Ok, so one day, while browsing through the many customs posted here at TFW, I came across tabtiurf's custom Animated Dirtboss... and I instantly fell in love with it! Then I grabbed a KO ROTF Dirtboss I had sitting on my shelf, and said "I gotta try this!". Now, I'm one of those guys who loves it when customizers take a shot at one of the many obscure or less popular characters Transformers has. But I'm also a fan of character conversions (when a character from a certain line gets done in the style & look of a different line). So I didn't want to just "copy" tabtiurf's figure, I wanted to make a classics/Generations version of the grumpy green midget. The little guy is in WIP stage, I would say about 60% done, so theres still a lot of work to be done here. Mods done so far: - Shortened limbs, for a more midget-y look. - Replaced the original hands with Gundam hands. - Removed the original head and sanded down the whole chest area. - Sculpted a new face which will be glued on the chest area. Robot mode pic's: The face seen in these initial two pictures was an early attempt that later got scrapped, Just used it as a placeholder here. The new face sculpt is the following: This one's less flat, and has a bit more of volume, as well as more accurate to the original character. There's a thin sheet of styrene underneath the putty that I used to sculpt. Details and stuff were carved, but the nose and mouthplate will be made out of small styrene pieces which will be glued on top. The vehicle mode: As you can see, the alt mode is a bit compromised due to the mods done in robot mode. I'll try my best to find a way to make the hands less visible in this mode... but I really don`t care too much about it, he's gonna stay in robot mode most of the time anyways. Like I said before, there's still a lot work to do here, but I'm quite happy with how this is turning out, specially since it's the first time I actually do some heavy modding. Comments, critiques, tips, etc. are all welcome. Thanks for stopping by!
Great stuff! Man, I keep seeing people beating me to ideas I was gonna try! When i get my ROTF Dirtboss from a box in storage im gonna go for something similar. Though I have a plan for a slight twist too Looking forward to seeing this finished!
Thank you, sir! I plan on getting back to work on this on the weekend, so I'll be posting the progress. I'm eager too see what you have planned for your version of the little guy . I hope the character starts getting some more love, since there barely are any customs based on him...
Thanks, guys! Yeah, I also thought about shortening the legs a bit more, but was afraid of ending up with an ape-ish look. I know how the cartoon model has really tiny legs (which work perfectly with the Animated aesthetic), but I´m not sure how those would look on a classics style. I guess I'll have to digibash it to get an idea of the result and finally make my mind up LoL.
Some Updates! Well, I've been a bit busy lately and haven't had a lot of time to spend on this guy the past few weeks, but finally I've made enough progress to post it here, so here we go: Face sculpt is finished and glued to the torso, and the helmet is almost complete, just need to sand down the corners of the crest to make it round tipped and add two small fins to the sides of the cone thing from the front. The abdomen plate has been modified to look similar to some of the details the original character model had in that part of the body. Once the above mentioned is done it'll just be a matter of sanding a bit more to smooth down the roughness of the sculpted areas and make everything look nice & tidy. Added new parts and articulations to re-attach the forks and wheels to the side panels and allow them to move around for the transformation. Now the wheels can rotate 360º horizontally, and the forks can rotate 360º horizontally and 90º vertically. Just used a couple of KO gundam arms and styrene for this. Here's a pic of the alt-mode: The transformation mostly remains the same as the original mold. The biggest difference is that now there are two extra steps involved to rotate the forks and wheels and let them sit on the bot mode's back. I know the arms still stick out there in alt mode, but they dont's really bother me enough to find a way to hide them... or perhaps I'm too lazy to try, lol. And finally, some pics of the little guy completely assembled in bot mode: I'd say it's about 85% done, and all in all I love how he's coming together. I'm very anxious to get him finished and painted, but I'm trying to take it slow since it's my first ever extensive mod custom, and I really dont't want to mess it up. C&C are welcome as always. Thanks for stopping by!
Guess who's back? Big progress here, although there's only one picture... Well, basically I finished the head/helmet area, adding the little fins to the cone thing in the front, and sanding everything down a bit to eliminate alll the rough areas on the sculpt. Then I started painting after I figured out the best color configuration to homage the original animated character, while keeping a sleek look in the more complex body of the mold. So right now I'm pretty much waiting for most of the paint to dry down to add some details and apply the gloss coat.
looks more like someone mated a gunmen with a transformer lol cool dirtboos though thats pretty sweet
Why did you repaint him into ROTF Dirtboss before starting the custom? *edit* This would be more clever if you didn't say "mold". at the backround.
Thanks, I hope to see you take on this character someday. The hands came from a 1/44 KO Gundam Wing Endless Waltz - Deathscythe Hell Custom model kit, with bits of leftover plastic from the original Dirtboss' inner chest parts glue on top of them.
Se està viendo genial este custom! Es el que te està quitando el sueño estos dìas? XD Seguì laburando mucho pero recordà descansar. Kick ass custom!!!
