered with it and came up with my own design. funny thing is it required NO GLUE what so ever!!!! best of all the guns still pop out of the boosters to. To give it more of the toon feel the wings are attached to the boosters and can move into the classic toon position. I am also inspired by the height of hXcpunk23's jetfire and I will be also doing SMOG's mod.

In addition I will be doing an additional mod to the theighs to make him able to have the swept back leg position like you see in alot of macross bots. and I am thinking of putting some rotation into the hips. when I do these mods I will make a small tutorial on how to do it.

this is still a WIP and probably will be for a few more weeks while I work on the engineering of the legs.

Special thanks to hXcpunk23 and SMOG for the inspireation.

thanks for looking.

***update with new pics on last post 12/8/09***

 

He looks pretty sweet like this.

Question: does the modded back pack (mainly the new height of it) make him top heavy?

 

yeah he is a little top heavy. I hope to remedy this with the mod I was talking about that will enable the legs to be put into a swept back position.

 

Cool...keep us posted!!  

 

Good Job! I like the originality, and the G1 homage!

 

I have gotten the mod complete for the swept back legs and will be posting another couple of pics probably tomorrow night with the tutorial on how to do it.

right now I am 1/2 complete with SMOG's leg extention mod. I will post pics of that to if SMOG wants me to.

 

This looks great, man! Glad my WIP inspired you some. SMOG gave me the go ahead to do a tutorial on the leg mod with the mods I did for my own Skyfire, so I'm pretty sure he'd have no problem if you did the same (you can never have too many tutorials on figure-specific mods--especially when there are a lot of people interested in them). I did a mod to make the legs more anime-styled (is that what you're talking about doing also?). It allows the legs to bend backwards just a bit to offset the weight of the fastpack/backpack.

Thanks again for the credit and props--I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this, including the tutorial (I still need to find time to get mine whipped up soon also). Keep up the great work!

 

ok so I decided to postpone going to bed just yet and finish the legs. I have to say that I am quite pleased at how they came out. I am adding them here tonight. Hope you like what you see. I will be doing the tutorial on the "anime" legs that give it the swept back look tomorrow and possibly the leg extentions as well. Thanks for looking.

 

I do like the look of those legs....really nice looking mod there.

 

I didn't know you were a leg man. lol. seriously though. Thanks.

 

Love the bot mode!

 

interesting design

 

Go right ahead... that's cool!

On my Jetfire, I think I did the same thing... basically just cutting away the impeding plastic on the leg joints so you can get that almost reverse bend in the legs... I think I mentioned it my original mod thread. Considering how back-heavy Jetfire is in general, it's almost mandatory!  

Looks GREAT! No gluing necessary, but from the looks of it a LOT of drilling and cutting! That's my kind of mod!  

I'm really torn because I'd like to mod my Jetfire further into a sort of hybrid Cartoon Skyfire/Jetfire toy homage... so I'm not sure if I want to go the toon-accurate way you and Punky did... but it looks reeeeeally good, so it's tempting.  

Now what I really want to see is one of us pull off a mod that gives Jetfire BICEP SWIVEL ARTICULATION. It drives me crazy when the make TFs without this joint! And really, Hasbro had this figured out way back in 1984, when they gave the "swivel-arm battle grip" to the second generation of GIJOE figures. Why is it still not standard for TFs???

zmog

 

actually that articulation problem bothers me a lot too.  I am trying to figure out something for both the hips and the biceps. until then....

 

There are LOTS of things that should be standard.

I just finished the leg mod to my Classics Jetfire. WOOHOO!! Now all of my Jetfire/Treadbolts can stand tall.

 

Nice. I am particularly impressed by the cool wing rotation mod.

Not the only way to go to counter the back-heaviness. I found an easy fix for it when I made my Classics Skyfire. While the feet are still in jet thruster mode, pull the back one down towards the front on the leg until you hear one snap. Now the feet can be opened up (though watch out not to pull the backs too far and resnap them). This makes him stand with a slight lean towards the front and completely counters the weight of the backpack.

 

You mean basically giving him high-heels?  

Yeah... it seems that wherever possible, whenever a figure has front and back foot parts, I transform my TFs that way. I guess that suggests that I just don't find the normal leg-length standards sufficient on Hasbro's stuff.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make my TF's into drag queens?  

zmog

 

That looks really really good! Not only the mods, but the paint job as well!

 

wait...you mean they are not dragqueens already?

sorry, I wish I could take credit for the paint...but that is factory.

 

panel lines look sweet