Like a lot of others, I really like the Year of the Horse Optimus Prime deco except for the gold plating. So I repainted the grille, replated the mufflers, bumper, and tanks with Bare Metal Foil, and replaced the exhaust pipes with metal tubing. I also removed the symbol on his right shoulder, and used a Reprolabels symbol on his left shoulder. Lastly, I wanted to upgrade his Ion Blaster, so I scratchbuilt one from styrene and painted it dark gray with red & black details.

 

Wow, the new chrome parts look great. I will have to look into "bare metal foil".

 

This looks great, I've been considering this for a while...... did you dismantle it first?

 

Thanks! The only disassembly I did was the shoulders, so I could get to the exhausts. Everything else was done by shifting the parts around on their transformation joints.