Paints, Repaints and Kitbashes, Oh My!
PVCs, HoC, Attacktix, etc.
Last Updated 5/5/18
Page restored.
This page covers repaints and kitbashes of Transformers 'statue' type toys, such as the Japanese ACT series of PVCs, their import as Heroes of Cybertron PVCs, Robot Heroes, the Attacktix game pieces, and other stuff that has some poseability but is not actually an action figure (those go on the Actionmasters page).
Misc PVCs
SCF and Heroes of Cybertron figures, Titanium 3", Robot Heroes, etc.
ARCEE dressed as RODIMUS PRIME    This is a repainted Heroes of Cybertron figure with forearm "exhaust blasters" added. Made for a Halloween costume art contest at the AllSpark.com.
JUSTICE LEAGUE
of
AUTOBOTS		    More repainted Heroes of Cybertron and SCF figures, with some physical mods, as the Justice League! And now, they have opponents as well....
TITANIUM
T-WRECKS		    3" Titanium BW Megatron modded into his recolor, T-Wrecks. I added the head wings with thin Styrene sheet. I also had to glue the left arm in position and the dino head open to avoid paint scraping issues. Done as a commission. March 2007.
TITANIUM
"MOVIE"
ULTRA MAGNUS		    3" Titanium Movie Optimus Prime modded into my view of an Ultra Magnus, using stripes instead of flames. Done just before I saw Nightwatch Prime, the Magnus-like recolor of the Leader class toy. July 2007.
ROBOT HEROES
CHANNEL		    A Robot Heroes movie-style Autobot Ratchet modded a little bit and repainted as a movie version of my recurring fan character Channel (see TF MUSH Gallery for more of him). October 2007.
ROBOT HEROES
GALVATRON		    The first RH Megatron I bought was defective, missing the back piece. When I finally found a replacement, I decided to turn the backless one into something else. Used a Mechwarrior Rotary AC/5 and a bit of a She-Spawn sword to make him like a movie-ish G1 Galvatron. October 2007.
TANNENBOMB    An old Mechwarrior clicky figure heavily modified into a Christmas Tree Decepticon. MUAHAHAHA! Done for the December 2007 AllSpark Art Challenge.
ROBOT HEROES
DR PEPPER
DISPENSOR		    I don't drink Mountain Dew, but I do drink Dr Pepper. So I made a Robot Heroes Dispensor over into a heroic Autobot version made from a Dr Pepper machine. Comparison to original. May 2008.
REPOSED
ROBOT HEROES
IRONHIDE		    Another "tag-along" project, I had a spare "duck and roll" Ironhide, so I decided to make it a charging Ironhide. May 2008.
CHIBI CARS
TRIBARREL		    Tribarrel is my car, which can be found in my TF Fan Gallery. This is a Cars toy modded into a chibi version of Tribarrel's vehicle mode. It's not an exact fit (Tribarrel is a four-door wagon, not a coupe, and the exhaust is on the other side), but close enough. Unpainted version. May 2008.
ROBOT HEROES
SLAG		    Snarl is the official name of the toy, and it has a number of deficiencies in color, which I have attempted to correct. I didn't want to make it significantly mode detailed than the average Robot Hero, though. December 2008.
GROWN-UP
ALEXIS		    Maya from the Evangelion "Portait Collection" with new hair and eye color, as Armada's Alexis in her college years. Starscream's head taken from a Mechwarrior project, just pegged into a hole I drilled in the purse. January 2010.
CHIBI
CHANNEL
2014		    A blindbag Ratchet chibi figure bought at Target in 2014, resculpted and painted into Channel. July 2014.
TINY TITANS
SOUNDWAVE		  nbsp;nbsp;For a while I had this idea that I'd paint up the Tiny Titans figures like had done with decoys, but after doing this detailed paint job on Soundwave, I decided they weren't really worth the hassle, due to low-detail molding and lots of lazy bits. April 2016.
My Little Pony Transformers

The "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" show is surprisingly good, and got my interested in the ponies. And for me, that means horrifying people by merging ponies with Transformers, of course. I also did a Grimlock pony several years earlier, I've added that to this section.

