A project of this scope I'd normally hold off until it's finished to post it (especially seeing as how close to finished it is!), but I've been stuck in limbo for so darned long I just couldn't wait any longer. The only thing left to finish this sucker is I'm waiting on my Sculptbot head for Blaster. The project was to paint him to match his box art (the chest deco looks SO much more like Blaster, and helps differentiate him from both Soundwave and Soundblaster), get him a proper Blaster head, paint that up too, and then give him a proper Autobot minion. I disliked him simply having a repainted Buzzsaw/Laserbeak for a minion, and I was determined to do something about it. Eureka! And how easy it'll be! Even better that his new minion will be an updated form of such a rare original toy, a dinocassette! Gurafi was such a simple custom to make that I've gone through the trouble of making a handy how-to guide so anyone else can make one for themselves. After looking at these pictures, you'll understand why I couldn't stand to wait any longer for his precious head. For those unfamiliar, I made a Legends Cybertron Blaster years ago, when that toyline was still in stores, after seeing a sweet custom on Livedoor of the full-size toy. I knew I wasn't going to pull off a Steeljaw, but I'm pretty happy with the lil guy I DID make! Every since I made that custom, I've been pining for a full-size version to go with it. I nearly do, sans head! Pictures of original G1 Gurafi: UPDATED 4-21-09: Fine'! So while this was not a big project, it still feels pretty darned good to be able to submit a finished custom for the first time in ages! I do have 3 WIPs that are all nearly finished as well, though, so trust me the wait won't be nearly so long for the next one I've actually submitted my How-to guide to the tutorials section of the site, but for you guy's convenience, I've copy/pasted the info in here as well. http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/tutor...zsaw-blockrock-into-gurafi-how-tutorial.html# Classics/Universe Cybertron Gurafi, a how-to tutorial I've wanted a Cybertron Blaster every since we got Soundwave, and saw a wonderful custom one from Livedoor (a japanese customs website). I did make a little Legends one myself, but never got around to making a voyager one until Hasbro was kind enough to issue their repaint in the Universe/Classics 2.0 line. I gave him a new head, tweaked his paint job, and was satisfied with him, except for his repainted Laserbeak. I wanted him to have a proper Autobot minion, so after some brainstorming, realized just how easy it would be to modify him into a Gurafi(a dinocassette from G1 that never got released in the United States). It was so easy, I figured others would want to emulate this, so I've compiled this handy guide for you. I hope you enjoy it! First, here's a picture of the toy completely unmodified: First thing, look at the bird's tail. See how it is simply mounted on by a pin that goes through 2 holes in the tail itself, and one hole on the foldable back piece? cut this part off by simply cutting the one hole on the underside of the back piece, right where the red line is in the following image: If you cut it correctly, you'll have this piece to put away: The second step is to cut off the 4 foldable little wing tip pieces, right where the 4 red lines (I didn't use red lines on purpose ) are in this next picture: What you're doing here is cutting those parts off right flush with the edges of the wings. Best way to do this is to have them sticking straight out parallel to the wing parts. We're cutting these this way because if you simply removed the whole tip, you'd have all these cut-outs in the main wings (you can see how if you look at the painted engine nocels in the middle). Doing this properly nets you these four pieces (DO NOT THROW THESE AWAY!!!!!!!): We're almost there! You now have a torso and wings that look much more like those of a dinosaur. All we need to do now is modify the head. The third step is to start making cuts on the head. There are 3 cuts to make. The first cut is to cut along the bottom of the head so that you're removing the down-angled beak tip, and also tapering the head vertically. Simply follow the red line as illustrated below: The next two cuts are on the sides of the head. Following the red lines in the next photograph, you'll cut from the front of the head starting where the beak tip used to be, and angling outward ever so slightly to a point just a little ways outside of the neck, and doing this on both sides, one mirroring the other. Like so: If you make these cuts properly, you'll end up with two pieces that look like this: The head should now look like this from below: Ok, remember those 4 little wing tip pieces that I told you not to throw away during step 2? You need to grab one of those now. Take it and match it up against the back of the head (technically it's the neck piece) and you'll notice how it will make the head look like a dinosaur's head fin, but as it is, the angle will be off and it will stick WAY up. Simply hold it slightly off to the side so you can over-lap the two parts so you can see what the new angle of the piece needs to be, and draw yourself a line with pen or pencil, and shave off the end of the wingtip along your line. Here's a picture of the wingtip and also the tiny piece I shaved off to fix the angle so it'll sit on the head better: Now dab some epoxy/glue/plastic