I got Perceptor in a trade and I wasn't sure how much I would like him, after reading some not-so-great reviews and opinions. Once I got him in hand, honestly I thought he was a pretty alright figure, all in all. That said, there are a few things that could be improved upon.

To that end, I've made a small list of changes that I think I'm capable of making to him and I'm excited to test my hand at my first, true TF customizing attempt. I'll use this thread to post changes as I make them.

To kick things off, here are a couple of pictures of Percy's new face. Done in Molotow Liquid Chrome, with very shaky hands.

 

Nice, he's an OK figure. But you can tell he was an afterthought. My main issue is that he's just too big.

 

I would like him to be a bit shorter, but playing with perspective on the shelf, it's not too bad. He'll stand closest to HS Optimus, which doesn't look as off to me as I have seen him with other figures. HS Soundwave is on a completely different shelf, so I don't have their weird height difference staring me in the face all the time.

I just wish they'd taken the time to pick out some of the details on the sculpt. That white face was killing me, though. I had to fix that immediately.

 

So, I had to order some new paint for this project and, while waiting for those to arrive and for the chrome on Percy's face to cure, I decided to move on to another piece of the figure that I wanted to improve upon.

The original plan was to dremel out the inside of the chest plate and insert a clear plastic window. As I thought more about it, I started to realize that I probably don't possess the skill set or the proper tools to do this correctly. I also don't own a 3D printer, so if I hosed it up and broke the thing, I'd have no way of replacing the part without purchasing another copy of the figure. So, with that in mind, I started brainstorming other methods of making it look better.

Now, I plan to paint the inner gray panel red and, possibly, add some detailing, like circuit-like lines, maybe a little chrome. Then, I want to apply an Autobot symbol and fit a piece of clear plastic over top. I think this would at least give the impression of a window. Here is a bit of a rough draft.



Because of my shaky hands, I had to enlist my lovely wife to do the cutting. This was the first attempt, which we're going to do a second run at.



The good news is that it fits perfectly against the inner panel, even over the insignia.



It's just that bottom cut that throws it off a little. To be fair, this was a freehand cut. A straight-edge will be used for Window 2.0.

 

I decided to go with blue for Percy's chest plate, but I've run into a bit of a problem with my acrylic marker. I did an initial coat and let it dry for a couple of days, but when applying the second coat, I kept getting a small area that looked really smudged, like it was smearing the original coat. It doesn't look like this anywhere else, so I'm not sure what is happening. I think it may have to do with the texture of the gray paint that was originally there.

You can see below, I tried to clean it up with a soft bristled brush. It looks better than it did, but it's still not great. I'm going to let this coat dry and go over it again. If it doesn't cleanup on its own, I may see what I can do about thinning it and trying again.

First coat:


Second coat, after brushing over it:


My new markers should be here tomorrow, along with a really fine-tipped liner marker that I'm excited to use. Stay tuned for further updates!

 

that little guy looks great and i like the changes. well done so far.

 

Well, the metallic blue acrylic has refused to cooperate. It just doesn't dry very consistently and the finish never really smoothed out, no matter how many coats I tried. So, I cleaned it up and have started over with red. Here's a pic of the first coat.



It honestly already looks better than the blue ever did, as far as finish goes. It obviously needs a few more coats, in order to cover the original grey that was there. My biggest issue with these Molotow acrylics (other than the chrome), is that they take SO LONG to dry to a point that you can work with them again.

 

Still looking a little rough, but it's smoother than the metallic blue. This is coat number three, just using the pen tip of the acrylic marker. I am going to do a couple more coats this way and then, I am thinking of pouring some of the paint from the pen into a well and thinning it with a bit of water before I apply it in a larger amount at one time. Hopefully this will help get rid of the "brush strokes" from the pen.

 

Maybe try first coating it in a few thin coats of primer? I don't customize often so don't take my advice too seriously, just a thought haha. Otherwise I like the red on there quite a bit!!

 

I definitely should have primed first. The reason I didn't was that the grey paint that I thought the grey paint that was already on the chest plate was textured enough that it would hold the acrylic without issue. Unfortunately, it stands out behind it pretty obviously.

If all else fails, I can go back and remove the red, like I did the blue, and use a good primer before trying again. I've considered taking a Dremel to it and sanding that grey paint off, as well.

 

A couple of updates today! The first is on the most recent coat of red on the chest plate. It's a bit messy, but it seems a lot smoother than what I was getting from the metallic blue. I'm still pretty happy with it, and I intend to do a couple more coats, before I do the final cleanup and start working on the insignia and the clear plastic cover.



Next is his optics/cannon/microscope. This should have been a lot easier than it was, but I'm really not great at painting tiny details, so there was a LOT of cleanup to do. I added some black to either end, just to make it stand out from its original, pretty bland appearance. And it's difficult to tell in the pictures, but I colored the very end of the scope with liquid chrome. Overall, I'm happy with the way this turned out. It was a nice, quick little project that I knocked out in a couple hours and it makes a big difference for me.

 

OK, so not 100% complete, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to attach the clear window to his chest plate. I've just decided to hold off on that for now.

So far, the face was disassembled and painted with Molotow chrome pen and the eyes were coated in the Molotow metallic blue pen. I took the ocular/cannon apart and detailed in black and Molotow chrome. The gray in the chest panel was sanded, then painted with the Molotow traffic red pen.

It's definitely not perfect, but I feel like the details help him stand out, especially when on the shelf with my factory-made bots.





I wish the red on the chest was a little cleaner. As it dries, it seems to wrinkle and crack. I've tried watering it down and doing multiple coats and maybe I'm not patient enough to do it properly.