These are a couple of Astrotrain customs I have done over the past year. Anime/Prototype Astrotrain is an advanced custom of the first ones I had done, see here Heavy/Scratch: - G1 Astrotrain part 2. I had always wanted to use an Ehobby Astrotrain for the base grey because it would reduce any paint rub but was reluctant to dismember the pricey figure until....High end KO ehobby Astrotrain came out! He was pretty much identical except the diecast parts wer matte pinky purple instead of glossy. So I was set to go. I also wanted to improve the head because I had been struggling with it my last two attempts to nail the anime face and helmet. Japanese White and Black Astrotrain is my favorite because I am a fan of realistic modes and pre-Transformers. I feel that it is closer to how I imagine the prototype should have been considering Blitzwing AKA Tank/Jet/Robo's Diaclone scheme. I used the Takara reissue as a base. My version although not having it long or exposed to light had yellowed stickers so I reproduced the yellowing on NASA stickers and garbaged the ASTR. I will post final pics first then delve into the modifications.
Okay so lets start with Anime Astrotrain or Prototype, really I wanted the best aspects of each combined into my ultimate Astrotrain. For his head I hollowed out a Classics Cosmos helmet and used the face from Robotmasters Skywarp (Thanks to Fortress Prime for the Skywarp head) I had to go old school with Testors model paint to get the right color of purple. I mixed Red, Blue, Flat Violet, and the key ingrediant Hot Pink. I used a srew in the bottom of the head to make a swivel post. Mohawk from a Gundum figure, and painted yellow. I have made extending arms before using swoop parts, but it was a bit precarious. I had tremendous luck with the White Astrotrains arms using styrene to make slide from scratch so I used the same technique. I didn't want paint rub so I had to use the same Grey plastic. Well it just so happened that I did not want a chest wing shield and had replaced it with a solid 1:250 scale shuttle tail fin. So I cut up the chest shield for parts. In the photos you can see the general technique applied to both figures. I had to paint the new tail fin and tops of the wings grey so I used Tremclad Gloss Grey. All other greys were too light. This one has a little green it so matched well. I took the boosters off my previous custom. They were originally Super Gobot Leader 1's. Chrome gives it a slick 80's vibe. On both I repositioned the front train wheels onto the inside to correct the wheel base, also in the cartoon the wheels are on the side of the shuttle. Stickers from Reprolabels. The Shuttle door is a slightly modified stcker that came with the Chigurh upgrade set. Stomach sticker from the WST set. The rifle he originally came with always annoyed me. I noticed the anime version is basically the toy version shrunk down and flipped over so I used the WST version and put a G1 handle on it.
The big difference for White Astotrain is a flight stand that I got from a model kit, a kitbashed pistol from misc. parts, extra slats in the feet like the curved wing version of Astrotrain had and looks more like a cow catcher, I also made some custom metallic stickers to give some sheen to the chest wing and headlight, and added stickers from the Evilastar Reprolabels set. He has the G1 tailfin sticker like a real shuttle. On Astrotrain lower legs I added two small white panels to cover the black ones that were an eyesore in shuttle mode.I gave him clear tinted windows in traimode and added piping to the side like a real JNR train and to make train mode less a black block. I replaced visible screws with black ones.
