[CUSTOM] ROTF Sideways

[Cliffjumper]

Oh yes. Kitbash fail and photography fail all in one bundle.

[Click for maximum bigger!]

Nah, despite the nuclear lighting making the few tiny bits I missed around the roof show up a lot more than they do on the shelf, I'm chuffed with the bugger as a first go. My original plan was just to do the black stripe on the car mode, so it's ironic that I much prefer the metalled-up robot mode. A few bugbears - big brush marks on the black, and the Sideways I ended up with was incredibly loose for a toy that can only be six months or so old (though the paint actually sorted most of that out). And the rear section is a totally different silver to the rest. He needs some gloss or something on the car mode black to gel with the shiny plastic, and Reprolabels to pull their finger out for the details I'm not even going to attempt.

Best bit, though, was that I really rather enjoyed the whole process, and am looking for a cheap Jolt to metal up next

[Savannahtron]

Not bad, though I thought those would be kind of cool doing a repaint like the Insecticons, the wings would look a lot like Kickback.

One of the things I notice with most of the kitbash/customizers is that they use mostly a matte style of paint, adding multiple layers. Silver/gold/pewter paint adds some of that mechanical dimension that the toy mold offers, but often is lost due to use of one color plastic. I like your kitbash.

Hell, if you don't like it, you can always tweak it until you are either done with it or satisfied with the turnout.

[Cliffjumper]

Yeh, the way I look at this one is that the Sideways was basically free (in a job lot with Ravage, and I was happy to pay the price for him alone) and I've learnt a few lessons on him. I like the basic colour scheme, so if I do get any good at this I can always buy a minty fresh Sideways to do properly.

Couldn't get the hang of watering down paints for multiple layers. Not sure if I'm going to be doing too many jobs of this sort of magnitude - I'm low on imagination, and if Sideways had been closer to his screen colour scheme I probably wouldn't have bothered. I'm more likely to be adding similar silver/metal tones to some figures that lacked them rather than coming up with my own creations.

[Savannahtron]

Those guys also use an airbrush, which I was never really willing to buy. I like your kitbash, looks pretty good imo.

I used to paint those plaster Christmas ornaments, and what I would do is start with my darkest layers first, like a wash of black or dark grey paint, then I would take the brush and wipe as much off as I could, to where it was almost dry, then I would cover the raised portions, giving the figurine depth. Another thing I liked was this glaze I would put on the top of it that gave it a cracked antique look.

I used to spend a lot of time painting them, and not sure if you remember back in the day when I posted my kitbashes on here, but I would always use a double, or take a figure that I got on the cheap and repaint it. One of the big differences with the customizers do is they alter the figure by using joints, hands, weapons, combining other figures together etc.

http://www.procustomizers.com is a popular site, and you can get a lot of tips on there without being a "Pro Customizer". You have to register before you can read anything and then the pro forum is locked, but still, kind of neat.

[Pun-3X]

Hey! Not a bad first go at all! Interesting about the off-colored back end. Was that a part-swap by the owner, (they released two silver tones for Sideways for some odd reason) or a repaint mismatch?

The bot-mode stuff looks great. I still never got why they released him with all that red. Even in the two-pack, they could have remolded those parts gray or black even. So for me, any improvement in that aspect is spectacularly better.

A gloss coat on the black car parts would definitely help. But I don't know if the Reprolables set is going to have full hood/roof black stickers to go with the stripes or not. In any case, good luck on the next one.

[Ackula]

Looks good to me mate, a more steady hand than I have indeed. I like the choice of colors, I'd want to buy that figure if it looked like that in stores actually...