I unexpectedly ended up being off work, sick, so I was home for when my Shapeways order was delivered on Friday. Good news and bad news!
Thunderclash's parts look to have printed okay.
He's kinda crazy posable now, thanks to the very stiff ankle joints. No support used here.
He stands a little taller than the original due to the ankle joints. I'm working on a revised version where that isn't the case though.
Unfortunately the white is a bit washed out, so you can't see the truck mode too clearly, but it's an okay fit. I'm a little unhappy about how the joints are slightly wonky, but I think I know what to do about that for the production version.
His G1-style, gun-toting truck mode.
And just in case anyone was interested, a comparison between the replacement hands and the original.
Besides smaller ankle joints, my only disappointment with Thunderclash was his head. I wasn't super happy with it, and as a few people have suggested, it's a little flat in the face. Also, I've realised it's slightly too big for the transformation, AND the eyes snapped off on insertion, so I need to make some changes there. Also, the gun parts need some small mods for fit, but that's a far more minor issue.
On to the bad news...
While my Arcee hands are looking much better overall, they do have one glaring issue; the balls on the right hands didn't print! They are identical to the ones the left hands, only flipped, but I discovered there was a small bit of internal geometry on both which was probably causing the issue. Annoying. Same goes for the Trailbreaker foot.
Weirdly enough? The black feet printed just fine, despite being the exact same model. Not complaining, means I can do a proper test.
A bit smaller than they were in my mind's eye when designing them. They work okay, but they really need to be longer at the very least for balance, and...
They look kinda dumb in truck mode. So toe tailgates are on the cards there, as well as some general mods. ALSO, I managed to break my Tailgate slightly trying to remove the pin from the original joint. Fnargh.
Looks pretty good compared to Hoist though.
I'm sure this is the main thing some people are interested in this thread for, so have a pic of Magnus, with the Shapeways prints of the knee joints having replaced the prototypes I had.
The main post needed a little thickening up with clear nail polish, but I think the possibility of it printing too thick due to the way White Solid Flexible shrinks (especially if you get it polished) is too great for me to want to try and make the peg slightly larger on the model. Overall, very happy!
So the Dreadwing Gatling came out great! Even if the photo didn't. As soon as I make a small modification to the connector piece, that will go live on my SW store.