“Destruction has a beauty all its own”
If Transformers were humans, Roadgrabber would be that creepy kid who likes pulling the wings off flies. As a Pretender there was nothing he liked better than to open fire on an Autobot and watch them die slowly and horribly. As cruel as Roadgrabber is, nothing horrifies him more than suffering injury or death to himself. He spent so much time in his Pretender shell that he finally decided to ditch the split mode idea completely and go with a single mode that was smaller, faster, and more Energon efficient. Because he felt that flying overhead was just too dangerous, Roadgrabber chose to stay with a ground based vehicle mode that retained the look and some capabilities of his former shell. Now nothing delights him more than running humans off the road into trees, medians, and oncoming traffic, then stopping to watch them suffer in anguish or die.

For my THIRD attempt at a custom I decided I wanted to “Revamp” some of the lower end no-name characters from the G1 Pretenders line using CHUG molds. I was never a fan of the whole pretender gimmick, but liked what some of the characters could add to the universe. With SO many Generations Wheeljacks, Kups, Skyshadows now available for cheap, I thought creating a few custom pretenders that give up the pretender ways would be fun to do. I started with Roadgrabber, and let me tell you Roadgrabber was a PAIN IN THE ARSE to do. Paint, remove the paint, repaint, remove that paint, Sculpt, messed it up, go buy another Wheeljack and sculpt again….that was a learning experience.
I don’t have much in the way of WIP pictures. There is a few in my WIP thread.

But here is essentially what I did.

- Sculpted the Pincers on the front using Aves Apoxie Sculpt
- Sculpted the Back End Platform for the weapons using Aves Apoxie Sculpt
- Filled the gaps in the forearm so I can drill holes for the weapons
- Covered the Wheels with buttons and Aves Apoxie Sculpt
- Cut the arm lock tabs out of the inside of the back end since the holes were filled on the arms
- Removed the ball joint for the head and replaced it with a smaller one for the new head
- Replaced the head with a modified Generations Sky Shadow head.
- Painted the underneath of the windshield purple while trying to keep it a bit transparent.

The hardest part became painting it and making the color scheme work, while keeping it as close to G1 as I could. I went with a darker Purple (Deep Pearlescent Purple), Magenta Pink, and Icy Blue for the vehicle shell; I didn’t want it to look TOO girly ;-). I used an Automotive Spray Can Clear Coat for my top coat. I think it gives it a nice hard coat and a good gloss shine to it. I used Testors Enamel Semi-gloss Black, a Flat Insignia Blue and Testors Top Coat for the arms and legs. I went through SEVERAL paintings, then Paint removal, then repaint before I was finished. I also allowed each coat or detailing several days and up to a week for some parts to fully dry and cure. This seemed to REALLY help in keeping it clean and sharp. I also used Aves Sculpt and Gorilla Glue to add a new, smaller ball joint for the head. Unfortunately I didn’t do it right, the head sits high and does not look down very well. But anyway, here is what I came up with. Let me know what you think.

I am sorry about the pics, I have a new photo light box but have not gotten the hang of it yet.

 

this is awesome.fantastic homage

 

Awesome! That is candy to my eyes!

 

You did a very nice job with this. Very clean and detailed.

 

Paint looks like it came out pretty smooth. While thing came together quite nicely.

 

Dude! This is beyond great! Nice use of "random items put to good use" with buttons for hubcaps. A true kitbasher  

 

Thanks guys. I learned a lot on this one.

 

I've been watching this one with interest. What a funky-looking vehicle mode! Your sculpting skills are pretty solid - I'd kind of like to see you try to "Mad Max"-out a vehicle mode.

 

cooool  

 

Looks fabulous! Great work.

 

That's actually really great! lovely clean pain apps and some terrific sculpting on those pincers. Well done!

 

Thanks fellas  

 

Interesting Idea with the Mad max theme. I might try that.

 

Thanks bother!

 

Thanks man

 

Excellent work. I think this is one that I will try myself.  

 

Thanks, It was a little work, but worth it.

 

Awesome! Road Grabber never looked so good. Best use of the Tracks mold so far.