So, when I'm not designing stuff for Nonnef, I sometimes do customs for myself still.   I was digging through my CHUGthulhu toys to find some stuff I was selling yesterday, and found an Ironhide a friend had tried to customise for better posture, and given to me after being dissatisfied with how floppy he was.

I'd been chatting about how he'd suck a lot less with a better head and hands, realised that the new CW Ironhide head would be an easy job to stick onto the old neck, with a bit of cutting and a new ball joint. I dug up some Alternator hands, cut him a new crotch plate from plasticard, and he's looking a lot better already!




Just the one teaser pic for now, alas.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaand count me in for one, price allowing  

 

those are some big hands   I like him already 

 

That looks a lot better. Too bad you can't preserve the plate behind the glass on his chest with that configuration.

The hands are great. It always felt wrong to me that Ironhide didn't have fists.  

zmog

 

Those look like big, good, strong hands.

This looks great! Man, just getting rid of that giant codpiece does wonders for him. Really nice mods. If only the original had been more like this.

 

The hands do fit in alt-mode, right?

zmog

 

Awesomeness

 

Much better than the base figure, but honestly I don't think anything can make me like that figure. Probably my number 1 least favorite in my collection. So, considering you got it to a point where I didn't cringe just looking at it is commendable.

 

Was the hand replacement easy or did you have to do any mods to the inner arms? All these make him look 1000 times better!

 

Can we get a better look at the crotch plate? Tough to tell what all was done.

 

Thanks for the compliments and/or grudging praise.  

The hands do fit in alt mode, they have to be posed slightly oddly and it's tight, but they do fit. Smaller (normal CHUG 5mm) hands would fit easily, open-hand types more easily than fists.

No mods needed to make the hands fit... I was looking in my big bag of spare hands to see if RTS Jazz's hands or similar would fit, and then found that these Alternator hands are a perfect fit with no mods! Unfortunately I'm not 100% sure who they are from, but the Sideswipe mould is a good bet.

In fairness, I only modded the crotchpiece because he's now mistransformed for the extra height.   It hung like... 1cm lower than seemed optimal.

I'll take better pics tonight/ over the weekend, but basically I unscrewed the crotch plate and replaced one half of it with a flat piece of plasticard I cut and sanded to shape, and glued a pair of tabs on as spacers. It's so that the part that was originally the front of his crotch works as the bottom instead.

 

This looks great! Much improved over the original. Great job!

 

Hmmm...I have a love/hate relationship with this mold and these mods definitely bring out the love.

I especially dig the Combiner Wars head, it works extremely well. I may consider doing the same as my CW Ironhide will remain in arm mode for the rest of his life.

 

I can confirm that those are the Alternators Sideswipe fists, and that they do indeed fit into the sockets on Ironhide's wrists, no problem.  

zmog

 

I've got a thing about not customising any toy I don't have two of, and in this instance I'm especially glad. In the process of trying to work out a better transformation scheme for the customised Ironhide, I basically realised that with the right mistransformation, you can get a better-proportioned Ironhide without any mods needed! Although, given that this toy is what, 7 years old, I am sure this has been done before...



Unmodified Ironhide transformed normally, unmodified Ratchet mistransformed, modified Ironhide mistransformed.




Hopefully this makes it clear how they're being transformed for this increase in height/change in posture. What's worth noting is that the original Ironhide/Ratchet heads now look almost straight forward, even WITHOUT mods! Not folding the wheels back allows the roof and neck assembly to come all the way up as they were probably intended.

For what it's worth, if you aren't afraid to modify you Ironhide, you can get a slightly more trim-looking Ironhide by cutting off this tab on both sides, which allows you to rotate the wheels inward, filling in the lower torso around the "spine", as you can see in the very top picture.


Just a bonus shot of medics and grumpy old 'bots.

 

Yeah, I've done this pretty much that same alternate transformation on my Ironhide/Ratchet too... with a few nips and tucks here and there to improve the silhouette and articulation. It's a shame that it means losing the cool sliding chest gimmick though... that's my only real regret.

zmog