I've wanted a Cybertron Blaster every since we got Soundwave, and saw a wonderful custom one from Livedoor (a japanese customs website). I did make a little Legends one myself, but never got around to making a voyager one until Hasbro was kind enough to issue their repaint in the Universe/Classics 2.0 line. I gave him a new head, tweaked his paint job, and was satisfied with him, except for his repainted Laserbeak. I wanted him to have a proper Autobot minion, so after some brainstorming, realized just how easy it would be to modify him into a Gurafi(a dinocassette from G1 that never got released in the United States). It was so easy, I figured others would want to emulate this, so I've compiled this handy guide for you. I hope you enjoy it!


First, here's a picture of the toy completely unmodified:





First thing, look at the bird's tail. See how it is simply mounted on by a pin that goes through 2 holes in the tail itself, and one hole on the foldable back piece? cut this part off by simply cutting the one hole on the underside of the back piece, right where the red line is in the following image:




If you cut it correctly, you'll have this piece to put away:




The second step is to cut off the 4 foldable little wing tip pieces, right where the 4 red lines (I didn't use red lines on purpose  ) are in this next picture:




What you're doing here is cutting those parts off right flush with the edges of the wings. Best way to do this is to have them sticking straight out parallel to the wing parts. We're cutting these this way because if you simply removed the whole tip, you'd have all these cut-outs in the main wings (you can see how if you look at the painted engine nocels in the middle). Doing this properly nets you these four pieces (DO NOT THROW THESE AWAY!!!!!!!):




We're almost there! You now have a torso and wings that look much more like those of a dinosaur. All we need to do now is modify the head.

The third step is to start making cuts on the head. There are 3 cuts to make. The first cut is to cut along the bottom of the head so that you're removing the down-angled beak tip, and also tapering the head vertically. Simply follow the red line as illustrated below:




The next two cuts are on the sides of the head. Following the red lines in the next photograph, you'll cut from the front of the head starting where the beak tip used to be, and angling outward ever so slightly to a point just a little ways outside of the neck, and doing this on both sides, one mirroring the other. Like so:




If you make these cuts properly, you'll end up with two pieces that look like this:




The head should now look like this from below:




Ok, remember those 4 little wing tip pieces that I told you not to throw away during step 2? You need to grab one of those now. Take it and match it up against the back of the head (technically it's the neck piece) and you'll notice how it will make the head look like a dinosaur's head fin, but as it is, the angle will be off and it will stick WAY up. Simply hold it slightly off to the side so you can over-lap the two parts so you can see what the new angle of the piece needs to be, and draw yourself a line with pen or pencil, and shave off the end of the wingtip along your line. Here's a picture of the wingtip and also the tiny piece I shaved off to fix the angle so it'll sit on the head better:






Now dab some epoxy/glue/plastic cement on the side of the wingtip that you're attaching to the head and glue it on. Make sure while it is setting that you're holding it so that it is squared away with the head, and not angling off to either side, and that it is properly flush with the surface. A nice bonus is the molding of the wingtip adds some nice detailing to your new head!




Last step, it's actually optional, but if you're going to go, go all-out, I say! Take a blade or a scratch-awl, or a panel scribe and draw yourself a mouth down the sides of the front of the newly shaped head, including from the front if you wish, and you can even scratch in some eyes. I did this, as I think the 3D-ness of doing so GREATLY enhances your simply paint aps (just the eyes) so that this will look more like a "real" toy instead of a custom piece.

You can see here that these modifications will not hurt the toy's transformation at all, and if you set it inside the chest door of Blaster so that the head fin is on the back side/bottom, it will still close all the way without any trouble.




This next image shows you how the new wings, head, and tail areas look:




At this point, you are completely finished modifying this toy, so congratulations! To finalize the piece, take a good really high-grit sandpaper and smooth off the areas you had to cut. This means the four spots on the wings, where the tail used to be, and the sides and bottom of the head. After you get these areas good and smooth, you might need to revisit your detailing you added to the head, but if so, that's a quick and easy touch-up. Now all you need to do is paint! And THAT is easy, as the red is the proper color for Gurafi, so you merely need to add a few details. I painted the backs of the outer wingtips silver to homage the original's add-on weapons that went there and were chromed. I also painted the eyes gold as an homage, and lastly, I went ahead and painted the gun tips on the chest silver to make them more visible and finished it all off by painting the "engines" in the wings a flat black on the bottom/front of the wings just like they're factory painted on the back/top of the wings, simply to make him look more polished. Here's some final images of the completed project: