I love me some Soundwave. I am fond of the Siege version with his G1 likeness and WFC details and overall quality. The battle damage paint ― not so much. Since Soundwave is one of those evergreen characters which always has a few versions out at retail, I'm not too worried if I mess this one up. There's always another coming down the pipe. I'm new to customizing. So ALL critiques, roasts, feedback, advice, and insight is welcome. WIP conundrum: Deciding how now to finish up some detailing. I intend to do some detailing on the greeblies. The question is how much? I might want to do some dry brushing over the gray-chrome parts? Maybe panel lining on the blue with a slightly different shade of blue? A wash or nuln oil?
Story so far: Thanks to Hobbies by Jose for the inspiration of creating a Smelting Pool to take off the finish and existing paint and splatter. I mixed together 90% isopropyl alcohol (91% solution) and 10% paint thinner. Soaked the painted pieces in it. VERY CAREFUL not to let any clear plastic touch it. The unsightly splatter is really on his legs and back. It was incredibly easy to just wash off the paint after that with toothbrush and soap and water. The splatter on his chest came off incredibly easily with just a toothbrush and alcohol. I did inadvertently scratch up the clear plastic, however, attempting to scratch off the Decepticon symbol. (Which I intend to replace.) I may need to revisit what to do about that. I'm open to suggestions about either smoothing out the scratches, how to paint over the hatch, or otherwise treat it. I only was able to remove the pins for his feet. I attempted to remove other pins, but after fighting with them quite a bit, dunking him in hot water, touching the pins with a soldering iron, I could only budge the pin out a few millimeters. I decided not to even try to do a full disassembly, lest I crack the plastic by fighting harder. I will say that maybe there is something to noticing that the Siege line was maybe a high point of good plastic and quality tolerances which has gone a bit downhill lately. He's put together incredibly solidly. I filled in the gaps on the back of his legs with Bondo. Also, much of the bottom of his feet. I finished off the feet with epoxy resin. The Bondo maybe works better in being easier to sand. But it's a bit gooey and unwieldly. And the smell really bothers me. But the UV Osbang epoxy resin is really great stuff. Very durable. Not as easy to sand and paint as Bondo. Maybe better for filling smaller gaps. I'll be using that for sure on smaller figures and maybe weapons. I tried to put magnets in the feet inside the resin. Or, actually, I did put them in there. But they have barely any hold. May be too weak or floating too far up in the resin. Was an interesting experiment to try. As far as finish goes, I did not get fancy here. No airbrushing. I did not primer much after I removed the paint, but applied the Rustoleum Chrome and Gold one-step rattle-can paint after carefully (hours!!) masking off pieces. I may go into some fancier chrome-metallic looks with SpazStik chrome metals or other color changes on other figures if I can build up some skill. I'm leaving the blue plastic unpainted unless I add highlights. I used this Rustoleum "Colored Chrome" on his gray parts on his forearms, thighs, feet, and other gray. Any areas which I missed or could not get via mask, I touched up with a brush with a thinned mixture of the Tamiya flat black and the Brushed Metal. The thighs/crotch, especially, seem to be a Nylon material and the paint doesn't adhere well. It's easy to flake off. But this black chrome catches the light very nicely. Considering it as maybe an undercoat for more steps. I am intrigued by the results of using rattle-can auto paint. I might try more of this in the future for other projects. I had attempted to create gap covers for his arms. This was ambitious on my part. I attempted to use tiny hinges, such as those used in jewelry. I got them to hold in place with two-part epoxy. After several tries, I found it was impossible to attach the cover plates to the inside of the panel without the glue/epoxy getting into the joints and gumming it up. The gap covers were made from plastic card material. I think this was a mailer for a car wash. I may try again another way. Or just give up on trying to create gap covers this way.
The video entitled "Restoring scratched clear plastics" of Jan Beta in YouTube may help you (sorry, I cannot put a link yet).
Try a thin layer of Future floor polish on both sides of his chest windows. It will fill in the scratches and restore the glass look of the plastic
