Quick-Shots

Would you believe possibly the part of these that takes the most time is the cards and bios and photos, not the painting?

This page is kind of a "quick-shot" to put online pictures of all the HOCHs (and their cousins) I've done so far, but have yet to put up the full presentation of. As I'm running severely out of repaint options thanks to the end of the line and my enthusiasm for these wane directly because of that, I wanted to get these up to be shown.

But the promise of TF Titaniums is intriguing. Of the three we've seen, only one really lends itself to repainting (good old Starscream), so who know, will we be seeing "Titaniums Homebacked" soon?

Generation 1 HOCHs

"Lava Bath Safety" Megatron

I love the orange and blue Megatron. I really do. If that handgun Megatron for the late-2006/early-2007 "Geewun" line does come out, I want a variant in blue and orange. It can be a Hasbrotoyshop.com exclusive, I don't care.

For those who don't remember, at OTFCC 2003, Hasbro showed a picture of the last attempt Hasbro made at coloring the original G1 Megatron toy to get it passed by safety regs, and this was basically the result. And that didn't even fly. They had some story about how they were going to justify it fictionally as how Megatron looked that five seconds he fell into the lava in... "Heavy Metal War", I think. The orange barrel on Mr. Fusion Cannon is my idea.

"Remember, kids, don't play in molten lava!"

Action Master Starscream

This came out really striking. I dig AM Starscream's color layouts quite a bit. Then again, he does also have the "light helmet with a dark face" deal, which I love. I know I've said that a lot, but I feel it bears repeating. The pink eyes, for some reason, REALLY make the thing work.

The "handgun" I simply used the same technique I use for limb repair; just chop up a paperclip or a piece of thumbtack and ram it in there. I actually trimmed down the peg on the gun too. I breifly considered drilling a hole into the fist for the peg on the rifle, but the size the peg needs wouldn't have left much plastic in the fist at all. Also, that would have required a lot more effort than I had time to do, plus there's always the "if I mess this up, do I even have any spares?" factor.

There aren't enough Action Master callbacks in TFs nowadays. I mean, I feel pretty damn lucky that we get the references and tributes we DO get (Alternators Swerve, Rollbar and Ricochet are the kind of stuff that gets me going), but oh, for a Jackpot or Gutcruncher reference.

"Mystery of Convoy" Rodimus Prime

"But Sipher!" I hear you say. "That's Ultra Magnus!" Yes. Blame Takara's game division from 1986 for this. Their 8-bit Transformers game for the Famicom (NES) starred Ultra Magnus as the player-character, but you could unlock Rodimus Prime. Who was just Ultra Magnus' sprite in orange, red and white. (They changed the facing-forward and vehicle-mode sprites, but otherwise, all Magnus.) Wacky, huh?

You can't see it in this shot, but the tires on his feet are white.

I decided to so as close to the sprite color layouts with this one, rather than toy-based like I normally do. Though it would be interesting to see how he looks in toy-layouts. It'd make an interesting variant if they ever decide to re-re-issue him again. Heh. Pack in a cheap copy of the crummy, nigh-unwinnable game.

"Divide and Conquer" Rainmaker Syraiders

So, some of the most-recognized weirdly-colored Skyraiders from the cartoon are these three, the hideously one-color guys Megatron sends to make acid rain and stop the Autobots on Cybertron who are trying to recove Prime's pacemaker or something from Wheeljack's old lab. (The acid rain that doesn't affect Chip Chase. Then again, Chip Chase is an inhuman freak. Mofo rips floppy discs with his bare hands. It also takes Trailbreaker about ten minutes to remember that he has a force field, which is like his ONLY GIMMICK.) I held off on these three for a very long time, despite liking the idea of green and yellow Skyraiders, mostly because their color "layouts" in the cartoon are basically a single, solid color over their entire bodies.

(Did you know there's apparently a fourth rainmaker? In one close-up shot, we see a Skyraider nosecone, but it's red! Sure, it's likely an animation error in a poorly-animated episode, but still. The tempation to do up a red Skyraider liek these three is almost overwhelming... makes me wish I had anymore Skyraider PVCs. Well, there's Titaniums...)

Any rate, I decided that when I was gonna do them, I'd do them the way I wanted to. Layout based on a single color, but not all the same shade. I actually did some Photoshop coloring with line-art before even starting to paint these guys. I had to mix up a lighter yellow for Lemony Yellow Man's chest-bits, which turned out allright.

