Hello everyone. I’m fairly new to this section and customizing in general. This isn’t my first post in this thread—a few months back I came here asking for help with my TFC Neckbreaker paint issues (I need to finish that sucker)—but this is my first post of a full repaint and minor mod.

Below is my take on Transformers Prime Optimus Prime of the PRiD line. It’s hard to tell in some of the pictures (maybe most of them) that he’s mainly painted in metallic colors. I wanted the metallic paint to show up more in vehicle mode than in robot mode, so in that I think I have succeeded. I chopped off the hilt of his sword filled up a hole a drilled a new one lower down so that I could attach it where his hand goes. And that crappy gimmick he came with was scrapped, save for the end of it, which I modded with glue and putty with joint from the Wave series to help it attach to Optimus’ wrist.

All in all, I’m pretty impressed with this piece here. After about a month of work on it, I’m call it quits on this one. As I have much to learn I’m sure, critiques and criticisms (hopefully more constructive  ) would be most appreciated.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures,

Transformed

Robot mode:























Vehicle Mode:

 

Looks stellar!

Only thing I can constructively say is that either detailing the front logo on the hood or the one on the shoulder with paint or reprolabels would put it to a very clean and more screen accurate reproduction.

 

That's absolutely beautiful! The paint job is absolutely stellar work.  

 

Do you have to take his forearm apart to attach his weapons or can they clip on?

Oh and also fantastic work, hope has/takara release a collectors edition like this

 

Amazing, I love it! May I ask how you managed to break this figure down to paint him? I can't figure out how to.

 

I think you are the first person to color his face correctly. I think it definitely looks screen accurate with the all silver face and black eyebrows. One nitpick though, you can see where you tried to plug the holes on the forearm. Other than that. Great job!

 

I'll have to watch the show again to see how the symbol on the grill looks. I used several production CGI stills as reference for Optimus, and sadly no two were pictures were exactly alike—it's amazing how much he changed from shot to shot, color-wise or detail-wise  In the end, I went with the Optimus that had a silver Autobot symbol on the grill. I liked that one as it looks really subtle compared to the very red and obvious one shown on the AM-01 Optimus.

I'm still on the fence about applying the shoulder one or not. I was never really a fan of faction symbols being visible in vehicle mode, as I felt they ruin the whole robot in disguise look—they work in robot mode, but not so well in vehicle mode. I have an extra sticker, but I may have to look elsewhere to see if that have something a bit more subtle.

Thanks for the kind words 

Thank you very much 

Yes you do. They slide on off the little pole that holds them into place. While the hands can move up in down due to transformation, the sword and gun cannot. I made them sit as flush to the wrists as possible.

Thank you. I definitely hope they make a better painted one, as the one on store shelves is very plain looking. I painted Hasbro’s PRiD which looks a lot more plain than the one Takara put—Takara’s Prime has IMHO better red and blue (but it too falls short of awesome).

I wish I could have broken him down completely like so many customizers here have already done, but as I lack a soldering iron—I’m going to pick me one of these up someday soon—I had to make do with just unscrewing what I could and masking the hell out of the areas I didn’t want to get paint on with masking tape.

Basically, if you do what I did, you should be able to break down everything on the figure save for his core and forearms—I really wish I could have gotten those pins out, as that rub area is still haunting me 


EDIT: I forgot to mention, I cut the smoke stacks off and reapplied them with Tamiya Cement when finishing the project up. I don't think it's possible to do what I did without cutting them off, seeing how closely the hug to cab.

Thank you.

Yeah, I could have done that a bit better. I think my excitement to get started beat out my patience. I used some modeling putty that took a few days to dry completely. It was dry to the touch when I started sanding it down, but it may have still been drying when I applied paint—it does look a tad lower to me, though I can’t say for sure as I don’t have an pictures of it before I started painting.

 

Yea, I couldn't manage to remove that pin either, and the core is gonna be a serious obstacle for me. I tried spray painting one of my PRiD Primes, but the paint didn't evenly cover the figure and I had to put way too many coats on to completely cover the plastic, which ruined his articulation. Can't even transform now =(

 

I airbrushed my figure, almost entirely. As I used enamel paints, I used an enamel thinner that also has self-leveling properties (amazing stuff).

If you can get some thinner that is self-leveling, I think you'll find it so much easier to paint, but that would mean you can't use spray paints 

I also diluted my paint just a below the consistency of milk, and applied only enough coats to cover the primer underneath--after it dried, I applied one more thin coat to make sure I got all areas.

