I'm so happy you're beginning work on this. Both your Blackout and Longhaul were awesome, and I'm sure this one will turn out excellent as well. How much did you pay for the model kit? I was looking into trying this myself a few months back, but the cheapest price I could find it for was around $90.00...
There's actually not as much cheating as you might think with the deluxe. The reason the toys arms are so weird was they did that "extending" arm gimmick that was abandoned for the movie. but placement of everything is pretty close to how he transformed in the movie. This custom is awesome. Bonecrusher and the dreads are my favorite decepticons in the movies.