I'm not sure how well these would translate into big toys, though. At PVC-size, the "all one color" thing isn't bad, but for a Deluxe-level toy... it'd look pretty dull, I think. At the very least, I'd go with a much greater contrast between the lighter chest-bits (make them a LOT lighter but the same shade) and the darker glove/boot parts (a LOT darker).

Great Shot

Takara must have really liked the Sixshot mold. Not only did they use it for this Victory-series Autobot (slightly remolded, mind), but it was later used in one of their post-Transformers Brave-series lines as "Shadowmaru", the ninja-policeman robot. (I was totally gonna do a Shadowmaru HOCH, but ran out of time.) I forget which series offhand.

There's not exactly loads to say about this one. It's quite a patriotic color scheme on this dude, and very Bravey on its own. Takara seems to dig those bright, primary colors, Yeah, they're certainly eye-catching, but for a guy who seems to be a your standard "questionably good but pretty mean mercenary type", it seems a bit off.

Bumblebee variants

Bumblebee is one of those PVCs I ended up with a lot of, not really by design, but I didn't mind so much. I mean, it's not like Road Ceasar where there's pretty much NO repainitng possibilities going on. Ol' 'Bee here got recolored approximately forty-eight times in various south-of-the-border markets. Of course, I took care of the new-character versions Glyph and Bug Bite first.

Though I guess TECHNICALLY, the "Optimus vs Malignus" release of the mold from Brazil under the name "Volks" counts as a new character. That would be the orange one, though he WAS also sold in red. Man, I wish I had some Optimus/Malignus sigil decals to put on these guys. I would LUVVY-LUV a Malignus tribute in some future TF line, but I think Playmates has the "Malignus" name wrapped up thanks to the current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline. And really, "Malignus" was the only good name out of that whole enterprise.

We've all seen the domesitc red Bumblebees. The silver one comes from... Argentina? I think Argentina. There's also a blue one, but I think I'm out of Bumblebees and I already have a Glyph. There's actually been some question as to how "official" the Argentinian toys are anyway over the last few years. It's also interesting to note the rampant price differences in these. Last year, you could buy Argentinean minibots ON-CARD for like ten bucks. Six years ago? Woo-hoo, good luck. And yet, the Optimus/Malignus Brazilian toys are still mucho dinero, even loose.

Thundercracker

Yes, yes, there's already a Thundercracker HOC. But that's based on his cartoon model. This is his toy coloration, which I vastly prefer. It's hard to tell, but I even painted his side-vent-thingies on his helmet dark blue, to match the hole "nosecone on the back of his head" deal from the toy. I don't think anyone noticed, but since OTFCC'04, I'd re-painted his thighs black to match the toy.

As much as I don't like the light-blue Thundercracker cartoon coloration, I understand why it was done. With Skywarp being actually deep gray on the cartoon, dark blue would be too close visually. Maybe a slighly deeper blue would have been nicer, but oh well.

Grand

Hey look, it's the Headmaster unit to Grand Maximus from Transformers Masterforce!

...

Whee.

Well, I suppose I could note that I swapped the arms around on his for variety, since you could do that with this mold and it looks allright.

...

Whee.

Oh, I do dig that red on the back of his skull.

I give up.

More Miscellaneous Skyraiders

Here's a pair of Skyraiders for ya. The light green one might have been inspired from some random cartoon generic, but I got it from Guido Guidi's illustration of Maccadam's Old Oil House from the Ultimate Guide. I generally call him "Skycreeper", since I like using old Hasbro action figure names.

The funky-colored one comes from... one of the "Five Faces of Darkness" episodes, only with his colors re-arranged to a more traditionally Skyraidery layout because tha't sjust he way I roll. That mini-seires has a metric buttload of weirdly-colored Decepticons who use the line-art for one guy, and the colors and layout for an entirely other dude. This guy, for some reason, has Onslaught's colors. They actually look quite nice. I'm particularly fond of the blue helmet.

"Movie Preview" Ultra Magnus Cab Mode

It's a bit odd that there seems to be more Ultra Magnus cab recolors than there are Prime recolors. Would that I had more Prime cabs, I'd do more. the only reason I even have this one is because I bought the entire HOC wave with communicator-Prime here for the spare Metroplex bits.

Any rate, this is Magnus' cab-robot from the "movie preview" version of the toy, AKA the original pre-Transformer Diaclone "Powered Convoy" coloration for what would become Ultra Magnus. He looks good in blue. And that's about all I gotta say about him.

