Goal here was to turn Transmetal Primal, which has always been a really great figure, into more of a Masterpiece version. That meant making him much bigger and giving him some of the most important articulation he was missing to modernize the figure to today's standards.

I cut his thighs in half and rebuilt/resculpted them to be over a half inch longer, built onto the bottoms of his feet to make them thicker, added ankle tilts, and gave the ape head ball joint articulation.

I knew from the start I would be limited by how much I could extend things without making him too noticeably inaccurate, considering the figure was already pretty near perfectly screen accurate.
Sadly, in the end, I wasn't able to make him as tall as he should be. He stands just a hair taller than MP Primal now but should technically be probably at least an inch taller...
Regardless of that, hope you guys enjoy checkin it out.

 

Wow nice improvements all over. Looks really good  

Here’s a pic of the two side by side

 

He looks goddamn awesome! One of my favourite versions of Big Bot made even better. Honestly makes me wish some third party would tackle the season 2 Transmetals. Right now we got people like Perfect Effect, Jiang Xing, and Iron Factory doing their versons of Optimal Optimus, TM 2 Megatron, and Tigerhawk. You know, season 3 stuff. Even talks of some of them doing Rampage and Depth Charge. But we also need someone to do TM1 Primal, Megs, Cheetor, Rattrap, etc. Which are all pretty close to perfect already. Just need that Masterpiece polish to make them actually perfect.

 

Thanks!

Yep, but it'd almost be a shame to have to pay the crazy high prices Takara asks for MP figures these days just to get bigger versions with ankle articulation and better hands when the figures are already near perfect.
We do really need a transmetal Rattrap with a backpack that can turn like in the show so his wheels end up behind his shoulders instead of behind his butt though.

 

Nice!

 

Technically Transmetal Primal is bigger than Original Primal. Transmetal is closer to Dinobot/Megatron size. His new body is bigger.



Very nice job though, just being nitpicky

 

I guess you didn't read the description, but thanks.

 

I think you managed the height pretty well.
Primal only grew about half a head in height between forms, so while it's not perfect, I think it's the best you could do without making it from scratch. Adding height anywhere else would look too strange.

 

While I definitely like hearing that, I watched scenes from the show and looked at the size chart posted below while doing this, and I came to the conclusion that Transmetal Primal came up to about Dinobot's eyes (though in one scene he stood almost eye to eye with Cheetor and in another scene he was eye to eye with Dinobot...).
Either way, I think he needed to be about an inch taller than this to be passable enough as good scale for MP unfortunately. Like you said, I just couldn't add height anywhere else without it getting weird.
But at least now he doesn't look just stupidly out of place with MP Beast Wars figures I suppose.

 

I don’t see the differences, besides everyone knows that figure was already a masterpiece to begin with

 

Well if you can't see the differences after having them plainly explained in the description, here's a picture to compare.
I wasn't trying to change the look of the figure or turn Primal into Skywarp. I gave him ankle articulation, ape head articulation, and this much more height-



We all learned in kindergarten how to spot differences in pictures side by side so hopefully that helps. Either way though, I suppose considering what my goal was it's a good thing if some folks can't tell what's different.  

 

You're being awfully defensive and condescending to innocent observations and feedback.

 

You greatly misread my intentions then. I pointed out that the changes are listed in the description and made a picture to make it much more clear what was changed. Some people don't care to read things but just about anyone can clearly see differences in picture comparisons. I meant the kindergarten remark playfully (as indicated by the smiley at the end of that part) and I also said it's good if some can't easily tell what I did to this.

I will say though, I've seen you trying to stir up arguments with people for years so no surprise to see you hop in and try it here mere seconds after I added that reply.
Ironic for a guy who speaks his mind so plainly to call someone out on speaking their mind too plainly.

And here is a WIP pic that should also help show what I did- also not meant as a personal attack on anyone...

 

I don’t care if you’re speaking your mind, you should be allowed to respond to criticism, but you can’t honestly say that “kindergarten” comment wasn’t passive aggressive and you didn’t immediately reply defensively to a simple observation. “I guess you didn’t read the description.” Okay...?

And FWIW I think you did a great job. There’s not much to improve on this guy beyond what you did unless you managed to print all new heads from the CG models, but people are gonna see what they’re gonna see. It doesn’t help that you put “Masterpiece” in the title which probably gave off a different expectation than “just the original toy but better.”

 

Actually I put "Masterpiece (Kind of)" in the title, which I'm pretty sure most people can recognize as meaning I was going for MP scale and added features, but didn't quite hit that mark.

I had no intention of offending anyone but I'm not trying to sell this to anyone and have no reason to tip-toe around potentially fragile feelings when someone says "I don’t see the differences, besides everyone knows that figure was already a masterpiece to begin with"... Funny how you don't see any reason to white knight all over that "innocent" comment. I think mild sarcasm and a picture to better show what I did was a pretty reasonable reply to that.

If you thought I was being defensive to say "I guess you didn’t read the description", then we are done here. I have better things to do than troll feeding. You have every right to think whatever you want. I just think what you are accusing me of is really ironic, coming from you of all people.

 

The extra height and articulation really make big difference! And the end results realy nice

Looking at the shows 3D model you might be able to get away with adding a little bit of height, by slightly extending the top of the torso or some other sections. Or perhaps raising the robot modes head by given it a ball jointed neck. A very very rough example.

Though the difference in height might well not be worth the effort of re-sculpting the sections which would need to be extended

 

Out of interest what did you use, and how did you go about adding the ankle tilts and gorilla head articulation. Was it just scrap parts?.

 

Well after what I already did, if he were to get any taller he would need to get wider too in order to look right, but the main reason I can't really do the cuts you brought up to make him bigger is that I'd have to do that all the way around his body, including cutting/extending the ape torso front. I'd kill the vacuum chrome (whatever it's called) blue metallic transmetal color, and I can't replicate that. I appreciate the suggestions though.

I used some old joints I have had in one of my parts boxes for years for the ankles. I sure don't have a clue what they were from but they look and work real similar to larger versions of Revoltech joints.

 

Damn, another great custom! Even if it isn’t “Masterpiece” scale, the added height in the legs really make the figure look better proportioned. Honestly, I’d still display this with my Masterpiece BW’s even if it isn’t technically the correct size. At least it’s taller than the OG MP Primal. The only thing I could think to add to make this more “Masterpiece-y” is articulated hands, but considering how the transformation works and that it has 2 pairs of hands, I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to go that far.