This whole thing spun out of an attempt to expand my roster of decoy suits by using an extra Cloudburst to make another red humanoid Pretender to expand the Autobot Prime master ranks. Who else was red and humanoid? well, our ol' buddy from the Ultra Pretenders, SKYHAMMER! So, yeah, a bit of a push but it's an addition to the Autobots sorely needed. Then I happened across Mantic's Warpath Hornet dropship and, well, in for a penny... Y'see she opens up as well but more on that later... Initially I was just going to recolour the Cloudburst suit but I was compelled to add the visor as the finishing touch, and an actual hammer because, well, it's in the name! I picked Nexus Prime as the Inner Prime Master because Ultra-Pretending seemed in the same 'one entity in multiple forms' as being a combiner but if he's gonna be Skyhammer he may as well look a bit more like it (bang goes the re-sale value on him!)... I also had a spare Loudmouth hovercar/boat/tank/turret mini-vehicle so I thought 'why not do that over to stand in for the vehicle mode his shell no longer has?', and that's what I did... Then it could also stand in for the top turret the dropship lacked too! Of course having an opening transport bay also meant he could be even more bristled with weaponry! The gold missiles of the G1 version were really firmly in my memory, and an essential part of his loadout for me. Luckily I remembered and was able to track down a couple of pairs of the Construct-Bot missiles from the Prime Vs. Megs set which was great but his shell could use them in G1. No problem, just use Lego to add a couple of ports for 'em! And, yes, it takes a wee bit of finagling but they can all fit inside for stowage. It's not so neat, or easy to photograph so I'll cap it all off with just an exterior shot, and you'll have to take my word for it!
... oh my god i need a new pair of undies. this is frickin' fantastic. I had Skyhammer as a young'un and have fond memories of him (and of my first traumatic experiences with GPS). I may have to do one of these myself, yowza.
If you want to do a Roadblock to match, the Minimates Aliens APC has the right shape and enough interior room to hold a Basic figure. It even has a little sliding door on the side so the occupant can do a drive by without opening the entire roof.
Well, wouldn't you know it?! The week after this post goes up I did indeed manage to nab the literal piece de resistance! Not so impossible (or prohibitively expensive) after all! Plus MFT Heikew coming with an extra Dirt Loader made this beastly combat load out possible And, of course, it took me a week to figure out a box art homage woulda been a good idea! D'OH!
Today I was of a bent to do one of the fixes I was previously worried about messing up, the bay doors of the Mantic Hornet are loose and have no clip mechanism, which is no good for keeping a Pretender's inner parts interior, so now The Skyhammer is both Metaphorically & Actually a magnetic hero vehicle! (Plus a touch up to the Molotow gold which had some scuffing and fading.) Believe it or not the above pics are of a fully laden Skyhammer, with Decoy-besuited Prime Master, extra Mini-Vehicle, and pair of spare gold ConstructBot missiles stowed in the Thunderbird 2-alike belly bay! With a set of 2 2mm x 2mm magnets at the middle back of each door, and a pair at each upper front corner. Not without error, I drilled the first upper forward recessed magnet here about a whole 2mm magnet width too high - good job I had some grey 2mm LEGO whip antenna to hand to plug up the first hole. Annoyingly it was only mid way through the third magnet drilling, first back end application of physics that I finally realised I could use some 2mm slivers of 1cm width masking tape to make alignment markings to prevent such cock-ups! I almost wish I had some more doors to magnetise now. Almost. I was a little worried when on my first loading effort his hovercar plummeted straight out of the opposite side door that they might not be powerful enough BUT- On a more careful second stacking-inside attempt it turned out that they are indeed strong enough to hold all the gear in, even when in an extreme banking manoeuvre. I mean I wouldn't shake it up and down in that alignment as I suspect the payload would still *ahem* "quickly deploy" but I'm well chuffed they no longer tip straight out so it'll do me!
Loctite superglue but I also scuff/scrape the polished surface of the LEGO pieces with a craft knife or file to key the surface for gluing, IIRC the Decoy Suit rear section plastic is pretty porous already and doesn't need that help as much, if at all.
