Hey tfw'ers! This is my latest repaint, and came out of a conversation I had with my little brother one day. (well little being 29 years old). I showed him my MP-10 and he loved it, then asked'man can you get them in black?'. I told him you could but they're mega expensive. I decided to get him a transformera prime RID optimus (as the first editions aren't easy to come buy) and repaint the red and blue panels black for a surprise christmas present. I couldn't spend 'ultimate detail' time on this fella, so I chose the repaint elements that would matter the most, and allow me to have it look good without taking a week of man hours to do. My plan was this: - repaint all the blue and red panels gloss black (this doesn't include the chest elements below the chest windows, they were to tricky to remove the pins for, so they had to be dropped from the respray list. - gloss clear coat on the black - replace the autobot inignias with black ones (ebay sticker sheet leftovers) - a teensy bit of quick brushed silver battle scrapes and scratches. I used tamiya gloss black spray, hand painted tamiya matt black for the inside pf panels, tamiya chrome silver for the smokestacks and battle scrapes, nd tamiya spray clear coat. After two days, he was finished and I must say that i'm very happy with how he turned out. And the stock grey torso pieces don't look too out of place. I gave the figure to my bro yesterday and he loved it, saying 'you got me one of the black ones too!'. Then when I filled him in he said 'what?! YOU painted it black?! YES!!'. He's wanted a cuatom figure from me ever since I showed him my cliffjumper prime battle damaged figure. Anyway, it was a super fun project to do, mostly because it was for my bro, and gosh I want a black prime for myself now, darn it! Ha ha. See ya forum, Jozaeh (feedback and comments as always, much appreciated!) These are all the pieces masked up and ready for the black spray (I didn't prime the surfaces, but I did the usual sanding and light dishsoap washing of the parts first) and here's some of the panels with the fresh black paint. Here's some before and afters. Here's a spinning youtube video as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExIE35LpRQ0 Here's some lightbox shots to finish up with! And now through the magic of STILL animation! (ha ha), transform optimus! And lastly, here he is back in his packaging 2 minutes before he got christmas wrapped. That's it! J
Very nice clean work like always sir...really cool clean design...so how is mini prime comming along...is he almost done i really wanna see him finished..and nicely done for a christmas gift..
Ah hey Peteauto! Thanks so much, I was really happy with the cleanliness I was able to get too. And mini prime is all set to be worked on this coming week! (the christmas present had to take precedence simply because of the calendar timing). So i'll be updating soon!
love the looks of this. very clean paint and execution! might have to attempt my own! is it fairly easy to take apart?
Very clean paint work. The blue light piping sticks out quite a bit with the new black paint job. Nicely done.
I know hey, I was surprised at how nice the blue actually looks with the black (which is also why I decided to leave the little factory blue waist colours on). Thanks!
Thanks Nellie! Oh you HAVE to do this if you're up for it. The figure uses some hinge pins that go in in the factory, but don't have a reverse hole where you can access the pin to tap it out, argh! So those pins I had to leave in place. But there's a couple pins that you can tap out to make it easier. So if you can see both ends of a pin, tap it! As you can see by my before and after parts on skewers photo, I combatted the unremovable pins buy doing alot of masking tape work. Take your time with it and it can go a long way to make up for a figure section still being together. You gotta do it, the black in person is just gorgeous. Thanks for the comment!
hmmn... I think I may try this on my v2 cyberverse OP (the one w/ the swords). Makes for a very nice "Night watch" Optimus.
That looks great! I love the shiny, glossy, reflectiveness of the black. I may have to look into these Tamiya sprays.
I know hey? I had seen the black takara voyager RID in photos and thought 'ah it looks pretty cool'. But holding one in person is a whole nother thing! And I first painted his head before any parts of the body, and boy oh boy, the head surprised me with how much it's shape lends itself to black.
