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It figures that after bitching about more black repaints (in reference to Fire Guts Ginrai), the first new repaint I do immediately afterwards... is of a primaily black toy.
Mind you, this isn't really a black recolor in the normal sense. The Ironhide mold was in this coloration as part of the Diaclone line, Transformers' precursor. Plus there's a lot of red to him instead of gray. So I call I'm saved.
I had thought of doing the same chop-n-drop job I'd done for Ratchet, but to be honest... I felt it was pretty damned funny once, but twice would be pushing it. So I left him be, preferring to go toy-based in paint only, using the same layouts as I did for Ratchet.
The thought of painting his palm black did occur to me as well, but I resisted. Actually... his fingers would be the parts that would be black, since on the toy they form those little side-panels. And while "finger-gloves" is certainly not a look many TFs have at all (offhand, Tidal Wave is the only one who comes to mind), this guys has enough black paint as it is. Plus I'm not sure it'd look any good.
I really like the black face in red helmet look. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I've always liked when Transformers had faces that weren't silver, gray or white. And I especially like the look of the face being darker than the surrounding helmet.
As with G2 Ramjet, I reluctantly went with the white-outlined sigil decal so you could see the damned thing.
I'd waffled on the new name & character. "Burnout" was one of those "bolt of lightning" deals where I didn't even need to think about it, the whole picture just smashed into my skull instantly. I knew I didn't want to just make him "Night Attack Ironhide" or anything, preferring to go with the e-hobby theme of new G1 characters based on Diaclone color arrangements.
"Heavy Duty" came up after I decided to stick with what little "precedent" I had with Burnout, and went searching for a suitable current G.I. Joe name. I wasn't sure what kind of character I wanted to apply to him aside from making sure he wasn't the Joe Heavy Duty. Then I remembered a line from the They Might Be Giants "Direct From Brooklyn" DVD audio commentary that I had wanted to apply to a TF as a quote. From there, it all fell into place.
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