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I'll be getting that green paint I need for the Decepticon Bikes this week, but in the meantime here's my finished ROTF Sideswipe!

40: SS-78 Sideswipe (ROTF)

- Robot Mode -

Having already painted DOTM Sideswipe (and considering Sideswipe's CG model doesn't change between ROTF and DOTM), I looked for ways to differentiate it from my prior work while still being screen accurate. I reviewed CG renders and screen footage to make sure I picked up on anything I missed on the first pass, while using the brighter acrylic gold that stands out a little more. I used copper more sparingly, only on the shoulders and the leg suspension.

Maybe the biggest difference between this and my DOTM custom is the wash I applied - initially only to the head and swords, but I decided to expand it to the chest and legs. Generally I don't do weathering if the alt mode isn't weathered, but I'm glad I did here. I think it looks pretty good, and it helps differentiate it from my DOTM Sideswipe.

I did do the foot kibble mod once again, and while it does bulk up the already substantial backpack, I really like how it makes the feet look.










- Vehicle Mode -

There wasn't too much to add to Sideswipe for alt mode since it was already covered in some very nice silver paint. I picked out a few things, though: the "braces" on the grill, the exhaust pipes (both in silver for most of the piece and black for inside the pipes), and lastly the headlights. My initial plan was to have the outline of the lights in black with the main body being silver, but that didn't turn out looking quite right. I tried a few other things, like metallic blue and white, but settled on gloss black as the final color.






Paint used:

Testor's Enamels:
- Gloss black
- Gloss red
- Flat gunmetal
- Metallic silver
- Metallic copper

Other:
- Decoart gunmetal
- Decoart lamp black (used w/ thinner as model wash)
- Krylon spray gloss coat

Today I had to say goodbye to my oldest friend, a tough little Autobot who took great pleasure in knocking my Transformers off whatever display or desk they were on, Fletcher. He sat with me as I worked on a lot of these projects, actually. I wasn't ready to say goodbye, but I am so thankful that I got to spend a long time with him.

Wanted to keep you all posted on how things are going right now!

I’m on Spring Break and picked up the paint I need to finish the Decepticon Bikes and Overload, so hopefully they won’t be too much longer, the Bikes will be finished first.

I don’t want to leave you guys empty-handed though, so here’s some pics I got of some bots I’ve finished!

First off, my condolences on Fletcher. Losing a pet always hurts...

Second, brilliant work on absolutely all of these. I think it's really neat that you did Recon Barricade, too.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:First off, my condolences on Fletcher. Losing a pet always hurts...

Second, brilliant work on absolutely all of these. I think it's really neat that you did Recon Barricade, too.

Thanks Zelda, I appreciate it.

Recon Barricade was a fun one to do, I had the extra Barricade and the Recon deco (even though I never owned the figure) is probably my favorite repaint of Barry.

Looking to upload the Decepticon Bikes this weekend! It's only been a few ̶w̶e̶e̶k̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶ . . .

An indeterminate amount of time since I started working on them. I'm excited to get them finished!

41: Decepticon Motorcycles (Human Alliance/ Shadows Rising Arcade Game) (From SS-52 Arcee/Chromia/Elita-1)

At long last, here's the winners of the 300K views poll! The Human Alliance arcade game (and its sequel, Shadows Rising) have a common enemy type of these motorcycle Decepticons who all share the same model but have different color variations. They are a newly designed model, but they most closely resemble Arcee, particuarly with the wheel structure in bot mode. Now, the Arcee triplets all have different designs in both modes, but I carried forwards the general color scheme of some of the 'con bikes from the game as more of an "inspired by" look rather than a direct translation. I also have some additional markings of that violet color on the black/violet bike as kind of squad leader markings.

- Robot Mode -

The base colors were a little tricky for some of the bikes - the gloss black bike was fairly easy, but it took a while to get the green paint for the Elita-1 bike, and trying to find the right mix for the bluish-purple bike was very tricky. I had to try and get the color reasonably accurate to the game color, but also make sure that it was different enough from Chromia's original colors. The color does get close, but I think the different accent colors help differentiate it. On all three bikes I used
a gunmetal base, followed by the usual darker gunmetal and silver with some copper accents.







