It’s not surprising that customzing Razorclaw was very similar to customizing Rampage. The hips were a virtual nightmare to figure out. Heads: I used a knee joint from Armada Blurr to make Razorclaw’s neck. It’s propped up a little high in robot mode but it was necessary to give Predaking’s head more poseability as well. The beast mode head got a new neck from Night Slash Cheetor. In retrospect I suppose it was an odd choice, but I just had to use that Night Slash Cheetor for something kitty related. As for the beast mode head, that was more involved than I had originally intended it to be. A good friend of mine mentioned to me how silly he thought the cute cat head Razorclaw originally had was. After much searching I found that Cybertron Leobreaker had the perfect head. However, he was selling loose for $80+ on ebay. Thankfully my brother got me a molding and casting kit for Christmas. I removed my Cybertron Leobreaker’s lower jaw and then dipped his beast mode face into a measuring cup full of molding compound. The first time was a charm and it became the first part I ever cast. I had to cast the lower jaw twice to get it right, but when it was good enough, I attached a Mini-con hinge joint to it and glued it onto my casted head. I the original beast mode ears to this head to complete it. Arms: The shoulder joints are a combination of Razorclaw’s original shoulder joints and Mini-con balljoints. The elbows and forearms come from Alternators Battle Ravage. I originally wanted to use those forearms for Divebomb since they had such a similar design, but they were too big for him. For Razorclaw though, they give him more firepower and provided an elbow joint that matched almost exactly what I had dreamed up for him. Since I had already used Alt Battle Ravage’s hands on Divebomb, I and to replace them with the only other set of hands I had available; those of Alt Ricochet. I’m not disappointed though as those hands were better to begin with. Legs: For the thighs I used the arm joints from Armada Sideways. It took me several days to come up with a way to make the legs more poseable and still have them extend for the combined mode. The rest of the robot legs were Razorclaw original. I glued as many removed parts back in place as I could to complete the robot mode legs. The beast mode legs were made super-poseable by Mini-con balljoints and the claws were reproduced from the hind feet of Cybertron Snarl.
Nemesis Predaking: I was very pleased at how well the Alternators parts fit the Predacons as well. Battle Ravage's arms fit so well on Razorclaw. I'm so glad my brother pushed me to buy an extra when he went on sale. Redline: Thanks! I never would have imagined he'd look so good. I have to thank my buddy Bitstream for convincing me to give him a new head. If there was a decent hobby shop within 40 miles of here I'd check it out. Towerhobbies.com has a few things listed but they're all metal and the cost is way more than I'd want to pay for a joint I could just pull from a Mini-con. Perhaps you can provide a link or a picture?
Thanks Aurascope! For most of the stuff I work on those joints wouldn't be adequate, but I know I can find some use for them.
Man, I LOVE this custom. Razorclaw is just cool anyways, but you just took the cool up notches. I love the versatility of the weapons. GREAT job man
Really an amazing job on the bot mode but even more amazed at the lion mode!!! So well articulated and given so much life!!!
Thanks peeps! I'm rather pleased that he turned out to be the most fearsome looking of all my Predacon customs.
