FINISHED PHOTOS! - Attack of the Purple - Prime Vehicon by Jozaeh

Hey everyone!
I've finished this repaint mod, and you'll be able to find the two sets of final photos here:

Set one:
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/797651-attack-purple-prime-vehicon-jozaeh-5.html#post9029634

Set two:
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/797651-attack-purple-prime-vehicon-jozaeh-6.html#post9030016

And here's my original thread post:
Hey tfw'ers!
I decided to paint up a PRID Vehicon after getting my first recently. DAMN this is a freakin sweet figure! The legs foldup transformation still spins me out with appreciation hey. While watching the Prime episodes, I always notice and love the deep dark purple metallic shimmer the vehicon's panels have in some scenes. I did some paint tests, and it's pretty hard (well for me anyway) to get such a near-black colour, that has metallic purple highlights on say, a curved panel. I guess the show's specular lighting on the textures for the CG models is a bit specially set up to get this.

So! Instead of doing a dark black, I've decided to just fang out purple for the main colour on this fella. Here we go!

Here's one of the shots I used as a reference for the repaint:



And here's the plan:



I found these other reference shots as well that were a big help. The vehicons are DARN purple in some of the daytime scenes, aie!












Next up I began taking the 'con apart. Some of the pins were easy to slide out, and some of them are these HELLISH arrow head type 'only goes in' pins. ARGH! I don't have a soldering iron, so I did my best with a couple of them using my dremel bit on high speed to heat them up enough to allow the plastic to soften, to then slide the pin out.



Kablam! I hope I lose some of these pieces in the process, that'd be great.



I sanded all the parts with wet'n'dry 2000 grit paper, and then gave them all a soak and wash in some mild soapy water.





MOD ONE:

I didn't like the gun ports on the side of the car mode's back panels, so I decided to fill them in. Luckily I realised that I didn't want the 5mm peg on the gun itself either (As I've done my kreon leg gun arm vehcion mod already), and that peg would fill these holes nicely.

So I chopped the peg and pushed in a half into each gun port.





Next up is some putty to fill those little cracks.



Then a good sand back. I used an eraser as my sanding block. I figured it would be nice and shape conforming which I'd want for the curved surfaces.



Here's the finished smoothed shoulder holes, as well as a little indent patch I noticed on one of the roof panels puttied and sanded.

More photos to come!

 

MOD TWO - Shoulder blades

Ok Next up are his shoulders! I love in the show how the Vehicon's shoulder blades are smooth on the outside AND inside. Of course the figure isn't like that, so I tried my luck for my first time filling a panel in with some styrene! Gosh this styrene stuff is great.

I did a tracing over the panel area to give me a ballpark sizing.



But holy crap it takes a LOOOOONG time to get the piece to fit just right, I couldn't believe it! But once it did, it pushed snugly into place, and I had the two shoulder pieces' inside panels created.



Putty!



Oh my gosh, I'm sure some of you are the same, there's just something that makes my mind go all giddy at the sight of a slowly getting-smoother flush finish. it's like it makes my ocd brain elements figuratively drool. Ahhh!



I worked the new panel and putty down with 400 sandpaper, 800, 1200, and then finally 2000.





MOD THREE - Wheel arches see through

A thing I love about the Prime Vehicon's form is how the wheels seem to hover within the wheel arches. I couldn't shave out the wheel arch insides completely on the figure, otherwise the the wheel wouldn't actually stay in, so I just shaved out around 3/4's of the plastic as second best. Oh boy this was so fun to do with the dremel! (you can also see that I added in a tiny sliver more of styrene to the shoulder blade panels to get them super flush to the wheel arch edge.)



Here's a before and after from the outside view:



And a before and after of the front wheel panel:


(You can see that the knee piece is still attached to the front wheel panels. This is because living in there is the pin that I want to MURDER. He simply would NOT come out and now my teeth still grit at him! It's funny how it's an inanimate object, but my mind makes it become a living, stubborn being, that's simply not doing what I want purely because it knows that will irk me. GRRRR! ha ha)


MOD FOUR - Sharpen up those fingers and kneecaps

Hello wussy pants Hasbro, you're scared that little kids will poke out their eyes on sharp pointy pieces, well get ready to watch me live on the EDGE!

I'm gonna cut these things as sharp as I can, and then use the figure as a PILLOW as I sleep!

Anyway, I craft knifed the hands to be pointier like the Prime CG model (which I love because it makes them seem even more sinister), and then also pointy the kneecaps. The CG Model has really long kneecap points, as well as small side points like a three pronged star. But I aint going for an ultimate show accurate mod/repaint. So this was good enough for the fun.

 

Next up was shaving off the little manufacturer info on his back. I can't have the autobots calling out "Hey Tomy! Yeah you! Come and take this omega key from me, that is unless you're too scared to get your CE rating! Snicker snicker!".