GRIMLOCK     This one came out of the fact that Mustang enthusiasts sometimes call their cars "my little pony" and there's some small crossover fandom between the two things. With Grimlock getting a Mustang altmode in Alternators, I couldn't resist the joke that the early prototypes got the wrong sort of pony. Dollar store pony painted entirely with paint markers.
MACH KICK     Mach Kick actually does turn into a horse, and I had the idea that due to his courier duties he might end up on a mission to Equestria, finding the results horrifying. I later got another dollar store pony, dyed it black and ran ink through the un-dyeable hair to make the basis for a toy. December 2010.
TF:A BUMBLEBEE     I got a couple of Ponyville (smaller ponies with molded hair rather than strands) figures and initially considered merging them with the heads of some spare capsule figure TF:Animated toys I had, but the head sizes were too far off. So I sculpted helmets after removing the hair (easy enough to do, the base figures were part of a 'swap hairstyles' gimmick line, so the hair was removable). December 2010.
TF:A MEGATRON     Same batch as Bumblebee. The main difference is that I stole the cannon from the Megatron capsule figure rather than scratchbuilding one. I considered swapping in the backpack as well, but ended up leaving the pegasus wings. December 2010.
CHANNEL     A pony version of my fan character Channel was kinda inevitable, eh? I initially tried dyeing a Scootaloo red, but while the base plastic of Ponyville toys takes dye very well, the glue used to assemble them fills in the pores or whatever, so those parts wouldn't dye, and I had to paint anyway. December 2010.
STAR SABER     Another Starsong Ponyville figure, same assortment, built into Star Saber for the January 2011 AllSpark Art Challenge. It was the only entry, so it won, ah well.
Keychain Chibis

In 2010, Transformers Animated hit Japan, and one of the side products was a bunch of 100¥ vending machine figures, chibi versions of various characters. Getting a complete set required getting a fair number of duplicates, so of course I decided to do something with them.

CHANNEL     My first shot at modifying one of the keychains, working from Ratchet (appropriate, given that my earlier design for TF:A Channel was basically taken from TF:A Ratchet's protoform). I removed a lot of bits and resculpted the face with a Dremel, but the soft plastic didn't lend itself well to sharp lines, so it ended up a bit lumpy. August 2010.
SEDAN     I got a LOT of extra Bumblebees, but I also got the AllSpark Almanac II with all its reference art for the various background characters who used Bumblebee's protoform. Sedan is based on a Brazilian redeco of Bumper, the G1 Mini-Bot that was alternately sold as Bumblebee or Cliffjumper. I didn't dismantle this figure at all, I just reshaped the head a bit and then added to it. Since the head details precluded keeping it as a keychain, I built a base for it. The face came out a little lumpier than I'd like, due to improperly mixing the putty. August 2010.
GLYPH     Glyph is a convention-exclusive redeco of Cliffjumper, and the TF:A version ran with that, pairing her with her convention-mate Tap-Out. This one I took apart before reshaping, which let me do a LOT more to modify the head. I started it after I started Wasp, but finished it first. In retrospect, I should've scooped out the entire face and rebuilt it from putty so it would be smoother. August 2010.
WASP     I thought this would be an easy mod, given that Wasp disguised himself as Bumblebee at one point. Ha! The head required a LOT of reshaping, as you can see in the WIP shot. For this one, I popped off the head but left the rest of the toy in one piece while painting. I shaved a bit off the forearm armor just to set the figure apart from Bumblebee a little more. August 2010.
CARRERA     Another Brazilian redeco, this time of Cliffjumper. Another total disassembly, and I learned from Glyph here. I pretty much just used the core of the original head and built everything up around it so that I could make the lines sharper. This did lead to a rather long neck, but it fit the character reasonably well. I probably won't do the third Brazilian Mini-Bot, and will save my one remaining spare Bumblebee for later inspiration. August 2010.
BATPROWL     The September 2010 AllSpark Art Challenge was to do a "Crossovers" Transformer that hadn't been done. I had a spare Prowl chibi and a junker JLU Batman in by parts bin, so inspiration followed from there. I could have put the keychain eyehook into the Batman head, but decided instead to make a display base from a GIJoe figure base and a bit of clear rod. September 2010.
Attacktix

Click-based game figures that shoot missiles and have spring loaded melee attacks. Many of the figures are only available in blind-packed boosters, meaning I get a lot of extras of some of the more common figures, extras I may occasionally paint.

Stovetop Wars!
A battle scene on my stove using a bunch of the figures seen below. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

MINI-CON
REPAINTS		     TF01 "Mini-Con" is essentially Skyboom from the Energon Saber team, itself a remold of Sonar of the Star Saber team.