- Alt Mode -

Like I mentioned before, the Decepticon bikes in-game all share the same model, just colored differently. The Arcee sisters, however, are all pretty different in alt mode. I still ported over the colors from the in-game models, but also took some liberties with the individual paint apps to make them feel unique. After running through the base colors, I added silver, gunmetal, and copper accents, as well as some details with the new purple I found.







Paint used:

Testor's Enamels:
- Flat gunmetal
- Metallic silver
- Metallic copper
- Gloss black
- Gloss red

Decoart:
- Extreme sheen emerald (acrylic)
- Gloss enamel shimmering silver
- Gloss enamel vivid violet
- Gunmetal (acrylic)

Other:
- Bluish-purple a mix of Folkart metallic blue sapphire and Anita's metallic craft paint deep plum
- Krylon spray gloss coat


Stay tuned, Overload is up next!

500,000 VIEWS!

I'd like to thank you all a ton for continuing to view this page, 500K is a huge milestone! And to think my most recent upload, the Decepticon Bikes, were the winners of the 300K poll! Time really has flown (though I fully admit that it took me forever to finish those bikes xD).

To celebrate, I have an update to a prior project with an all-new gallery that will get uploaded this Friday! I would love to upload it today but I have a quiz tomorrow and on Friday that I have to get ready for (Cardiovascular block is killing me).

I'll also have an announcement on an upcoming project upload on Friday as well, so stay tuned!

Finally, I kicked off an Instagram page! I go by camarobee_customs, and I'll be uploading pics there every now and then!

Here's my favorite shot from my first post, I only have one post right now but there will be more soon!

Here's that update I talked about!

I updated Jolt based on the renders we got from Sam Smith over on Instagram, check it out over on page 4!

As for that announcement I was talking about, I'm hoping to upload Overload sometime soon! I was shooting for the 25th (the 2nd anniversary of this page), but school has really ramped up and I don't know if I'll be able to. Either way, coming up next!

Today happens to be the second anniversary of the start of this customs page!

I wish I could do a big group shot of all the figures I've finished in the last year, but I can get one of all the finished projects I have on me!


And finally, to celebrate the occasion I've finished the last Constructicon, Overload! Post coming up right after this one.

And now that all that individual constructicons are finished, I think you all know what that means. . .

I have no idea what this summer will be like right now, but hopefully I can get the whole group together then!

42: SS-66 Overload

- Robot Mode -

The first thing I wanted to do in working on robot mode was add some of the white stripes from the real-world alt mode into robot mode. The secions on the chest were added first, and I added them to a few other areas in bot mode to break up the red. I used gunmetal over large portions of the figure, and then went in for silver details for the claws, feet, and various smaller details. I went in with copper and gold as per usual, and as was the case with my prior Constructicons I went in with model wash to weather alt mode. I also used a little bit of silver dry brushing, and sand weathering on the faux tires.

I wasn't too sure what to do with the eyes - I didn't want to do red since Overload is very red already, so I went with orange like I did with Scavenger.








- Vehicle Mode -

For alt mode, the first thing I wanted to tackle were the white stripes (this was the case with bot mode as well, but I painted alt mode first). SS Overload's alt mode isn't an exact recreation of the vehicle from the movie, but I was able to approximate the deco. I took a few liberties as well - the grill portion on the actual truck is solid red, but I added some flat black to break up all the red. I painted the cab in mostly white, the roof on the actual vehicle is white as well, but painting that on the SS figure would undermine the spike Overload has behind his head in bot mode. I picked out some details in silver, and painted the bed of the truck in flat gunmetal to make it look more like there's space there in the bed. I used the model wash in this mode as well, and used some of the sand weathering on the tires and the flaps in front of the second set of tires.