This was just using a super fresh sharp craft knife.






MOD FIVE - Needlepoint ears of legolas

Another place where Hasbro was scared of a lawsuit, I wanted to shave to a super point. Once again, the craft knife is my friend.







Then in prep for some alclad, I gave the noggin a spray of tamiya gloss black.




Alclad later, and he's looking better (this is before light dusting of the alclad particles from the surface).






Then I gave the wheels the same black gloss base, and alclad treatment.






Then a mix of black and white for some tyre grey:





In the concept art, the 'cons have little details of pinky purple in their wheel rims:


It may be hard to notice, but I lined some white base on the inside of the rims to then later have metallic purple added in.



Onto the next bunch of shots....

 

All the pieces are sanded, washed, dry and on airbrushing skewers ready to go!




As this will be a metallic paint job, I wanted to have a nice dark base, so gloss black was laid down.



All the pieces done, and ready for some sanding back with some 2000 grit wet'n'dry. Oh MAN this is fiddly stuff. But I really want a nice smooth shine to the panels.




Colour tests:

I didn't have any metallic purple paint, my store didn't have anything other than metallic blue. SO! I did some tests and came up with this mix:

- metallic blue
- clear red
- a dash of gunmetal
- a dash of straight purple

On the spoon, the paint came up delicious. The pearlesque shimmer in the light as I turned it over was so good and SO what I wanted! (The left spoon is the mix straight added, the right is the mix with a clear coat. oddly the clear coat affected the mix and made it turn to a truer straight metallic purple?)



But, after spraying ALL of the pieces with this mix, the panel shapes and contours simply didn't give off enough colour and refraction. It basically looked just like the same original mold plastic dark purple that I started with.

Boy did I feel deflated.

Then I happened to call another hobby store on the off chance they had a purple metallic in another brand, and bang! They had TWO different kinds?! What the heck! Model master to the rescue.

My plan was to mix the following as a thin coat over the top of the initial metallic mix base:

- purple pearl
- plum crazy




And it worked really nicely. I would spray layer on layer on layer, slowly building up the better purple. Here's the torso with it's finished colour.





Then I masked off the collar ridges to give it a slightly pinkier colour:







From an insignia sheet, I sliced away a decepticon sticker, and stuck it down on his chest. (I love that the insignia is a standard size, it fit perfectly!







The gun needed a little fauz glowing, which i've never done before. So I gave the glow areas a base of matt white, ready for the plum crazy details once dry.







All the pieces are purpled and gunmetalled (joints etc) and ready for their super glossy clear coat! Oh boy this is a fun repaint.



One more post coming for today....

 

After a clear coat, here's some examples of the panels and pieces in some good lighting.

A front bonnet piece:





An assembled shin piece (I think these are my favourite pieces, oh metallic paint how are you so pretty.)





And here's a shoulder piece in the shade:



And in the sun:





And just for a taste, here's the torso half assembled with the finished head.





One last step to go, i'm going to sand back the clear coat with some 2000 just a teensy bit, give some super thin clear coats, let him dry and then i'll upload some finished shots.

See ya'all!
Jozaeh

 

This is a great share you've posted up there for us, jozaeh. It's fun to read about your plans and exactly how you went about pulling them off, and how it went during the process. The pictures and your explanation is nice and clear and fun to read also.

And most importantly... nice work! Your meticulousness is paying off! That slowly shaving a piece of styrene (or whatever) to fit into a particular shape is indeed a slow process, but feels great once it fits just perfectly snug. It's gonna look great if you keep going along just like this.

 

Thank you, these type of very informative and step-by-step post with pictures are always really appreciated. Quite obviously, I believe you have put in a lot of effort to write up these posts.

Thank you very much. It was truly a pleasure reading this.

 

Jozaeh, I'm coming to really appreciate your very meticulous and thorough posts. I love see the progression of the piece, and it's great and very helpful to see for a beginner like myself. You can really see all the work that goes into this, and I think the final product will certainly pay off. Looking forward to the next post!

 

Now onto the next 49 vehicons for the ultimate army.

 

Nice job. Thanks for the step by step.

 

Beautiful work. Masterpeace Vehicon.

 

That's amazing. I love the step by step you've done here. I'll be looking at this very closely when I go to do my 2 Vehicons.

 

This is looking great so far! I love the metallic purple.

 

Great effort and figure design bro! I love the Vehicon mold and variation of coloring that people pull of with them.

 

I love it! I also really like the detailed work you put in.

 

That is pure awesome!  

...now make an army of them.  

 

Haha! Good luck trying to do the First Edition!

 

Looks fantastic so far. I too appreciate how you document every step.

 

This totally deserves a double    !