I do a lot of lurking, but I thought I would post a few of my recent customs here. I finally got a hold of Samurai Prowl, I like how they remolded almost every part, it really shows a lot of thought went into the figure. Just from looking at the pictures I knew there were a few things that I knew I would have to do once I got him. Painting the hands, thigh pads and "ninja stars" were a given, as well as adding the grey accents, and toughing up all of the gold. Once I had it in my hands, I found there were a few things that bugged me enough that I had to do something about them. I did not like how much they had to scale down his head to make the helmet fit, On the back of his left knee there was a small tab of plastic that was keeping his knee from bending all the way that I had to trim off, and I thought the top edge of the windscreen stuck up to far in robot mode. After looking as some screen caps, realized that it is too big in motorcycle mode as well. So I decided to trim it down a bit. I think it looks much better now, and interestingly it is still too big in motorcycle mode. In the cartoon it is cut in a low curving line just like the window on the sidecar, but that would look wrong in robot mode. When I saw 5 servos of Doom I really liked the look of Yokitron's helmet, and decided to see if I could modify the toy to look more like the cartoon. With some careful planning I realized that it would be possible to make a fair representation of the new helmet with some careful trimming and a few scraps of plastic. While I was at it I thought I would try and see it it would be possible to make the helmet fit the older bigger head. Thankfully there IS enough room, and by widening the inside of the helmet, and the opening for his chin, I was able to get it to work! I then swapped the non opening Ninja stars with the working ones from the old one. Now I have one excellent prowl, and one with a gimpy head and cheap ninja stars I can give to my kids.
First of all, welcome to Radicons. Second, nicely done. I think my biggest issue with the Samurai Prowl toy from day one has been how oddly disproportionate his face looks in relation to the helmet- It kinda disappears behind it. What you've done looks great and it's good to know that the original mold's entire head still manages to fit. I don't own Samurai Prowl (mainly for the reason stated above) so I don't know the ins-and-outs of the figure, but is it safe to assume you had to dremel or carve away the inside of the helmet to fit his old/original head? In any case, this looks cool and I look forward to seeing more from you.
Yeah, my question as well. I've tried cleaning out the helmet to accomodate the original head, but no luck. Could we get a shot of the inside of the helmet and a description of what exactly you cut away?
Thanks for the welcome, I used to post some of my stuff on Transtopia, but it just isn't the same any more, so my brother suggested I try over here. Yes I used a round rotary burr in my dremmel, it made it pretty easy to be really careful as I was cutting. I am glad I did not have to do anything to the original head, just trimming the helmet.
That looks great. I was dissappointed by the head too. He has a great look to him now, and nice paint upgrade that's true to the paint scheme. Nice.
Peaugh, I just saw your post, and I saw your custom Prowl as well. When I was planning things I tried to take the hat apart, and when I took out the screw everything was solidly glued together, so I put the screw back in and used it as a guide for the depth I could go. I carved out the flat top of the inside of the helmet until I could see the threads of the screw. then I worked my way out to the sides. I also cut toward the left and right edges of the "Glasses" to make room for his horns. Really I just tried to thin all of the top evenly, and did a lot of test fitting as I went. Here are some pictures of the inside of the hat.
This looks great! I love the small details and the research. Too bad there is no comparison shot though. iDD
just an idea but you could of swapped hs arms and legs from the original prowl (instead of having to paint his hands and leg pads) also you can get the gold trim from reprolables and his battle mask. I have sam prowl with original head in battle mask mode it looks ok, might try the helmet mod but what simple tools could i use (for animated grimlocks arms i just used a small flathead screwdriver to shave the excess plastic away
Loving it. Mind if yoink some ideas? The thing that probably bothers me most about Samurai Prowl is the blue windshield, they're black in the show, which makes them look more like they're actually part of his body, and not like they're tacked-on sidecar pieces.
Rhinox555 yoink away, that's one of the reasons I posted this. I have thought about tinting the windows black, that is more accurate, but then I would have to paint the headlights as well, and I can't decide what color to paint them. Both the headlights on the bike and the sidecar are black in robot mode, like the windshields, but in motorcycle mode the headlights are red. There is a similar problem with the tail lights, in bike mode they are red, but are blue in armor mode. You can only go for 'toon accurate in one mode or the other, it can't be both. The other problem is I do like the look of all of the clear parts blue, it ties in with his eyes and sword, and helps unify the color scheme, so I haven't decided what I want to do yet.
Well, the headlights would only be red when turned on, so they could be either black or red in vehicle mode. The tail lights would be a matter of personal choice.