Paint used:

Testor's Enamels:
- Flat gunmetal
- Flat white
- Metallic silver
- Metallic copper
- Gloss tangerine

Decoart:
- Metallic emperor's gold
- Gloss enamel shimmering silver
- Gunmetal (acrylic)

Other:
- Krylon spray flat coat
- Craftsmart holiday red
- Folkart metallic blue sapphire

43: SS-45 Drift (AOE Helicopter)

- Robot Mode -

My first point of interest when painting drift was getting his blue base coat, which I did with Testor's gloss dark blue (which I've used several times before), but a little lighter this time. I added the usual gunmetal a little more sparingly, and for gold I used the brighter acrylic as a base, and the more metallic enamel on top of it. The accent blue was a little tricky, but I mixed two kinds of acrylic blue to get a color match I was very happy with!







- Alt Mode -

Unlike bot mode, it was very difficult to get a good look at the color layout for Drift's helicopter mode. I improvised for a fair amount of alt mode, but there were details like the gunmetal at the front, gold on the rear turbine, and silver for the missiles that I was able to add based on screenshots. I had a gold outline around the cokpit, but based on footage I instead made it gunmetal.








Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Metallic gold
- Gloss dark blue
- Gloss red
- Gloss black

Decoart Acrylics:
- Gloss shimmering silver
- Emperor Gold
- Flat black
- True Blue (mixed with Anita's craft paint Island blue for accent blue color)

Other:
- Krylon spray gloss coat

Coming Soon!

44: SS-21 Starscream (ROTF/DOTM)


Before we get into the look at Starscream, wanted to say that I just passed my Pulmonary block final, completing my first year of Medical School! It's funny seeing my post about when I got accepted, so much has happened since then. Now I have a summer to get some projects done, and we're kicking it all off with ROTF/DOTM Starscream!

- Robot Mode -

With some projects I have a hard time finding reference pictures for painting. With this project, however, I actually had the opposite problem; I had too many reference pictures of Starscream in ROTF and DOTM. That may not sound like a problem at first, but the issue is that they are all slightly different. I had access to the models from the Human Alliance arcade game and the DOTM console game via GMod (between the two, the human alliance model was surprisingly the more accurate one), but both had some inaccuracies, notably symmetricality in the markings. I found an HD version of the render seen on the box, which was by far the best lookign fo the bunch so far, but even that render actually isn't 100% accurate to the final film model. Using screenshots from the films to correct the differences with that render, Starscream was complete! I used a mixture of silver and dunmetal for the base coat, readded gold details, added purple details to the head, and used flat gunmetal for the extensive markings across the figure. I added some weathering as well with model wash to help bring out some additional detail.








- Alt Mode -

My initial plan in alt mode was to trace around the existing tattoos as I added the silver base coat, but as I came across more reference pictures I realized that the original's markings (and by extension, the markings on all official movie Starscream figures) are actually inaccurate - there are a few portions that are fairly accurate, like the inside of the vertical fins and portions of the left side of the F-22. All of the markings in the center and right side of alt mode were completely repainted from scratch. It was tough to do, but I'm really happy with how it turned out! I also did a lighter silver outline around alt mode, white for some markings and the landing gear, some gold near the engines, and the markings near the refueling port found on the standard F-22.







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Metallic gold
- Flat gunmetal
- Gloss white
- Gloss gray
- Gloss red


Decoart Acrylics:
- Gloss shimmering silver (mixed with gunmetal for base coat)
- Emperor Gold
- Gunmetal

Other:
- Krylon spray gloss coat
- Anita's metallic craft paint deep plum

Back home for the summer, here's an update on what's coming up!

Looking back at some of my earlier projects, I think there's a few that would benefit from some updates, I've learned a lot since then. The first of these is Barricade, who now has a new gallery back on page 1!

Jazz is also getting a full repaint, and I'm reworking the detail on DOTM Soundwave. Hope to have these updates out fairly soon!

PF Ratchet is going very well, and is probably the next upload coming up!

45: SS-04 Ratchet (07/ROTF)

- Robot Mode -

Premium Finish Ratchet has a nicer deco than the original, but there was still a lot of new detail to add!
I found a shade of yellow paint that matches the figure's base color pretty well (It is a more metallic color in the movie, but this gets fairly close so I stuck with it). I used my usual gunmetal throughout, with some silver and gold accents. There's some metallic blue on the leg pistons, and orange for the leg panels (which read "FIRE" in the movie, but the screw hole on that piece prevents the letters from being in that area properly). Some darker gunmetla was used throughout as well, and I added some gloss red accents to the head and arms. For the sawblade I just used a wash, and I 3D printed two guns for him (Yep, he actually has two for just a second in the 07 movie) and painted them up with the same colors I used for the main figure.







- Alt Mode -

Detail work in alt mode was fun, I used a gunmetal for the lower grill with silver for the lights and winch, painted orange on the hazard striping, added a gloss black ridge to the sides of the Hummer, and picked out the numerous small lights. I also picked out the rescue equipment mounted to the top/sides. Repainting the hubcaps in gunmetal with silver accents completed alt mode!







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Flat gunmetal
- Gloss tangerine
- Gloss red


Decoart Acrylics:
- Gloss shimmering silver
- Emperor Gold
- Gunmetal
- Lamp black

Other:
- Krylon spray gloss coat
- Anita's acrylic craft paint citrus yellow
- Folkart metallic blue sapphire
- Folkart gloss black
-

Here's an update on what's going on right now!

- A little later than intended (we had a mishap involving a bad can of gloss coat), my update to SS DOTM Soundwave is uploaded! Check it out over on page 1!

- Jazz also had several mishaps involving a completely different can of spray paint, so I'm not sure if I'll have time to finish it before I head back to school in a few days. I'll see what I can do!

- That pending update to my DOTM Optimus Prime actually made huge progress, Prime's robot mode is complete with some pretty sweet looking flames, and I'm working on the last few things for alt mode. I'll be working on the trailer as well but don't have time to finish that now - so looking at an upload for that maybe at the end of the year?

- I have a very big upload coming up sometime in the next few days, keep an eye out for that!

Got a Soundwave pic to advertise for you to head on over to page 1!

46: Devastator

It's been a long journey, but at long last I have finished painting the Constructicons and got them all together! I've talked about the individual bots themselves at length, so I don't as much to say here other than I hope you enjoy! I have pics in both standing configuration (which shows the paint work off better), and on all 4s!

DECEPTICONS, BEGIN OUR ASSAULT!

- Standing -

Devastator (Continued)

- All fours -

47: SS-87 Bumblebee (Dark of the Moon)

It's been quite the wait, but here we are! Bumblebee's look in DOTM is my favorite design in all of Transformers, and now the Studio Series figure is here! I looked through every CGI model and screenshot I could find (Sam Smith's screen to toy post was very helpful for that!) to try and make sure this was my most accurate paint work for the SS-49 mold.

- Robot Mode -

I think I should first talk about the shade of yellow on this figure - the original figure does unfortunately revert from SS-74's more accurate orange-yellow, back to a brighter yellow similar to the "rally yellow" color seen on the production Camaro and not the concept Camaro Bumblebee is in the films. Early on I knew I wanted to totally repaint the figure, and I found a spray paint that seemed to be slightly more of an orange-yellow. Not quite to the degree that I was hoping, but it does get the job done!

Getting back on track, I added a gunmetal base layer to the figure as per usual, and silver, gold, and copper based on renders and screenshots. As for DOTM-specific paint work, I first added the gunmetal detailing to the front of Bee's arm shields. While the collar pieces weren't remolded to reflect their different shape in DOTM, this was very easy to fix with paint, painting the base area with gunmetal and adding the new collar pieces right in front of the original molded ones. I painted up the new central chest piece based on its appearance in the film, and while the ab piece wasn't remolded, I painted it to more closely resemble the different DOTM version. The yellow paint was altered to look more like the new rib pieces, and the small vertical pieces were painted differently to have them sit more along the midline . One last thing I added to bot mode were some small rounded pieces that sit on his shoulders, which were first introcuced in DOTM. I did also paint a battle-mask head from a spare SS-49 to have both masked and unmasked as options!







