Who's a TF toy kitbasher/customizer & who isn't?

[Tigermegatron]

Who's a TF toy kitbasher/customizer & who isn't?

It doesn't matter what skill level you are.

Please feel free to share your story & explain what level of a kitbasher/customizer you are.

I'm just curious to know if others make slight or medium or high modifications on their TF toys. to make them slightly or more better.

For the most part I consider myself a low level TF toy customizert/kitbasher.

I often use RIT color dye to change the color of some of my TF toys. my most successful color to use is black. I also had success with dark red & dark orange.

Sometimes but very rarely I'll go to a hobby store & buy some some paint,brushes & make minor paint applications to my TF toys.

I've never done any remoldeing & fixed broken parts. I simply don't have this kind of skill.

Sometimes when hasbro releases various recolors based off a singulat mold. i'll use a screw driver & swap parts between the same mold. to get a really decent looking unique desired color scheme.

A few meager times I used crazy glue to add a extra layers to loose joints. to make them tighter.

I use to buy those paint markers but since they weren't permanet & were always sticky & never dried. I switched over to hobby paint & brushes instead.

[Gomess]

When I was a kid I'd apply all the stickers to my TFs and then tear them all off because I had an obsession with the concept of "smoothness". That's about the extent of my kitbashing ability.

[andersonh1]

I've only attempted two customizations.

The first was Fox Kids Rhinox, which was a grey rhino with red robot. Since the figure was brown with green, I tried painting him, but was never happy with the result. Since ball joints tend to wear paint off rather quickly, he had red blotches here and there. Epic fail.

The other custom I actually liked was insipred by some Transformers knockoff I saw in CVS. This was some big tank robot with a fairly simple transformation, but it had G1 Sunstreaker's face. So I bought it and painted it in Sunstreaker's colors. I even went so far as to download an image of Sunstreaker's sticker sheet and recreate it in Illustrator so tank Sunstreaker would have lambo Sunstreaker's details. Turned out pretty well, all things considered. I'll dig it out and post some pictures at some point.

[Tigermegatron]

I've only attempted two customizations.

The first was Fox Kids Rhinox, which was a grey rhino with red robot. Since the figure was brown with green, I tried painting him, but was never happy with the result. Since ball joints tend to wear paint off rather quickly, he had red blotches here and there. Epic fail.

The other custom I actually liked was insipred by some Transformers knockoff I saw in CVS. This was some big tank robot with a fairly simple transformation, but it had G1 Sunstreaker's face. So I bought it and painted it in Sunstreaker's colors. I even went so far as to download an image of Sunstreaker's sticker sheet and recreate it in Illustrator so tank Sunstreaker would have lambo Sunstreaker's details. Turned out pretty well, all things considered. I'll dig it out and post some pictures at some point.

I've had a bunch of failed attempts myself.

like letting boiling the water filled of Rit color dye too long & too hott with the pastic parts inside the mixture. resulting in the pastic getting all melted & warped plastic. sometimes it takes time to master a skill & the learning process.

[Sparky Prime]

I've painted a few of my Transformers. Mostly just some paint applications that Hasbro didn't do or trying to make it a bit more accurate to the shows/movies.

[138 Scourge]

I've made, like, three or four customs. The only ones that were half-successful were my Grimlock and Armada Rumble (outta Leader-1). I did okay with a custom of Armada Megatron that was meant to be WW Megatron before just becoming a sort of half-assed G1-inspired paintjob. Then I had a couple that just turned out really badly, and I haven't had the wherewithal to give it another shot. I've had a couple ideas since, but I know full well I won't get around to 'em.

[Onslaught Six]

I'm doing some minor GI Joe work lately. Very minor. In fact, I think I'm pretty much done.

[Tigermegatron]

I've made, like, three or four customs. The only ones that were half-successful were my Grimlock and Armada Rumble (outta Leader-1). I did okay with a custom of Armada Megatron that was meant to be WW Megatron before just becoming a sort of half-assed G1-inspired paintjob. Then I had a couple that just turned out really badly, and I haven't had the wherewithal to give it another shot. I've had a couple ideas since, but I know full well I won't get around to 'em.

I know fully how you feel.

my last few attemps at using Rit color dye just didn't go as planned on some DOTM movie toys. sometimes depending on the plastic hasbro uses,it could either be too shinny & it resist the rit color dye process.

I Bought grey Rit color dye in order to color dotm voyager skyhammer's white head in grey colors. needless to say this was a failure. I don't know if it was because the plastic was too shinny & resisted the color dye soaking processs. or if all white plastic TF toys are next to impossible to rit color dye another color. At best now I'm hoping hasbro comes out with a liscensed DOTM Recolor of the voyager skyhammer mold with a grey colored head. So i can just take this grey head off & give it to skyhammer. I honestly don't understand why hasbro put a white head on tht skyhammer mold to begin with,as it stands out like a sore thumb & looks awful.

another failed attemp I recently had was trying to rit color dye all the blue parts on DOTM Leader sized ironhide black using black Rit color dye. the plastic was too thin & too airy to put into hot Rit color dye. if I did it too boiling hot the plastic would melt & warp. if the rit color dye didn't boil hot enough it would only dye the blue parts a ugly brown instead of black. their was also something in the plastic that was shinny & repelled the rit soking up dye process.

Most of my successful Rit color dye plastic attempts on TF toys come from TF toys that use dull platic with no clear shinny over coat. examples: animated toys use dull plastic & dull colors with no shine. alternators toys use shinny plastic with a clear over coat shine added.

needless to say after 2 failed attempt I'm just sick & fed up with the whole Rit color dye process & i'm gonna retire from doing it for at least a year.

for those curious on my successful attempts at using rit color dye. I was successful in turning universe razorclaws red missles & red head all black using rit color dye. I was successful at turning tm2 tigerhawks green missles all black using rit color dye. I was successful at turning all of ROTF leader sized jetfire's blue parts black using rit color dye. I was successful at turning cybertron megatrons leader sized parts dark orange for a Rodimus prime custom I was working on.
here's my u-tube page showing off some of my successful rit color dye projects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UuB-OdsGn0

[Dominic]

Uh, duh. Me. If MySpace is still up, check out my old profile. www.myspace.com/dominionhub

Dunno if it is still up. But, some of my older customs are there.

I've painted a few of my Transformers. Mostly just some paint applications that Hasbro didn't do or trying to make it a bit more accurate to the shows/movies.

See, I used to do this. Then, one day, I decided not to do what Hasbro should have done. Seriously. I will spend 8+ hours fully recolouring a toy. But, 15 minutes touching up a toy in order to make it look better is cause for serious anger.


Dom
-would rather send the toy back to Hasbro in pieces dangit....

[Ursus mellifera]

I'm not a Tf kitbasher at all anymore, though back in the BW days I used to kitbash my figs so they'd look more like the show.