I had this done for a little while but just didn't get around to posting it. Changes: -Repainted Hot Rod a darker red with silver mist for the pipes and shins. -Sculpted a new back of the head piece (before I saw Joey's easier solution... Dammit!). -Filled in the chest sides so the hood could be extended permanently. I like it better this way as it makes the torso look better. -The Target Master is from a Powercore Combiner, cut and sanded, with added connection fins from the gun Hot Rod came with and a handle made from a Constructbot set.
It's the small changes that make a figure a thousand times better! Also, I completely forgot Pinpoint existed. Such a cool engine mode.
Fantastic. You did the mods a lot of people would want to do. Bonus points for the target master. I'm surprised you didn't paint the gray in his torso to be red.
After taking the pics, yeah, I'm going to paint the gray gap-filler red. I liked the gray when I was building the piece, but red will definitely make the chest/torso more unified.
Impressive, the back-half of the head looks official (as though Hasbro or Takara Tomy produced it themselves).
I left it with the gray knees and feet, with the shin panel being silver. Why would the shins/boots be gray? The paint model I followed was the MP version, with the yellow head crest done just because I thought it looked good. Thanks! Took me a bit of time to get it nice and smoothly meshed into the face piece. I'm pretty pleased with the results. Thanks!
Added the back of Ironhide's head to the Hot Rod faceplate. Man, that would have saved me some time, but I'm happy with how it turned out.
so De-HM means you can remove the headmaster gimmick from this, letting him transform without removing the head? Wasn't considering getting TR Hot Rod but if it's one of the ones that can be feasably de-headmastered, that could change my mind.
Yep, head stays attached. The basic mod is pretty easy in which you just cut out the yellow panel that is at the rear of the front section of the car. You would need to mod the head to allow it to have clearance, though. That's the harder part. You could basically just take the legs off and that would work. May look odd from different angles.
Okay, same deal as Blurr. How exactly did you go about sculpting a new back of Hot Rod's head though? What materials did you use for it? Feels like a more economical solution than buying an Ironhide everybody told me to stay away from just for the sake of junking it for its head.
A sculpting putty called Magic Putty. Start by snipping the TM legs and hands down to where it would follow the shape of the head, then fill in the gaps with putty I sanded and gap-filled a few times just to make sure it was smooth, using several grits of sandpaper along with a fine rounded needle file. After that, I added a piece of textured styrene for detailing, then painted it.
Buy the figure and take a cast of the head. If you like the figure then keep it. If you dislike it, sell it for more than you bought it.
Looking over these is getting my customizing bones tingly again. You make dramatic changes out of very focused detail work.
