5 and a half years ago I posted this: Heavy/Scratch: - Masterpiece Energy Conductors maybe about time to make someone who can hold 'em, right? Can't tell you how excited I was at the announcement of MP-45 and that fake chest. Finally, the possibility that I could carry out this custom! As more was revealed it became even better. Heels, a big backpack - amazing! My custom probably won't look out of place next to an original MP-45 It's a lot of alt-mode to fold up after all, right? I got some advice from @OptimusTimelord, who suggested curves were too hard to make with something like styrene, and the best thing would be to find something made of plastic which already has the right shape. Cue @chchchch, who suggested some flying saucer model kits. Well it just so happened that when I was googling 'flying saucer model kit' I came across this: That's right, it seems whoever designed Bumblebee's Cybertron vehicle mode was a fan of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea! So, first steps, hack off MP-45's backpack and heels (yes, this copy of MP-45 is worn to shit. It will all be repainted, don't worry): Alt mode done, right? So I ordered two model kits, to carve up and figure out how to fit inside little Bumblebee's body. Also need to decide which way up he'll go: Anyway that's where I'm at so far
As you already know I couldn't be more excited for this! I've dreamt about what a screen accurate Cybertronian Bumblebee would be like for so many years!!! Now I just gotta get you to do a tetrajet
Wow Bee looks so much better with his back and ankle kibble chopped off! Nice to see you getting stuck into this, should be a fun project You've probably already thought it through, but I have to say, my gut instinct would be to try and use his faux-roof robot chest as the actual roof of his new alt mode. Particularly the front windscreen part. You couldn't have picked a better kit for the job, by the looks of it, as sizewise it appears you could almost cut a square hole between those raised fin lines on the kit, which BB's chest/roof would set into, so the front windscreen would follow the curved angle of the bodywork and his side windows would be covered by the sloped sides. (your very last photo shows the kit in the orientation I'm describing, with the squared-off front and slope where the windscreen would be).
It's not an easy recipe, but hopefully my guide can be useful for others (as long as I don't fuck it up!) Let's wait for v3 Starscream for that Shh you He does look perfect but he needs some kind of backpack, a little empty in the body right now! Can't promise I won't be giving this custom heels again. Yup that's exactly the plan re. the chest (I lied in the first post, I'd gone a little further already ) The edges of the bottom of the chest match pretty perfectly the jutting out 'prongs' at the front of the Cybertron mode: (ignore the rear wheels there, they'll be removed, but I'll probably shave the structure down so I can maintain a way to fold parts into the chest). Folded up something like this for alt-mode: For that purpose, I already swapped over the arms, so that they can still peg together (since they're pegging the opposite way from MP-45). Fortunately, unlike with my attempts with MP-17/18, this was an easy swap: Very subtle difference of the hands not being aligned dead centre in the forearms anymore, but barely noticeable. I agree with everything you've said about how it should be able to fit into the slope of the roof. My only predicament is which way up to have the alt-mode. Option 1: The concave top looks good. Or Option 2: The pointing down angle of the wings better matches the cartoon. I'm still undecided! It's entirely possible I can crop off the wings and reattach them to the centre part, so it's not about the roof shape here, just about the wings.
Thanks, I hope I don't disappoint! Would've been cool if the Fall of Cybertron design had been even closer to this though. I'm still really surprised that there wasn't a Bumblebee (or Wheeljack) in the latest Siege line. Well to be fair MAS Skiff isn't all that accurate in vehicle mode to the actual shape of Bumblebee's Cybertron mode, while this model kit's wings are a dead ringer in terms of contours. Would probably be more expensive for me to get two copies of Skiff to carve up as well.
There would have been a Wheeljack if he had won the fan vote together with Spinister. They made Spinister none the less but somehow not Wheelsjack. But I could see Spinister being a cross line figure as Astrotrain is. Spinister's alt mode doesn't look that Cybertronian to me and I think it could be an Earth based combat helicopter from the 80s I think.
I guess, but I still would've loved a little Bumblebee that turned into an alt-mode like in the first episode of the cartoon. Anyone, we didn't get one, so even more motivation for me to do this custom! Speaking of Wheeljack, am I then gonna have to make a Cybertron Wheeljack for Bumblebee to ride inside? Maybe I'll leave that to someone else
Very cool & ambitious project man, looking forward to the progress on this one!! As far as the tough-contours for the outer-shell, I felt the same pain & struggle with styrene's-limitation as well......But my friend, there's this miraculously-fantastic thermoplastic-stuff out there now called "Worbla", and it's a helluva game-changer, I promise ya. You can heat, mold, bend & sculpt that stuff as many times as you want without it fatiguing, stuff is absolutely-amazing and a life-saver for a project just like this with tough & challenging-curves & contours.....I couldn't have pulled-off that transforming Fish-Bus project without it, almost made the entire-body out of Worbla. LOTS of people using it in the cosplay-world now. Not cheap, but worth every penny I promise ya! If you wanna see what's possible with Worbla & what it's capable of, just Google it or check out my Fish-Bus piece here on the boards: Non-TF: - Transforming Fish-Bus "Mom" for FishCenter: Live (Adult Swim)
Wow, that material looks very interesting! I'm not an experienced customiser so I'm not sure how well I'd be able to work with something like Worbla anyway, definitely happy that I found this model kit. I guess if I need it for certain parts I know that it's there as an option though, thanks Damn the term kitbashing really brings me back to when I first started googling Transformers. I remember a kitbash of an Alternators Bumblebee using a new Beetle. And of course one of the first things I googled was Bumblebee's Cybertron mode to see if a toy existed yet! Ah the early days of the Internet. Without this kit I'd be lost! It actually comes in a few different scales, and originally I was worried this one was going to be too small, but actually it seems just perfect.
