So I managed to grab the Microblaze Military Titans kit for FoC Bruticus, also known as the "COMBINOR NOT MUNKY" kit. And I liked it...Except I only liked Onslaught and Brawl now, everyone else needed a lot of works, so this thread is to cover what I did to each. I'll be updating this thread everyday for each Combaticon and then finally for Bruticus. -Bruticus- Till all (combaticons) are one. The MBT kit was pricey, but definitely worth it. The combaticons all look great, and better yet is that Bruticus is vastly improved. All the paintjobs came together beautifully. All the silver and black detailing on all five helps blend them together as one Combined force. The darker yellow swindle stands out without being a neon eyesore, while Blastoff&Vortex are both dark shiney metallic colors same as they are in the game. Bruticus' face was also almost perfect, I just repainted the eyes to a metallic orange to match the game. Lastly I went ahead and painted/modified a FoC Sideswipe gun. FINALLY, this thing actually fits in scale with something. -Vortex- Going off a retail Vortex, this was an uphill battle. Tried to stay as game-accurate as possible, leading to a mostly gold and metallic red paintjob with black detailing. - Removed the Helicopter blades from the arm and attached a 5mm peg to it, this change is almost unnoticeable in vehicle mode. - A new 5mm hole was added to the back of the helicopter so that Vortex can store his blades behind his back in a game-accurate transformation. - Replaced his weapons with two chromia guns(one made purely out of resin). This can fit on the inside of the vehicle landing rails to imitate his FoC in-game "Boost" vehicle mode. - Removed the original combiner port since MBT doesn't use it anyways. It just stuck out like a sore thumb in both vehicle and combined modes.
Combaticons -Blastoff- I used a retail Blastoff so I could preserve some of that deep dark purple in some areas. But most of the figure was completely repainted into a game-accurate Golden Tan or silver. I also decided to situate Blastoff with both arm cannons for Bruticus, since it kept him symetrical in both modes and he had the arm strength to hold both up unlike Vortex. Unlike Swindle&Vortex, Blastoff is 100% handpainted and had no basecoat of airbrushing, so I'm fairly proud of how it turned out. -Swindle- It's unfortunate his new parts couldn't store under the vehicle, but it is what it is. I used a retail Swindle, since I wasn't a fan of the tan SDCC paintjob. Likewise though, I really dislike how neon yellow retail Swindle is. I gave him a completely new darker yellow paintjob and then detailed the body with silver/black. I didn't agree with the MBT purple used either and went with a much shinier and deeper purple across the figure. Finally Swindle doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, nor does he blend into a big mess of tan like the SDCC Combaticons. Lastly, since I'm using the MBT kit; the retail swindle head was completely blacked out to make it less noticable in robot/combined mode, with silver detailing to make it blend into an engine block in vehicle mode. -Onslaught- Something I really have to compliment Microblaze on is that Onslaught isn't actually quite a voyager in height. He's bulky, but a little shorter than most voyager. It makes the size gap between him and other FoC Combaticons lessened, and I really appreciate that. His paintjob was already very nice, it just needed a bit of energon spurced throughout certain areas to match the game&artwork. I'm showing off Onslaught&Brawl first since they took the least amount of repainting. -Brawl- Brawl really felt like half the reason I got the upgrade kit. The new hands, feet, and crotchplate make such an incredible difference to bulk him up. I used the SDCC version of Brawl because it was nearly perfectly already. - A lot of black detailing all throughout the figure such as the forehead vents, chest coils, and the shoulder tank treads. This makes the biggest difference on his hips, making it actually clear the plates are not part of his thighs. - Something I feel a lot of people miss is the Red that Brawl has in FoC. It really helps break up the figure overall, although admittedly there's none visible in vehicle/combined mode. - Some purple metallic paint for the dark energon glow from the game, I kept it modest with this set but also finished with a gloss coat over them to make it shine more. The eyes were also glossed, since they were already a nice neon yellow on the SDCC figure.
They fold up onto the front of the legs for vehicle/combined modes. Swindle, on the otherhand, is definitely a partformer with the upgrade kit. Updated the first post for Onslaught. Swindle will be Next.
Blastoff is up. Vortex will be tomorrow and groupshots+bruticus will end out this whole affair. So happy to be done with this project having worked on it for a few months now.
Alright, finally done. All five are up and Bruticus is up. Dragging this out day by day was dumb of me. I don't intend to do that again.
I LOVED MB's Onslaught. It's sad to think we won't get a repaint or a retool into Impactor since they've seemed to go under.
If you're referring to an unaltered toy; it's on a simple pressure plug. Just pull it straight out. The way I have it on this modified set is that it's attached to a standard 5mm peg that fits into the robot hands, whereas there's a new 5mm hole on his backpack to display them in robot mode.