I know one thing, this was definitely a learning experience. I hope to get to work on my PRiD Megatron very soon.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to that. I'm getting an airbrush too, that I'll be using with acrylic paints, so I'll dilute them with water and give that a shot. Any tips for using a primer? Never done that.

 

extremely neat work here, much better than an y of my half-assed efforts.
I like this alot    

 

Don't go acrylics! That was my first mistake when painting Neckbreaker's shovel—the paint comes off during transformation 

Be sure to wash your figure with warm soapy water or rubbing alcohol before getting started, as you'll need to remove that factor shine before applying any primer or paint.

I was told that you should use enamels or lacquers for Transformers, so that's what I did. I did, however, use acrylics for the lights, eyes, and a few silver highlights on Optimus (non-rubbing areas).

It was also recommended that I use a metal primer. I don't know how it's better than any other primer, but as the price was the same as other primers in my areas, I bought it anyway. I coated just about every surface of the figure, though I now I realize that was necessary, as I didn't color areas that cannot be seen in robot or truck mode 

After you've primed your project, you should transform it a few times, taking note of areas that rub/lock into place, as those are areas that will remove paint during play/transformation—sand them down. I painted the joints on my figure, as I wanted the figure to look uniform from top to bottom as much as possible, knowing full well that the contact areas of the joints would rub, removing paint, but that doesn't bother me, as it has made Optimus a much sturdier figure; his joints are very tight! If you don't want that, I would suggest applying masking tape at the ends of your joints so that paint doesn't add an extra layer of thickness to your project.

When you’re done doing all that, you probably should prime your project again; particularly, the areas you've sanded down to see if you sanded enough of the area down. Smooth out any rough edges, and use a brush with very soft bristles, a hair dryer (set to cool), or fan to remove loose material. Mask areas you don't want to paint and then being to paint.

I read online that areas that need to have glue applied to them should never be primed, as the glue will reactivate the primer, messing your project up, so I masked off the ends of the smoke stacks so that I could reattach them with glue—so far so good 

Once everything was painted and glued, I coated all pieces with Mr. Hobby’s Mr. Super clear Semi-Gloss top coat (from about 30cm away from the figure). Several thin coats were applied with an hour of drying time between coats (this took a day for me).

After all that, I started snapping and screwing parts together.

I didn't tighten all screws completely, just enough to hold them in place, as I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget to do something. The forearms are being held together by friction alone on my figure, which works for now, as I switch out the hands for weapons every now and again.

This was my first big project, and I've made mistakes. There were things I could have done better, some of which could have saved me a lot of time, but hey, it was a pretty fun learning experience. The next one I do will be better, and I'm sure I'll learn something new from it as well.

Do you know what kind of airbrush you're going to get? I bought a cheap Chinese airbrush—it got the job done, and I think it worked out very nicely for $30! My airbrush's mini-air compressor was only $60, but I'm so happy I went with this and not the air in a can kit I was thinking about getting—I didn't know if airbrushing would be my thing, so I didn't want to sink a lot of money into it, but the $90 I put into it has done an amazing job. Those air in a can kits would have cost me a fortune on replacement cans alone to finish this project. I'm very interested in seeing what a more expensive airbrush can do now. Oh, by the way, I purchased a dual-action airbrush. I haven't used a single-action, so I don't know how they really differ, but being able to control the airflow and paint is an amazing thing 

I hope the above info helps. Good luck 

EDIT:

Thanks a lot m(_ _)m m(_ _)m m(_ _)m

 

Thanks alot for the tips! I'll be sure to use enamels and a primer then. I got a medium level airbrush, dual action, plus a $120 compressor/regulator kit. So I'm not really worried about that not working out for me. I wanted to go with acrylics because it seemed easier to clean an airbrush with water than with paint thinner, but I'll take your word for it. I've definitely had major trouble with the acrylic paint rubbing off my Prime.

 

That is AMazing!

 

This is exactly what I had in mind,only with the help of reprolabels,for my RID Prime!

 

Thank you.

I didn't even know that had stickers for this guy yet? I'll have to go see what they have.

 

Looks really good but, why all the gaps in his truck mode?

 

Thanks.

I don't want to force the tight joints. I'm easing them in, little by little.

 

Wow, bro! that's beautifully painted! Esp the detailing of Prime's eyes/ head.. are you thinking of selling that? If so I would like to buy it!   PM me, please?

 

Hey good work on the paint job   maby u sud cum paint min to for my mod haha ceep up the good work. Like what I'm seeng so far