  • Ramjet: Skyboom was recolored as part of the Mini-Con two-packs in Cybertron.
  • Nothing else yet, although I may carve a Mini-Con down to make Sonar.
OMNICON
REPAINTS 		    Repaints of the Trooper-level Omnicon figure TF02, which is based on the Signal Flare mold from Energon, but "Romita-ized" and warped a bit.
  • Signal Flare: This is a "color-unified" version. The Signal Flare toy had blue arms, while the Offshoot toy had green arms. So I swapped the arms on my two toys to create a more unified color scheme for each. This paint job starts from that basis, but also tweaks a few other colors here and there as well. Autobot symbol is a reprolabel.com creation.
  • Offshoot: Also color-unified, and I changed some of the dark brown to indigo. Also, I used a matte gold color rather than metallic, to go with a more cartoon-ish color scheme. Also has a reprolabel Autobot symbol.
  • Channel: One of my recurring fan characters (drawings here), made from an extensively modded Omnicon (unpainted, after mods). The character doesn't have a big gun, so I figure he tinkered that one together.
DECEPTICLONE
REPAINTS		     TF03 Decepticlone is based on the Light Unit from the PS2 Transformers computer game.

  • None yet. Don't have any spares I want to mess with, but I probably will eventually.
INSECTICON
REPAINTS		     TF04 Insecticon is based on the Terrorcon from Energon.

  • Bombshell: The G1 Insecticon beetle mapped fairly closely onto Insecticon. No physical mods, although I did consider adding insect legs on the arms.
RODIMUS
REPAINTS		     TF05 Rodimus is from Energon.

  • Motormaster: Reshaped the head a bit to better resemble Motormaster's toy, this paint scheme is inspired by the G1 Stunticon leader.
  • Shockwave Rodimus: The Energon Rodimus's vehicle mode is based on a real jet truck, which has a webpage here. I used putty to fill in the hollow left forearm so that the rear spoiler piece would be clearer. Trying out a new light source, hence the yellow tinge.
  • Mainframe: One of the characters who exists only as an Actionmaster, Mainframe required a LOT of putty and styrene to build, as can be seen in this work in progress shot. The head can't turn, but that's the only joint I had to sacrifice.
  • Dr Pepper Rodimus: A simple repaint (although I sanded down the chest flames) inspired by Pepsi Optimus Prime.
BATTLE
RAVAGE
REPAINTS		     TF06 Battle Ravage is another Terrorcon from Energon. The colors are a bit off, though.

  • Toy-Accurate Colors: Repainted to look more like the toy.
  • Command Ravage: In the toys, this was supposed to be a slightly smarter Terrorcon variant that could lead bunches of mindless Battle Ravage units. In the cartoon, it was just a color variant to distinguish the two factions the Terrorcons got split into.
OTHER TF
REPAINTS		     Repaints and possible resculpts of the rarer figures.

  • Scourge: TF07 Scourge repainted with inspiration from the Robots in Disguise Scourge (the scheme that became the Nemesis signature later on). The metallic teal is a mix I made for a chibi dancing Scourge kitbash.
  • Sunstorm: TF08 Cybertron Starscream repainted as the twinked out repaint Sunstorm (who only exists as repaints so far).
  • Big Daddy: TF10 Excellion kitbashed into what amounts to a Cybertron-style Big Daddy (a Micromaster muscle car). I shifted around some of the backpack bits, removed the helmet antennae, and added 50s style tailfins on the boots. The original Big Daddy was just orange and black plastic with red and silver paint, I decided to add dolphin gray on the torso, arms and toes, plus charcoal gray tires. I know the eyes are uneven, I decided I liked the squinty look it gave him.
  • Alpha Trion: As soon as Vector Prime was introduced, people started drawing parallels with Alpha Trion, a non-toy, non-transforming toy from the G1 cartoon. I took a spare TF11 figure and the Alpha Trion entry from Dreamwave's "More Than Meets The Eye" series, and made this. The wings are made from styrene sheet (if I were to repaint a spare VP toy as Alpha Trion, I'd just use the existing wings, but those were shrunken almost out of existence on the Attacktix figure). Somehow, due to a tiny slip of the paintbrush on the face, he looks grumpy.
  • Vector Prime with Sword: I removed the weapon from a Vector Prime and made him a sword from a weapon that came with some dollar store knockoff (I often ditch the crappy figures and keep their weapons). Then I painted it up to resemble my touched up version of the real toy, using metal leaf markers.
  • Upgraded Vector Prime: I decided to take the gun removed from the above project and tack it onto the left arm of another VP. Casting about for color scheme inspiration, I decided to use the look that Upgrade from Ben10 gives to machines he merges with. I can just hear Vector Prime indignantly saying, "Young man, what ARE you doing to me?" In addition to the extra gun, I used a disc of sheet plastic to flatten the chest dish and make it into the signature eye that Upgrade exhibits (the Omnitrix node generally does not appear on merged items, just on Upgrade himself).
  • Landmine dressed as Longrack: TF12 Landmine "dressed up" as BW Neo character Longrack, for another AllSpark Halloween costume contest (see Rodimus Arcee in the PVCs section above). I cut up a cheap giraffe toy from an 88 cent bag of "Jungle Animals" I got at Wal-Mart and glued bits of it to the figure, then painted. I tried to mix the two color schemes, to emphasize that this was a costume and not actually Longrack. I fixed some of the original paint job's weirdness along the way.
  • G1-ish Scorponok: TF15 Energon Scorponok repainted in a color scheme based the original Scorponok Headmaster. Lack of shading is deliberate, it's an unsubtle color scheme.
  • Galvatron (vehicle): TF17 Megatron (vehicle) repainted as Galvatron. I don't own a Galvatron, so I had to work from photo reference, so there's probably an error or two. Also, the mold makes the lighter colored parts smaller, so it looks darker overall.
  • Devastator: TF24 Omega Supreme with modified left arm and head, as Devastator. Started as a joke about how Hasbro would cheap out on series 2 Megas and just recolor an Omega as Devastator. Then someone did one, and when I found a $4 clearanced Omega Supreme I had to go a little farther with mine. The crane is from a TMNT Micromachines set, the left arm from a $1 pseudo-Optimus Prime.
  • Optimus Primal: TF25 Crumplezone with head altered to make it the BotCon 2006 pre-Beast Optimus Primal. The head mods are a bit crude, but there's not a whole lot I can do with a 5mm-wide head made of soft plastic. :) The Sacrifice power is left alone, as it's fitting for a young leader who's already inspiring enough loyalty that troops will take a bullet for him unbidden. And the Captain rank is also appropriate to this stage in his career.
  • Pretender Stranglehold: M14 Venom extensively modified into the Pretender shell of Decepticon Stranglehold. I made some deliberate departures from the official design (like making him bald) and some accidental due to not having one of my own to check closely for reference. Now has Recruit (Decepticon). Maybe someday I'll bash a Rodimus into the inner robot or something. Unpainted Work-in-Progress.
GO-BOTS SCULPTS    Sculpts, generally from Star Wars Troopers, of various Go-Bots (Machine Robo, not the Playskool-style Transformers).

