So I was excited to get my official Impactor today from the local Walmart. Unfortunately, and I don't know if this is a problem with everyone's, but mine came with an incorrectly molded right hand, which I fixed.....along with his shoulder which was missing a very important 5mm hole. All joking aside, I just wanted to post this so others would consider doing the same. I'm no customizer and I did this in like 5-10 minutes. I considered modding the harpoon missile to look more like the comic but decided I wanted to keep the "updated generations" theme and just used the harpoon they designed. Mods were I drilled a 5mm hole in his shoulder to mount the gun that came with Roadbuster in. Then I cut his hand off (I saved the hand even) and drilled a hole big enough for the missile to fit inside. Cut the missile down just above the second X stopper and plugged it in. Wala, an Impactor that wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in public. Technically if I took part of the missile and glued it to his hand I could make a peg so you could switch back and forth which I might eventually do. Anyways, enjoy! Its really easy UPDATE 7/31/13 I did go ahead and use the left over missile parts (and another orphan missile) to make more interchangeable hand parts. If people were curious where I drilled the holes, here is the shoulder; Here is the hand socket; Here you can see the attachments; See his hand goes back on fine now and looks totally natural; Lastly using an orphaned missile part I crafted an alternate harpoon for those G1 Comic lovers; I am officially done with this project. So easy and fun to mod this guy up. I would like to see peoples variations and choices for the shoulder cannon.
Very cool idea... especially the idea of doing the hand-swapping. EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't realize what weapon you were using. The harpoon fits in the barrel fine
Ok, I just did the mod myself in about 8 minutes and it is AMAZING how much better the figure now looks. I mean, he already had a good bot mode... but now it is so much better. Plus, with that gun on his shoulder, he can simply attach it sideways when he is Ruiniation and give the combined mode a different look too.
Agreed, gives the figure it's own character which imo it didn't have without the mods. I should point out too I used the extra gun from Roadbuster but you could use any gun that fits the hole. I thought the harpoon canon looked too big so that's why I went with the other one plus it sorta matches the comic look.
I actually decided not to even use the big gun with him anymore, as I think his double-barrel gun, shoulder cannon, and harpoon gun look good on their own. I already have mixed around a lot of weapons (Whirl has DOTM Laserbeak's twin guns, Topspin currently has Whirl's gun, all the original Bruticus weapons but the double blaster are going in my weapons box to go to other figures) so this just gives me another excuse to switch things around. I haven't experimented yet, but i do plan to put one of the HUGE guns on him in Ruiniation mode to help that form have something a bit different. Thanks again for posting this.
Updated the first post with my additional parts, a new G1 Comic Harpoon Attachment as well as the hand has been pegged and now can be swapped back in if he needed two hands for some reason - probably for clapping at how awesome his toy is now. I really dig the new comic style harpoon hand, didn't think I would as much as the updated generations one.
My take on it: I kept more on the harpoon as I like that the end hides any damage from cutting it and makes it look like an attachment point. I did, sadly, destroy the hand cutting it off, but with how the harpoon looks I found myself not caring. How I store the harpoon in alt mode. I plan to, at some point, stick a TINY amount of sculpty in the gun's barrel so the harpoon fits VERY snuggly in it. Ruiniation upgraded. The shoulder cannon hole allows one to give Ruin a MASSIVE shoulder cannon of his own. The whole gang: Topspin and Roadbuster, Whirl with his new Energon Bazooka, Twintwist (modded to how have drill daggers), and of course Impactor. Now I just need to do some paint detailing to REALLY make these guys good to go.