- Alt Mode -

After adding the aforementioned new yellow base coat, I added numerous small details to alt mode. starting with the grill, I added the orange reflective pieces on the sides, added a black trim around the headlights similar to ROTF Bee, and repainted the chevy logo with agold center and silver trim. Moving to the sides I painted the Autobot logos in gunmetal, with the side trim in black. I also picked out the mirrors in dark gunmetal, added a small black section for the side vents, and picked out the door handle in silver. Moving to the back, I painted the stripes continuing to the spoiler section, painted the spoiler itself in black and yellow, picked out the lower area with dark gunmetal and the exhaust pipes with a lighter gunmetal, the license plate with silver, and (my first time doing so), added the silver trim around the taillights! Really happy with those details, I think it really brings alt mode together!







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Gloss yellow
- Gloss tangerine
- Gloss red
- Metallic gold
- Metallic copper
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:

- Decoart gunmetal
- Decoart gloss shimmering silver
- Folkart Blue sapphire
- Folkart Gloss black

Other:

- Rustoleum golden sunset
- Krylon gloss coat

Oh, so that's what that was for!



Galvatron is coming up next! It'll probably be a little while, but I am working on him when I get the chance!

Hey everyone, I'd like to show you something I've been working on, and it isn't a custom this time! (Though I am working on Galvatron, robot mode is almost done!)

This is what I'm calling the Studio Series September Unoffical Fan Tournament, where you'll get to vote on what characters you want to see in the future of the Studio Series line!

I composed the top 16 characters from numerous top 15 lists from Studio Series fans, and organized them into a round of 16 bracket!




Here's our calendar for when voting will take place along with some voting info:



I'll be posting the voting links here as well!

Please note that this is a completely unofficial tournament that is not affiliated with Hasbro, this is just a fan-run bracket!

48: SS-90 Galvatron

- Robot Mode -

Galvatron has a very interesting color palette, lots of silvers and almost-silvers and blue details - both glowing light blue sections and darker blue detailing. I tried picking that detail up as much as I could, with some model wash to help bring out the details. I used gunmetal as a base as per usual, but also for a lot of the tubing we see throughout (I didn't realize before looking at the model in-depth for this project, Galvatron is like at least 40% tubes). I added Galvatron's many gold details, first with the brighter acrylic as a base, and then with the more metallic enamel gold for the top layer. I repainted the vortex grinder on both sides with a brighter orange, and combined orange and red for the barrel of the cannon. There's even some small caution-striped pieces hidden at the top of Galvatron's chest, which I was able to add!









- Alt Mode -

For alt mode, I repainted the main gray of alt mode with a mixture of flat gunmetal and metallic silver to get the color I was looking for. I added the light blue lights through out, added gloss black detailing to the front, painted the tires in two tones to seperate the tires from the hubcaps, and repainted the silver sections. I finished alt mode with some black detailing on the sides for what I think are the footholds for entering/exiting the vehicle and some red for taillights.







Paint used:

Testor's enamels:
- Gloss yellow
- Gloss tangerine
- Gloss red
- Metallic gold
- Metallic copper
- Metallic silver
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:

- Decoart gunmetal
- Decoart gloss shimmering silver
- Decoart emperor gold
- Decoart true blue
- Folkart blue sapphire
- Folkart gloss black
- Anita's craft paint metallic turquoise

Other:

- Krylon gloss coat

While we wait for Sideways, here's some cool pictures I got over the summer!

I visited Griffith Observatory with some friends and brought an SS-49 along with me! This isn't the SS-49 I previously painted from back on page 1, this is another one I picked up for cheap. I used it as a guinea pig for the spray paint I eventually used on SS-87 DOTM Bee, but unfortunately it did not go well. The paint had significant bleed-over in several spots, and came out very strangely textured, especially on the doors. As a result, I had to take pictures from a few specific angles to hide that as much as possible, but I still added some detail work to make it look presentable for these pics. I'm doing something different with it now, though!