  • Pathfinder: The only Go-Bot I bought when they first came out, I was amused to find she was also one of the few canonical females. A rather butch one, at that. This was built from a Clone Trooper and a lot of Apoxie Sculpt modeling compound, plus some styrene sheets and rods. Work In Progress showing the pieces more clearly.
  • Scooter: Having done Pathfinder, I felt like making another Go-Bot, and I happened to have Scooter around, so I made him. I initially planned to cut up wheels from a toy motorcycle for the back, but ended up scratchbuilding hte wheels from styrene plank. This one used Apoxie Clay, which I like better than Apoxie Sculpt. Work In Progress.
  • Smallfoot: Another canonical female, a much more femme one, but who turns into a pickup truck. Heh. This one was done up for an AllSpark Art Challenge, using an AT-ST Driver figure as the base, plus loads of Apoxie Clay, styrene bits, and even pieces of a cheap die-cast pickup truck.
  • Spoons: My first Renegade, he turns into a forklift. Used a Biker Scout as the base, which meant I couldn't swap out the gun (it's integrated into the arm), although I did design a proof of concept prodder from a pistol. Lots of Apoxie Clay and styrene again, and wheels from a Matchbox offroad vehicle. This is the first one where I decided to make a set of Go-Bot faction symbols (red G for Renegades, blue for Guardians), and added them back to the previous works.
  • Crasher: Built from a Clone Trooper with the left foot replaced by Dirt Boss's launcher, and using DB's base as well. I initially went for a more toy-accurate color scheme and also had some bad reference pics for the head, I later fixed it after deciding the silver didn't work.
    • Pic 1 (original color scheme)
    • Pic 2 (original color scheme)
    • Pic 3 (fixed color scheme)
    • Work-in-Progress pictures: I documented this one a bit more heavily.
  • Fitor: I did both vehicle and robot modes here. The vehicle mode is made from Transformers Skyblast (vehicle), while the robot mode is heavily modified from Chewbacca (S4 starter).
  • Blaster: No, not the red and yellow tape deck Autobot. Gobots had the name first, for a missile truck. At this point, it hardly even matters what my base figure was, since I mangle them so much. :) This time I covered the thighs in Apoxie Clay rather than trying to smooth out the soft plastic.
MISC    Miscellaneous: Not Transformers, Go-Bots or ASH, but stuff I wanted to show off somewhere and haven't done enough of to merit a subsection.
  • AT-RT Noseart: Not a TF, but I had it around. Some nose art for an AT-RT.
  • MegaMan: A leftover base, a dollar store MegaMan figure, and a missile launcher from a JLU Hawkwoman figure hacked together into MegaMan.
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