I was absolutely thrilled to see the new Combiner Wars Megatron when images were first released, but was hesitant to purchase it because the early preview pictures were less than wonderful.

When the reviews and in-hand photos came out, the figure was much better than anticipated, so I went out and picked one up for myself.
Having had the figure for a while, though, it seemed a bit lackluster, having a lot of detail that a good paint job would bring out and a few odd areas, design-wise.
I sought out to rectify that.
Borrowing inspiration from another Megatron custom by Xueyue2, I mounted the cannon over Megatron's right shoulder in a similar fashion.
This wasn't quite enough, though, and I felt I had to do something about the very loud clicking of Megs' ratchet joints. In response, I filled all his easily accessible parts with aluminum foil.
Obviously, this doesn't come across in the pictures, but it lessens the hollow sound his joints made and makes him feel a bit heavier and more "premium."

Moving on, I cut two pieces of styrene to cover up Megatron's visible hand syndrome and cover the back of the tank turret a bit better. The panels are still able to fold up into robot mode without any partsforming, though the fusion-cannon arm takes a bit more force to move.


Toes were added onto Megatron's feet with two modified Lego slope pieces and Milliput modeling epoxy. These also have the effect of making the vehicle mode look a little more cohesive.




Probably the most time consuming aspect of customizing the figure was creating his "calf enhancers." Using two of the Combiner Wars missile launcher hand/foot pieces, I cut them up and used bits of Lego and pieces of the Combiner Wars finger bits to add more detail.


To polish things off, I filed down the minicon ports, added weathering with black acrylic paint to bring out the details, and added a few Reprolabels. (In reality, I bought the set just for the chest swirlies.)
A few fairly minor changes, but they add up to enhance what was already a figure I appreciated.

As a sidenote, though, I can't help but feel CW Megatron would have worked better as a Voyager-size toy, but I understand Hasbro wanted to save the Voyager slot for the actual combiner torso figures.

Additionally, I may be adding more, better photos in the future. A certain someone offered to take these photos for me and there are some more shots and I'd like to show.

 

An incredible piece of work. To date I haven't seen such a good paint job and such a fitting modification.

 

nice

 

looks nice.. thanks for not adding giant moon boots to his feet. i really don't understand why some people do that. i mean, people can do what they want, but giving this figure giant shoes just doesn't look all that great. what you've done on the other hand is nice and appropriate.

 

It looks amazing, love the level of detail. The calf fillers/ launchers rally add to both modes. Just something you would expect from a tyrannical leader like Megatron.

 

excellent

 

I'm curious about what you did with foil in his joints. Can you elaborate, did you just push some stuff in there? Does it affect movement?

And what is that cannon on his back? Is that his guns in some manner? How is it attached?

This thing is breathtaking. Thanks for sharing. More photos!

 

A couple helpful tips:
To get the forearm panels off, you will have to drill a hole on the outside of the panel so you can hammer the pin out. I used a hand drill so I wouldn't get carried away and hurt anything. The hole needs to be drilled slightly above and next to the ridges on the panel that look a bit like they're supposed to be spare treads for the tank.


Additionally, the right forearm piece specifically needed more attention because it has to fit around the hinge the fusion cannon is on. I used a Tamiya modeling file to file down both the hinge and the portion of the forearm that rubs against it.





The inside of the hand covers are also filed down to a rough 45 so they slide over the hands a bit easier.


By way of comparison here is a picture showing Megatron's inner forearms.


To attach the covers, all I did was put a few daubs of superglue around the edges of the styrene and wiggle the piece in. I filled any gaps or irregularities with Bondo glazing putty and sanded it down. The paint I used was Testors Aztek "Pearl". It was a pretty darn close match to the original paint on the toy. I sealed the entire thing with Krylon Satin Finish.
If you do this, make sure you take the rubber treads off first. The clear coat makes them a bit tacky. It goes away with time, but the tackiness is just sort of unpleasant.
I also filled in the inside of Megatron's crotch piece. It fills in the tank mode a bit better. Instead of being an obtrusive blank lump, now it's a silver that doesn't stand out too much.


What I did with the aluminum foil is just a bit of trickery. I didn't do anything with the joints. They're still ratchets. I just opened up and packed the forearms, upper arms, and chest full of crumpled aluminum foil so it dampens some of the loud, harsh, clicking noise. And also makes the toy feel a bit heavier.

Thanks to everyone for all the excellent feedback and positive comments. I appreciate it a lot. This isn't my first custom, but it is only the second one I've posted to the site. More to come soon, hopefully.