Hello everyone! I'm back for the new year and I hope you all had a good time celebrating it's coming. I've also come bringing you all a gift: the beginings of my next massif(and I mean MASSIF) main project. And as to avoid confusion, I divide my project load into tiers: Main(series, primary focus), secondary, tertiary and miscallaneous. The last main project was my TurboRemastered series that took priority over the last 2 years. Adding the extra touches that I want to do puts it into secondary. But enough about the past for now: let's move on to the present. I've been itching to share this with you all for a long time. Introducing the first entry of my new ActionRemastered Series: Rad and Lionizer! When I decided to start this series, Rad stood out to me for some reason. On top of that, I loved the challenge of realizing him with a modern toy that made sense because his bio on wikipedea says that he likely transforms into a motorcycle which is very unique amongst the Action Masters. COOL! A new character that doesn't necessarilly transform into a car with a lion targetmaster for a partener? Yes please! Problem: there are no motorcycle transformers(cycleformers) that match his asthetic, let alone his chest. So after a good amount of though(because I was dead set to not make him into a car!), I decided screw it, I'm going to take a gamble. So before I get to the finished characters, I'll show you what I did: So I got my hands on a deluxe class CW Groove(There is still an overstock at my comic shop) because it hit me how uncanny his motorcycle front kinda looked like Rad's chest when it's turned upside down. Cool solution and close enough. I had to figure out how to make his backpack his chestpiece. So I took him apart and decided to make it pass through his torso, meaning that he is no longer a combiner. Then I made some VERY precise cuts to the gas tank, this is what I got: Next I had to account for the front wheel. It needs to go on his back in robot mode and somehow swing clear of the gas tank and forward to reconnect to the bottom of the front of the bike. ALL WITHOUT PARTSFORMING at all! So I found a spare arm from a Perfect Effect Reflector that got 2 right arms(I did get this solved years ago) and made a bracket out of it and glued it to the main body: Then I had to componsate for the new placement of the handle bars in robot mode. So I carved out, well, grooves in the existing chest: And then I of course needed to solve the problem of what to do about the head because the combiner brick for Groove's head isn't there anymore. And I had to keep the head in place. So I carved out a slot behind the handle bars and using the existing pinhole that is the connection point for the front and the gas tank, put in a bracket to mount the balljoint for the head: And after all of that work, this is what I got out of it: And a look under the hood: If it weren't for the stickers on my first Groove, would you be able to tell the difference? And FYI the front wheel can stiĺl turn a bit both ways. Thank F Lionizer is much simpler. The only heavy mod on him is that I added a sliding pin into his handle: So with all of that, let's get on with the show: Robot modes: Rad is both spray and handpainted with: Rustoleum Gloss Red Apple Rustoleum Gloss Real Orange Rustoleum Satin Ink Blue Rustoleum Universal Metallic Cobalt Blue Citadel Flash Gitz Yellow Citadel Abaddon Black Citadel Mechanicus Standard Grey Citadel Eishin Grey Citadel Lorthern Blue Citadel Fire Dragon Bright Testors Metallic Silver Testors Flat Red Base mold is Combiner Wars Deluxe Groove with POTP Jazz's head. The extra parts a spare arm from Perfect Effect's Reflector and styrene. Reprolables are from TFC Warning Line(MP Groove), CW scout class Groove, EDF set and Classics Grapple. Lionizer is both spray and handpainted with: Rustoleum Gloss Real Orange Testors Flat Aluminum Base mold is Transformers Siege Battlemaster Lionizer Reprolables are Siege Lionizer Vehicule mode: And Lionizer can join in on the fun: Action pose time: I love the multiple display options thanks to Lionizer's 2 weapon modes and the gun's ability to combine. Speaking of which, it wouldn't really be action masters if I didn't include this: It holds extremely well. He is holding all his weapons combined with 1 arm and no stability issues. And that will do it for these 2, but no where near done with this series. At this point, I want to quickly go over my self imposed rules for this series: THE RULES: 1. I will be recreating ALL of the released Action Masters and their gear/parteners. 2. Any pieces of equipment/gear/parteners that where released with previously existing G1 Show cast members(I.E Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bombshock, Jazz, etc) will be RE-assigned to either OG characters OR NON-show/obscure/comic only, etc character, with I believe only 1 exeption. 3. They will all transform and they will be as close to accurate in robot mode as I can make them. 4. I will also recreate some unreleased Action Masters concepts that I love. And with the rules established, I do believe this is a good cut off point. I hope you all enjoyed and I will see you next time.
brilliant brilliant BRILLIANT engineering! The bike mode looks untouched, and you actually improved the silhuoette of the robot mode! Fantastic job. Also I know what you mean about having different tiers of projects. Whenever I start on a heavy project that takes months, I'm also doing 3-5 simple repaint or minor modding projects on the side. There are simply too many custom ideas, and so little time.
Bro i wanted to rip my heart out when i saw you absolutely tear that cw groove apart, even a real hasbro one! But the end result was ABSOLUTELY worth the effort. This looks kickass and even if he isnt a combiner limb anymore this was such a fun idea you had and you NAILED it!
Your custom is Radical!! Sorry, someone had to say it... I love Actionmaster updates. I bought the Ark mainly for Mainframe. Looking forward to seeing more of your Actionmasters. Oh and Happy New Year.
The amount of engineering on this is incredible. Paints loom good. All in all, this is a great start of the line of projects.
This is when you can call a custom, a Kitbash! Dremel work is top notch and the end results are stellar.
That's awesome, and I love how extensively you've documented all the work that went into it. Fantastic job. (I'd sort of thought about making Rad from the Siege Notsun mold, but this is definitely a superior version.)
You can make gutcruncher out of a silver bolt to reference his vehicle partner and use the main body with his colors. It'd keep the combiner gimmick, if you cared.
I've got to say that it's a very interesting take on Gutcruncher but alas it is not the route I planed on taking. 1 of the rules I imposed on myself is to recreate the Action Masters as faithfully as possible. I have the base mold for him chosen. The real problem is going to be recreating his Stratofighter(fully functionnal) in scale with the Voyager class figure I chose. But it will (eventually) be done.
Well, I'd like to share with you all a sneek peek at a small sample of what I have to work with so far. Keep in mind that this is nowhere near everyone/thing: Left: Decepticons Right: Autobots No particular order: Some of the guys I am most likely going to need to build from scratch. The 3 examples that come to mind are Treadshot, Powerflash and Windmill. They will take VERY long to make. And like I said, these are not everything at all. And as a fun game, I'd love for people to guess which mold is going to be which character. And Mainframe doesn't count. That would be cheating
Who's the green dude in front of potp jazz on the right? Looks like earthrise wheeljack but as a partially finished wasp.
I went to TFCON Toronto 2021 and he was the custom class figure of the year. It's Cybertronian Downshifter. But since I already have the origional Cybertron Downshift(the muscle car) in my collection and he's one of my favorites and I don't want to replace him at all, I'm using this custom as an OG character named Pacer instead and I'll be assigning him AM Wheeljack's Turbo Racer because my second rule is only use OG Action Master or OG characters in this project. The reason I haven't made a thread about him yet is because, believe it or not, I ran out the 9 hour time limit at the class because I was too excited and started and participated in at least 10 conversations and the paint job is not 100% finished yet. The paints I ordered to finish him off properly haven't arrived yet. Good Primus, TFCON was fun! Here is some proof:
