Update: Ultra Magnus (Pandora-01 Mebsuta upgrade for FOC Ultra Magnus) and Rodimus (Takara Cloud Hot Rodimus). I think these two look great together! I also flipped/swapped his shoulder rockets so that the raised fin is now right side up rather than upside down. Original Posting: I recently put together Transformazing Toys PB-01 Pandora Mebsuta upgrade set for Fall of Cybertron Ultra Magnus. It's pretty good for the most part but some of the design elements bugged me. I especially didn't like how squat his overall torso appeared (now that it's so wide and beefed up by the Pandora kit) in comparison to how long the legs were. So I kitbashed together a couple of modifications to improve his overall proportions and help widen his stance. "Stop! Hammer time!" The mods are as follows: 1) A new waist for him while raising his torso a bit so it's slightly longer/taller. This was perhaps the toughest part. I used the waist and hip joints from a junker Classics/Universe Inferno I had taken apart for cannon fodder (I much prefer Henkei Inferno instead). The waist piece is from a large Voyager figure, so this fits Pandora's proportions much better than using hips sized for a smallish Deluxe figure like FOC UM. Inferno's waist includes the front wheels from Inferno that help fill out the back of his butt. I did use the Pandora abdomen and waist piece that came with the upgrade kit (it just fills up hollow space in the small of his back) but did not use the two black ball-joint-cup-and-mushroom-peg hip pieces. I popped off FOC UM's legs and took them apart by unscrewing the halves. I removed his foot pieces (saved them for later as detailed below) and then Dremel'd out some of the plastic (painted silver) between the two leg halves to make more space for where the new Inferno hip joints will go. I estimate that I removed about two silver squares worth of plastic for each leg half (for a total of 4). From there, I threaded the interior blue bar of plastic in the FOC UM leg through the Inferno hip joint piece (it's basically a rounded, notched piece with a hole and turns on a swivel). I also added a bit of plastic tubing to help fill in the space between said hole so friction will make the new hip joints stronger. Replaced the leg halves by screwing them back together. FOC UM's old white thigh pieces will simply be placed back against the rear of the Pandora thighs since they don't actually serve any function aside from filling up hollow space. OK, the hips are done, but the abdomen needs to be extended and I needed some way to attach the Inferno waist assembly to the bottom of FOC UM's chest. I used the interior cockpit assembly piece from TFTM Voyager Blackout as the abdomen extension. I Dremel'd a large hole in the bottom of FOC UM's chest, as well as in the mushroom peg of Blackout's donor piece. I then screwed the two pieces together using a thick screw (the two halves of the figure aren't going anywhere and the connection there is pretty sturdy). I then threaded a horizontal tubular bar (also donated from Blackout) between the two front holes of Blackout's donor pieces to connect the upper body to Inferno's waist piece (and the lower half of the body). The result is now Pandora retains some limited waist swivel from side to side as well as an ab crunch that lets his upper body go up and down. To help cover up the front of Inferno's waist assembly, I used Pandora's waist piece and took it apart (the screws are tiny so a small screwdriver from a glasses repair kit will help). I placed the main waist cover over Inferno's, and the two side pieces are used to fill in the sides of his abdomen. To me personally, Ultra Magnus was never a svelte guy, so the added mass helps. 2) Replaced his shoulder rockets (his stock shoulder weapons can now be held as twin pistols instead as pictured below). The missiles are from one of iGear's earlier products, the IG-TF001 City Commander Upgrade Package Parts Set. I removed the stock Pandora shoulder weapons by unscrewing the arms and taking them apart. I then Dremel'd some holes in the sides of the iGear shoulder rockets after splitting each of them in half (I had to be very careful here since the pieces are small and plastic can break). Next I threaded Pandora's red "jewel" joints as swivel pegs to screw in and hold the iGear missiles in place (they can rotate 360 degrees and friction keeps them secure when posing). The iGear rocket halves are then glued back together. 3) Added some paint apps here and there (particularly the eyes and face) using Gundam markers (metallic blue for his eyes, metallic silver for his antennae and face, some darker red here and there to help make the reds match one another when I could). The eyes pop a lot more and give him a much livelier appearance, especially when the light hits them just right. I may paint his thighs white eventually as others have done to help break up all the blue. 4) I removed FOC UM's old foot pieces (unscrewed the legs apart and took out the ball jointed hinges) and put them on Pandora's forearms to help beef up his relatively thin arms. I simply used some short screws to thread between the holes in the forearms and the foot pieces. 5) Again, I gave him some new weapons from iGear's IG-TF001 City Commander Upgrade Package Parts Set since I simply don't care for Pandora's stock weapons themselves (the rifle axe thing is just meh to me). The weapons are sized perfectly, and the pegs and handles are a perfect match to Pandora's multiple fists and hands. "I make this look good." "These twin peashooters are hardly dignified weapons for the duly appointed enforcer of the Tyrest Accord!" "Much better.... pew pew pew!" "Good. Bad. I'm the Bot with the gun (and sword)." "Have hammer. Will travel." Upstart leader and his trusty lieutenant. Prime time trio. All of these mods roughly took me an entire weekend to complete (with some trial and error), and it was definitely challenging (I try to retain as many pieces from the original upgrade kit as I could and without having to resort to using glue whenever possible) but also very fun! And nope, he doesn't transform anymore but that's OK as I plan to keep him in bot mode.
Does it still transform? Any alt mode pics? Just kidding! Seriously, great work on this. I've been pretty happy with the add-on kit as-is, but seeing what you've accomplished is tempting me to check out my bin of custom fodder to see if I can decently replicate this...
Oh, and I also used the foot covers that came with Pandora and placed them on the sides of his thighs to act as covers for UM's wheels (similar to how MP-10 has wheel covers to partially hide the truck wheels in his calves for bot mode). No prob. Ask and ye shall receive. Thanks, much appreciated! If I was more into a pure FOC design style, I'd be more satisfied with the Pandora upgrade as stock. But I tend to lean toward Classics and IDW, and upgraded UM just didn't look right in my Lost Light crew display shelf. His proportions and other design elements bothered me enough that I had to do something about it. Granted I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by just waiting for ToyWorld to release their version of Ultra Magnus, but I'm impatient, heh (FP City Commander sits as the centerpiece of my Classics Wreckers display and I'd rather not double up on figures/molds if I can help it). The figures I sacrificed for kitbash fodder tend to be a bit on the expensive side (at least Inferno is; Blackout, not so much) but I had already kitted out Inferno's parts for past figures so his waist piece was already there for the taking. Half of the fun of kitbashing is figuring out how to reuse old parts for something fun and new, I find. Thanks. Nope, waist and hip joints are pretty sturdy, plus he has a wider stance and can stand up straight without his legs bumping into each other as on the old waist/hip piece (nor being confined into the standard "A" leg stance). The only parts that are a bit unstable are the Pandora side hip pieces on his abdomen but I'll find a way to secure them better eventually.
