After beginning work on my Arcee scratchbuild, I decided to make a Decepticon counterpart as well. I wanted a female, but since no canocal 'Con females exist, I designed my own. My 1/144 scale Mylene Valkyrie from the Macross 7 line was a perfect place to start, being female in design already, and a jet(the Mylene kit came with two models, one in Battroid mode, one in jet mode). I used some parts from a 1/144 Gundam Airmaster as well(from the Gundam X series).
Legs:
I began with the legs, since I was just going to repaint and reuse them. I ended up making the feet foldable, like the original Valkyrie should. That was it.
Head:
First I reshaped the outer helmet of the Airmaster, thining in down some, and removing the large crest on the head. I then cut the face part of the Mylene in order to fit inside the helmet, why sounds MUCH easier than it really was. The final result, IMO, is very Transformer like in appearence.
Body:
This is where the greatest amount of work went into. I started with the inside section of Airmaster body, cutting it down to the size needed for Raven. Next came the chest/jet nose section. I used the upper part of the battroid mode chest/nose(minus the large canards), and the lower part(from the canopy down) of the jet mode nose. This provided the best look in both modes as the battroid mode nose was too stubby, and the jet mode chest was too jet shaped. I then made two attachments for the chest peice so that, using the arm posts, the chest could rotate from robot mode position to jet mode. Next came the large rear wing section. I began with the the wing and back section of the Valkyrie jet, and cut out the appropriate area so that the legs could fold up there during transformation. Using epoxy putty, built onto the upper/front part of the wings so they would match up to the nose section. I then added a rotating(up and down) polycap to the back of the body, and added a peg to the wing section in the right place and attached it to the body. This allows the entire wing section to rotate away from the body about 45 degrees for better posability and to move out of the way for transformation. The pelvis, not visible in any view, was made from the pelvic part of the Valkyrie.
Arms:
Well, I took Airmaster's arms, made the intakes form sheet styrene, and added a bit of putty to shape them, that's about it. I also cut some parts off Airmaster rifles to look more like built-in blasters than hand-held rifles. They attach in the same place and same way as Airmaster's when in fighter mode.
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