Update: this is pic-heavy Beast mode as far as i can tell until i get better images? done i went back at the head and realized aside from the upper lips being none-feline like why it wasn't really working for me, the jawline was widened towards the back, cheetahs have very angled sharp jawlines and this figures beast head did not, i also noticed upon observing the trailer some more Cheetor actually has a small patch of fur at said back of jawline, so i filed the jaw till it looked more cheetah like and added the fur. Also, whiskers. Speaking of fur, i finally added the fur for the ribcage and those little strips of fur for the robot mode shoulder blades, as a bit of a personal touch i made the fur strips meet with the hackles on the back to add a little more cohesion, after that i finished putting the cheetah spots. threw some random poses just for funsies. And now, for that more posable neck! Here's what you need: Hobby or Xacto knife, a small screwdriver or pin-punch, and super glue So how Cheetor's beast neck construction works is really interesting, the head is balljointed to a hinged ball peg that has two tabs that keep it from moving and the ball connector in the head is pinned at the bottom back of the head behind the jaw, however the eyes of the beast head are connected to this by two stalks, so what i've done is knocked the pin holding the ball socket/eyestalks and cut the eyes from the socket and cut away the stalks, gluing the eyes back in place, and then cut the tabs from the neck ball peg and there you have it! a significant amount of head articulation over the stock figure. I also went ahead and cut the tabs to lock the shoulders in so i can raise and lower the neck or move the shoulders so posing looks alot more fluid. "No Cheetor! no more energon goodies for you!" Believe it or not, i'm STILL not done! just have a few more finishing touches i'm working on before i'm willing to call this cat fully complete.
Hi! If you don't mind may need your help to elaborate further, 1. How to get the ball connector part in the head out? 2. For the neck ball peg area, what is roughly the "depth" of the tabs? My apology I'm new to doing this, is there an angle to do the cut? Top down? Or slide the knife in from the slit then cut sideways?
Absolutely! i apologize for not being more descript on how i got everything apart. How i got the ball socket out of the head was carefully removing that last pin at the back of the jaw, not the pin that holds the lower jaw itself but the one behind it, then cut the eyes off (the length of the cut doesnt matter so long as you cut the access remaining eyestalk plastic from the ball socket piece as it will interfere with seating the neck back to a flush position for transformation) For the neck ball peg the tabs are not too deep so you won't break something if you carefully force it upward so you can cut those tabs which is what i did, if you watch Emgo316's YT review on the figure he actually ends up doing that exact thing by accident: However you also could knock that pin holding the ball peg piece as well to gain access to cutting those tabs. carefully slipping the blade into that joint to cut the tabs would work as well if you have a standard Xacto blade. I hope that helps! if you have any further trouble or questions please let me know! Also, here's a couple robot mode shots with the faux fur attached, i really love how it looks here, especially the fur patches on the arms. Update: Literally as i'm writing this post we just got news on the front page of the first theater standee for Rise Of The Beasts, looks like i have alittle more beast mode work to do, i'm starting to think i made this figure significantly inaccurate because i'm not seeing a lot of cheetah spots on certain plating, but then again the cheetah spots on his shoulders are missing here and he definitely has them in the trailer, i'm not really sure what to do about that but i guess i'll have to wait for more clear images of the actual movie model.
Accurate or not. Yours looks great The version in the latest trailer might not be the final render as well as this one. You just need to do some fur styling now. Grab your hair wax
The pin for mine was inserted from the left but it may differ from copy to copy, i would look closely at each side and whatever side of the pin is slightly thicker will be the riveted end so you'll want to knock it out from the opposite side.
You actually grabbed the hair wax But don't go overboard with the fur. Maybe wait until he appears on the big screen.
Mini update: Personal life has gotten in the way of me doing any work on this guy and with a major lack of genuine source material of Cheetor's in-movie CGI model, I'm gonna have to halt any progress for now, but i promise as soon as we get more material to work from I'll start trying to make time to work on it again.
This have to be the best ROTB Cheetor custom out there, I thought about doing the hair, and now that I know it look this good, I have got to try it, truely amazing job bro
that it does. I had thought about sculpting the extra fur initially, but due to the way the torso transformation works sculpted hackles wouldn't allow the back/beast neck to fold into the body because there's no clearance, whereas with faux fur glued to the plastic can just be reshapen between transformations, plus imho i kind of really dig how it looks.
Oh it undoubtedly looks amazing - I just worry about the longevity, but it could very well be an inferior option to your solution. Is there no way to sculpt something solid that could fit?
Someone with far more talent than me might be able to make sculpted hackles fit, but i tried and quickly realized the clearance issues i mentioned before would make it impossible, if you look at this image it shows the front and back panels of the torso that open to fold/unfold robot or beast heads for transformation, that central bar at the top of the torso which is necessary for stability ever so slightly gives just enough clearance for the beast neck to fit through with the faux fur to compress into the torso, the sculpted hackles i tried at first wouldn't clear that small gap and broke right off. on another note, cheetor's chestplate for some reason is a seperately sculpted piece that's screwed in? while that's nice i feel it could have been made one hollowed out piece so the cheetah ears could be sculpted in a more neutral position instead of bent back.
On my copies the ears don't have enough clearance to go smoothly through the torso frame for bot mode. Is it the same for yours? Or did you remove material? Because otherwise you'd get paint scratches on the ears. Maybe you could remove it and just glue the necessary parts together!? Leave a frame for it to glue on (red marking in pictures) and make sure the parts marked with green are still there.
I really like the real fur look, more than I my sculpt test, but i am also worrying about the longevity of the fur.....
I think both approaches are great, especially seeing them realized - so it's down to preference now. Obviously the fur looks most accurate - but the sculpted fauxhawk might be more durable. Either way, you can't really go wrong. Art doesn't always last forever - which is why it needs to be appreciated whenever we can. I read about an entire room sculpted from giant amber plates that was lost to time - but apparently it was breath-taking. Thank you both for your work - you did the maximal proud.