cement on the side of the wingtip that you're attaching to the head and glue it on. Make sure while it is setting that you're holding it so that it is squared away with the head, and not angling off to either side, and that it is properly flush with the surface. A nice bonus is the molding of the wingtip adds some nice detailing to your new head! Last step, it's actually optional, but if you're going to go, go all-out, I say! Take a blade or a scratch-awl, or a panel scribe and draw yourself a mouth down the sides of the front of the newly shaped head, including from the front if you wish, and you can even scratch in some eyes. I did this, as I think the 3D-ness of doing so GREATLY enhances your simply paint aps (just the eyes) so that this will look more like a "real" toy instead of a custom piece. You can see here that these modifications will not hurt the toy's transformation at all, and if you set it inside the chest door of Blaster so that the head fin is on the back side/bottom, it will still close all the way without any trouble. This next image shows you how the new wings, head, and tail areas look: At this point, you are completely finished modifying this toy, so congratulations! To finalize the piece, take a good really high-grit sandpaper and smooth off the areas you had to cut. This means the four spots on the wings, where the tail used to be, and the sides and bottom of the head. After you get these areas good and smooth, you might need to revisit your detailing you added to the head, but if so, that's a quick and easy touch-up. Now all you need to do is paint! And THAT is easy, as the red is the proper color for Gurafi, so you merely need to add a few details. I painted the backs of the outer wingtips silver to homage the original's add-on weapons that went there and were chromed. I also painted the eyes gold as an homage, and lastly, I went ahead and painted the gun tips on the chest silver to make them more visible and finished it all off by painting the "engines" in the wings a flat black on the bottom/front of the wings just like they're factory painted on the back/top of the wings, simply to make him look more polished. Here's some final images of the completed project:
Nice to see you having a WIP thread Redline i like your idea for Gurafi! i think ill have to do that 2 my Blaster as well
Thanks. 2008 wasn't the kindest year to me life kept getting in the way of my customs work! Hopefully I can post more stuff. I do have several other projects in-progress besides this one, none this simple though
I didn't like this mold for the reason that it looked like a red soundwave with a red lazerbeak but when this is done it'll look great. hope you don't mind if aI try this myself
cool idea, realy like the detail you gave the little head, this must be the first time in about 3 years I have seen a g1 character i never heard of, are there more unreleased (uk/us) cassettes? since you have been working on the mould, how easy do you think it would be to change it to a cassette rather than a box, I'm struggling for a lazerbeak to go with my rumble
Thanks man. there were four of these Dinocassettes. all Autobots. two pairs, each pair could combine into a robot form. Noizu and Gurafi (Noizu and gurafi are in a gallery together in our toy gallery) combine, and Decibel and err whats-his-name combine together. Raptor, Godzilla, Apatasaur, and Pterodactyl. If you don't fold the wings up, he can be fairly flat, especially if you remove the peg off his chest, but He'd be too wide for a cassette bot to fit in SW's chest. I think your best bet is to do like Big Hank and use Universe Ravage for your laserbeak and buzzsaw. I really thought this would be a more popular mod (it's so easy and really does work so well)... but I guess I was mistaken. *shrugs*
I like the work. If I might make a suggestion. There is a recent minicon red pterodactyl of which might work well for the head. Not that I don't like the one you have made.
How does Gurafi look in alt-mode? I imagine the fin on the back of the head would stick out and not be able to fit in Blaster's chest. I'm tempted to do this mod but only if Gurafi can fit in Blaster's chest. Also, the other pair was Dial and Zaur. Noizu and Gurafi combine to form Decibel and Dial and Zaur form Legout.
I think his head would be way too big, unfortunately, in that it'd not still fit inside of Blaster's chest. Thanks for correcting me on the names. As for your question, I'll quote myself from the thread's first post: I'll have a lot more pictures whenever I finally get my Sculptbot head in, including pictures of Gurafi in Blaster's chest, both open and closed Thanks for the comments guys
Wow I must have read your mind or something dude cause I painted the chest the same way and Im getting a Head from ole sculpty too... But the Gurafi/Blockrock mods have blown me away, their simple but effective and really take a boring repainted bird and make it awesome!
Amazing REdline.. I love it! If I can find an extra blockrock, I'm definitely going to do this! Now to figure out how to make more little cassettes for this guy...
I know when C. Soundwave first came out I think someone (Freestyle?) made addition partners for both Soundwave and a repaint Blaster I think one of the ones for Blaster was Steeljaw and the other was one of the Bot form tapes (Ether Rewind or Eject I don't exactly remember) but both were able to be stored in the chest or the wing tabs.
