Hello. I'm back with my most current project. And one that I just couldn't wait to share anylonger! My attempt to make a G1 accurate modernday deluxe rendition of the Turbomaster Scorch(now finished at page 3!) Part 2: Boss Part 3: Rotorstorm Part 4: Hurricane Part 5: Flash One of the running motifs, if you will, of many of my customs as you will see with my upcoming posts is an attempt to take older characters, teams, etc, that don't get much recognition or love in toy form and try to make them with modernday figures and either recreate them faithfully, with modern vehicule modes or upgraded versions of their original gimmicks OR all 3. The Turbomasters are one such team amongst many others I want to recreate with a mix of these elements depending on the character. I truly love the uniqueness of the G1 toys' robot modes. And next to Thunderclash, Scorch is my favorite. Can't wait to get my hands on Fans Hobby's take on Thunderclash! So I will not be recreating him. While I slowly figured out ideas for what I could do for the other Turbomasters thanks to looking up customs online, Scorch was the one that I couldn't figure out easily. Many people had done BEAUTIFULL renditions using CW figures,1 that pops to mind immediatly is TFW2005's own TheClutteredDesk's take using CW First Aid. Spectacullar! But this one I REALLY wanted to make my own with a mold no one had used yet. My own take if you will. But which mold to use? There where no Trailbreaker/Hoist bobytype molds that fited the window chest and hood ads that I love so much and gives Scorch his unique look!!!! Siege heard my lament and anwsered the call! When they announced Siege Hoist, I knew immedeatly what to do. I picked one up in Mid March at my local store(days before the current global situation) and got to work! Let me share it with you from the begining what I have so far: Firstly, I REALLY wanted to recreate Scorch's most ICONIC transformation feature: his arms hang off of his front wheels. Parts used for this: Prime PR Knockout's shoulder assembly Armada Smokescreen's arm slider joints and the long plastic pieces that they where attached to in the shoulders. I removed and took apart the arms first then found out the Knockout and Smokecreen parts fit NEARLY perfectly already. Then I hollowed out the cavity and adjusted the long tabs, glued them and made certain still fit: Next up I went by trial and error. I took apart Knockout's shoulder assembly, sanded A.S' sliders to size and used styrene and Gorilla putty to achive this: I had also removed the plastic nubs that served no prupose on the waist to make extra space for the arms as you might see in the pictures. After that, I checked how to fit in the arms with Hoist's and Knockout's modded shoulders and balljoints and worked on how to attatch them using scratch built hinges and pins wheir KO'S wheels where: Next: I cut both of Hoist's wheels from under the wheelwell and some of the wheelwell itself and CAREFULLY glued and puttied them to the arm assembly and they still spin: Afterwards I needed to hollow out the inside of the cab to make the fists and head fit together and made the hinged windows fold inwards to bring the wheels in closer to the main body: Now for the backpanels and backpack. In retrospect, I could have used Hoist's backpack but I want it for another custom. So here we go: I took the sidepanels and cut off some plastic so it would still fit in vehicule mode and took styrene and a spare Caliburst PCC minicon for the arms and hinges. I pined(with flatheaded pins in the end) the styrene pieces to the panels where the origional shoulders connected, then glued the arms to them to make effectively a double hinged "wing" Then I made a bed out of styrene and puttied the other minicon hinges to it. Then I tested it all: So that worked out nicely. More adjustments later I discovered how to attach it all by making an adjustible slider and pined it to the origional backpack mount using pieces for a junker HFTD Ransack that was given to me with no arms: After that I found that the bottom piece hung too low in robot mode, so I decided to shorten it and make it a collapsable sliding piece, adjusted the mounting bracket alot more and added some scratch built tabs so that the backpack would all lock into place in both robot and vehicule mode: And that is where I am at this point: There is still a good amount of work to do on him. I still need to: 1.Moddify Classics Sunstreaker's head and fit it on, 2. Take the side/back pannels, cut them in half and attach the bottom halfs(the parts that stick out above the shoulderline) to the legs, 3. Build him his signature jet engine gun and 4. Finalize the pins that attach his backpack and the pins that hold the slider parts of his arms in place as the are not glued in yet, 5. And finally spraypaint him and get the Reprolables in want for him. All in all minor stuff. The problem is I do not have yellow spraypaint, let alone the specific yellow I want, and due to you-all-know-what, I don't want to risk going out to get it. And I want to paint him BEFORE I finalize the pins so I won't need to take him appart multiple times afterwards. So until the time where it is safe to get what I need, he is on hiatus. But considering that I got all this done in and around 3 weeks(for me, this amount if work in that short amount of time is genuinly unheard of) from Mid March to a few days ago, and that this is only my SECOND time reworking a figure's transformation(this one being more extensive then the first!) AND that all the heavylifting is done, the rest will be very easy(I hope). So when I pick him back up, I will update this thread with the progress. Until then, hope you enjoy this! See you next time and or thread!
i was thinking about doing scorch but held off on buying hoist in hopes of selects doing an official one!
Thank you very much! This much scratchbuilding was nice learning experience for me and was fun. I really can't wait to continue with him!
I don't blame you. The moment he was announced I thought that he would make an excellent Selects repaint as Scorch as well. The mold itself is also just fantastic.
Hello. I'm back with a quick update! I've figured out how to make the head work Firstly, I had to cut off a small piece from the back of Hoist's head as to not break the balljoint: Then I dismantled Classics Suntreaker's head, hollowed it out a bit and then used Gorrila Putty to make an impression so it would fit snugly on the balljoint, chopped off the extra bits on the fins and made sure everything fit nicely. And it does with no interference with the transformation. The fins still tuck in the head. The only problem is some of the sharper details might not show up as nicely as I would like them too, but I feel that if I try to hard, I'll ruin it beyond repair. I'll have to wait and see when it is painted. And that is all for now. Hope you enjoy and see you next update!
Im impressed! It looks so much better now. This is a figure that Hasbro really should have spent more time on.
Stunning work, I’m planning a Scorch from Hoist myself but think I’ll be going for a straightforward repaint. Can’t wait to see how your alternations look once he’s all painted up
Hello. I'm back with what I feel is a pretty neet update! Firstly, I've adjusted his vehicule mode's backpanel. As a refresher: Very gappy, but no more! Secondly, I more or less built and finalized a crushial part of Scorch that I'd somehow forgotten about, his front bumper, though I can't finalized it's installation until he is fully painted: It's double hinged so it can kind of fold over the hood in robot mode and is collapsable: It has to be done this way to not interfere with the waist. And thirdly: I painted all the blue onto him and took out the pins that hold his lower legs in. It was physically painfull! No really. Here are a few more pictures. He has the blue under his visor. As you can guess, I will be painting the yellow on him soon. Or at least that's what I want. After that, I'll be able to finalize his legs, attach the bumper, which is also painted, paint the backpack and finalize the pins and somehow build his signature turboengine. Hope you enjoy and see you next time!
This is very cool. I love Turbomasters (and Predators!). For your next one, I suggest Boss from Generations Blurr. The shoulders are perfect along with a lot of the rest of him.
