| SKYWARP
PROJECT #391 "Treachery is your forte, my dear Skywarp!" Preamble: This project was a gift for my good buddy ViceGripX, who is something of a Skywarp fan. At the time of this writing, only Starscream and Thundercracker are available as part of the Titanium Series line of figures, and while I have every confidence that they'll eventually repaint it into Skywarp (and possibly other Decepticon characters), the official version won't be as cool as this one. I know this because I didn't just repaint the figure; I also made some improvements to the sculpt. I do like the concept of the Titanium Series (it's basically a mass-marketed version of Heroes of Cybertron), but some of the early figure sculpts really do suffer. One of the worst ones is Starscream, which looks like it was based on some strange amalgam of his Sunbow animation model, the Action Masters figure, and the Transformers: Classics toy. Putting the actual details of the sculpt aside, he's in a decidedly awkward pose, like he can't decide whether he's trying to stop traffic or just start shooting at it. Furthermore, the paint jobs for Starscream and Thundercracker seem to be borrowing random color elements from different sources in a way that doesn't do any justice to the already poorly-designed figure. Construction: For Skywarp, I adjusted the pose of his arms by cutting the plastic at the joints (the shoulders, the left elbow, right wrist and right thumb) so that I could repose them and glue them in a more dynamic position. The left arm-mounted gun was actually attached to the back of his arm, so I sliced that off and attached it to the side. Just to mix things up a bit, I also cut off the right arm cannon and reattached it upside-down, which is how Skywarp wears the weapon in his toy packaging portrait and an early Hasbro toy catalog. (It just seems like a Skywarp thing to do, somehow.) For his new color scheme, I stuck predominantly with the colors of his animation model, although the sculpt is so positively toyetic in places that I was sorely tempted to make it look more like the original Hasbro toy. (I figure Galoob will eventually do this with their inevitable repaint, though, so there's no sense in deliberately doing a project that they'll end up duplicating later.) I painted his handheld gun into weapon-mode Megatron, complete with a nearly microscopically-small Decepticon symbol. (Hey, Skywarp got to carry Megatron in "Roll for It," so there's a precedent.) I also repainted the display base, which is necessary to support the figure since its legs are permanently bent and it won't stand on its own. It's supposed to be a rocket thrust coming from the figure's feet (we are conveniently ignoring the fact that his rockets are actually halfway up the back of his legs), but Starscream looks like he's riding a Lakitu cloud and Thundercracker just looks like he's belching dirty smoke out of his boots. For Skywarp, I went with colors inspired by the cartoon, in which Decepticon rocket thrust is typically pinkish and the smoke has an orange tint. Finally, I did some custom packaging for the figure. (I don't do this with every project, obviously, but presentation is important when it comes to the ones I give as gifts.) I scanned in the Thundercracker card art and tweaked the colors to make them match Skywarp. I also modified the back of the package, fixing the line art (they drew Thundercracker's wings upside-down for some daft reason) and writing up a biography for Skywarp. Luckily, there was enough room in the bubble that Skywarp was still able to fit inside the packaging, even with the changes I made to the position of his arms. (Click the picture of the custom packaging to see a close-up of the package elements I designed.) |
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This Page Created 2/1/2007
Last Update: 10/16/2009
©2007 Inspiration Studios
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of Hasbro, Inc.
I'll have the Bacon Skywrap, extra cheese.