49: SS-88 Sideways

- Robot Mode -

Despite Sideways' short screen time in ROTF, I was able to find a few good reference pictures to use, most notably the render in Sam Smith's "Screen-to-Toy" post, and a screenshot from Transformers the Ride! There's some improvisations with some parts as well since there aren't good reference pictures for some angles of bot mode. I also used a little bit of model wash on the head sculpt to help bring out the panel lines on the silver portions more. His weapon in the ROTF Wii game (which I have a lot of fond memories of) is shown as being just silver, but I painted the weapon to better match his general color layout.







- Alt Mode -

My first move in alt mode was to completely repaint the silver, partially for the gray plastic parts visible on the sides of the car and for some of the already existing scratches on the paint. I then did a layer of flat gunmetal for the center of alt mode, and some of the side detailing.

The stripes were by far the biggest challenge for Sideways, and while I had gotten a few good-looking ones via hand-painting, I decided to try decals instead, a result I'm very happy with! I painted a light blue for the headlights orange for the reflective pieces on the front, got an audi logo (or as close as I could get) to the front of alt mode, added silver trim to the grill, and redid the paint on the back of alt mode to be a little more accurate to the on-screen Audi R8.







Testor's enamels:
- Gloss tangerine
- Gloss red
- Metallic gold
- Metallic copper
- Metallic silver
- Flat gunmetal

Acrylics:

- Decoart gunmetal
- Decoart gloss shimmering silver
- Decoart emperor gold
- Anita's craft paint metallic turquoise

Other:

- Krylon gloss coat

50: SS-03 Crowbar and Crankcase (TLK Berserker)

- Robot Mode -

The big challenge with the Dreads was finding the balance between black, gunmetal, and silver in robot mode. I rewatched the highway chase and mexican standoff from DOTM several times to try and get as accurate as I could with the paint work! I did break my sort-of rule with weathering where I usually don't weather robot mode if alt mode isn't also weathered, but the worn appearance in robot mode is a big part of the Dreads' look so I went for it! I used both dry brushing and sponge-brushing techniques to accomplish this. Both figures paint the wrong parts of the knees red - it's the sections next to the kneepads that are actually red in the movie, not the kneepads themselves. I was able to fix that on both of them, and painted the spike weapons with a gunmetal base, silver spikes, and some red details.

Crankcase has some red wiring on his forearms you can see during his close-up in the mexican standoff, and the arrangement of black/gunmetal/silver on his legs is a little different than Crowbar.

Crowbar has some really cool green spring details in his chest that I was able to add, and there's some glowing red sections in his chest when he transforms for the first time (that do not appear in later scenes) that I added. I also gave him a bit of a haircut - Crowbar in the movie has 6 dreads (though he loses 2 when he crashes into Ironhide, bringing him to 4, but those 2 dreads do reappear on him shortly after). The figure has 9 dreads, so I took the central three out from the group of them behind his head. I also separated the side dreads a little bit so they could fan out more!








- Alt Mode -

It was interesting working on these guys in alt mode since they're identical! I started with a gloss black spray paint over alt mode, and then a flast coat to get a look more like the actual vehicles. I used gloss black (without the flat coat) for the windows in alt mode to help them stand out from the rest of the vehicle. I painted the lightbars in silver with metallic blue and gloss red for the lights. I added that same red and blue for the lights in a few other places as well - on the mirrors and grill. I picked out the taillights and headlights with their corresponding accents, the Chevy logos, and the tire detailing. The last thing I added for alt mode (and actually the most difficult part) was the silver trim around the grill, getting those lines to look good took a while!






Paint used:

Testor's enamels:

- Gloss tangerine
- Gloss red
- Metallic silver
- Flat gunmetal
- Gloss black (spray)

Acrylics:

- Decoart gunmetal
- Decoart gloss shimmering silver
- Decoart emperor gold
- Folkart gloss black
- Decoart flat black
- Decoart metallic emerald (Crowbar only)
- Folkart metallic blue sapphire

Other:

- Krylon gloss coat
- Krylon flat coat