Well, here goes my first post on this board. I'm sure after seeing the Takara release of Smokescreen, tons of people had the idea of pulling the arms and doors off of a Bumblebee to make him look a bit better. Basically just pulled the original figure's arms off at the top pin and then stuck it into the little hole in that middle piece (the one that the elbow joint connects to) of the arms off of an FE Bumblebee. The doors also came from the same figure and had most of the tabs cut off. Then I flipped it upside down, unscrewed the windows and pulled off the ball joints that connected the hood/chest of Bumblebee to his shoulders. After a bit of sanding, they pop right into the wheels on his back. And then painting. I didn't mind the original color so much, but I didn't think I'd have any hope of matching it with paint since, big shock, this is actually my first time doing any kind of customization/painting (aside from a bit of paint inside the Silas Breakdown figure), so I just made the whole thing white. You can probably see it chipping a tiny bit already; I still need to seal it. The blue on the arms/legs and red on the shoulder pads were actually done with Gundam markers. So, how'd I do? EDIT: Oh right. He can't transform anymore.
Like you said, I had the same idea as well, glad to see someone execute it. Im assuming it doesn't transform right?
Nope, but if you want to display him in alt mode, you can pop off the doors and repin the original arms. Granted, you'll be missing the 38's on one set of doors or the other, unless you have a spare set of stickers or are really good at painting.
This is a pretty decent upgrade to the AM Smokescreen. Knockout still isn't the best mold for him (though it is FAR FAR FAR from the worst) but you did I think the best job possible turning Knockout into Smokescreen. It's a shame it doesn't transform any more though. If I may critique a bit, your paint seems uneven and a little messy. Take your time and use less paint per stroke. This is a very good first custom.
You may indeed critique, I welcome it. The painting is definitely one thing I need a lot of improvement on. If reprolables ever makes a sticker sheet for him, I'd be tempted to sand him down and try again. I'm honestly not sure how I'd do the feet. I don't have any parts around that would really fit. Tried the FE Bumblebee's legs as a switch, but I found the ball joints on Smokescreen to be too small to fit them, even if I had added a few layers of something to thicken them. And yeah, there are unfortunately still some glaring differences. But I think he still looks better than he did out of the package.
Great work, actually makes that POS Smokescreen look like....SMokescreen. I kinda want him now, but I wouldn't have the nerve to mod him. orthe patience. I'll wait until we get a real one.
Nice job for your first! I'd like to offer an idea, since he's basically an actionmaster now, maybe try Ratchet's legs on him (after removing the translucent cab section). I like what you've done here and it makes me want to order Smokescreen to try it myself. Hope you post some more stuff!
this looks much more like his appearance on tf prime but man thats an expensive action master!! lol. good job though.
you have reclaimed an otherwise lost figure! this is such an improvement! its easy to see where hasbro were coming from with this figure, but it failed epically. this is a massive improvement and looks great!
Hm, Ratchet's legs could be interesting. I'm looking at what trnsfrmrs1980 is doing over in his WIP thread and it looks promising. If I can find another Ratchet somewhere, I might give it a try once we see how it turns out. And surprisingly, I managed to find an FE Bee on the shelf at TRU for like, ten bucks. I think they realized that it was the only way they were ever going to get rid of them. Thanks everyone for the positive feedback. Hopefully I'll find some more projects I can work on and use to improve my skills.