Metrotitan

One of the rare late-Japanese-G1 Decepticons, this rather oddly-colored Metroplex served as an evil city for the... one Decepticon Micromaster team in the series. Again, bright primary colors show up... which doesn't seem to WORK for a Decepticon, especially one apparently created by a hideous spectre formed from the sould of dead Decepticons. (Japan sure loves the hell out of nebulous evil entities.)

I did this one up before I mixed up the Skull white & Fortress Gray combo I've used on a lot of other PVCs, which is a lot closer to the off-white used on large portions of Metrotitan... but I can't say I'm keen to repaint this one up. That's a lot of space to cover.

e-hobby Black Megatron w/ Garboil

I'm pretty sure I mixed up an arm or two among my Megtrons for this, but oh well.

It seemd only fitting to give the e-hobby recolor of Buzzsaw to the e-hobby version of Megatron. On the other hand, while the blue bird is a pre-Transformers Microman coloration, this "black" Megatron is not. At least, I don't see anything in my "SF Takara Land" book in the Microman Gunrobo with these colors. There IS a black Walther that's kinda close, but it lacks the gunmetal chrome, for one.

But the highlight of this, to me, is Garboil. I love me the hell out of the e-hobby characters. I want to see then transplanted into the US line. I want a Road Rage. Deep Cover. (Clamp Down's name got ganked by a Rescue Hero.) They don't have to be in any G1-themed line. Just so long as we have an equivalent character and the names and colors whenever possible.

Boxart/Catalog Perceptor

This one wasn't even on my "to do even when bored" list for quite a while. I guess I didn't realize just HOW different the Perceptor pictured in the old catalogs and on the boxart is from the final version. Only the red parts are unchanged between them. Oh, and the silver/chrome, durr. It was kind of interesting to work on. But yeah, I had this PVC sitting in the bin for a long time with no idea of what in the hell I was gonna do with it.

I'm amused that I didn't have to paint his left hand, since it's actually cast in red plastic and Takara never painted it up. Which was good, because I was finishing this up the DAY I was getting going to drive to Botcon '05, and my Blood Red paint was out. Like, I was scraping the dried stuff off the sides of the bottle and mixing a little water and mashing it to get the last dregs of paint.

"Matrix Glow" Ultra Magnus

The other odd Japanese exclusive recolor of Ultra Magnus from their earliest reissue days. Supposedly, this is Magnus the second or so upon recieving the Matrix in the movie. Sure, guys.

Natch, this was just a simple dye-job with some paint added on for accentin. It didn't come out as bright as I'd have liked, but it's servicable. Not much more to say on this one directly, but I would like to relay a story on dyeing the clear PVCs.

I ruined two clear Rodimus Primes trying to make a Crystal Rodimus (another reissue recolor). I was gonna dye one up orange, then paint over the parts that were going to be red with clear-red paint. I had a spare (actually several spare) clear Spike PVCs, which I tested my dye mixture on. He came out a beautiful candy-like orange, so in went the Rodimus.

He came out ugly amber-brown. So did the SECOND one I used with a different batch of dyewater with less dye in it. I can only assume that there was some kind of plstic batch difference between the waves. Irked me.

Overlord/Gigatron

Yeah, there was already an Overlord PVC colored as Overlord. (Powermaster Gigatron in the US HOC line.) But it was very very dark. Oddly dark. To match the animation model. Which was dark.

That's a beard you''ll have. In the future.

So in an effort to get rid of another of the Overlord PVCs I've inexplicably ended up with (quite a few of the Japanese wave he came in overall, in fact), I decided to go all toy-based on his ass. He's a lot better-defined, I think, though not quite as evil-looking. This one was actually pretty extensively repainted; I think the only parts I didn't touch were the black jet-bits and the gray on the arms. I added a LOT of paint in areas, like the white undersides of the jet nosecone, on his arms...

Kabaya candy-toy Starscream

This is really awesome. Kabaya, Takara's partner (or sub-company?), has made "candy toys" (cheap toys that come with cheap candy in order to sell cheap toys while avoiding the standard taxes applied to toys by selling them as food products) for a long long time. They're usually along the lines of unpainted mini "model kits", that are kinda sorta in the original colors of the character, but not always. I've got some Beast Wars-era candy toys in very odd colors.

Any rate, there's this Starscream candy toy from G1, whose color layouts I've replicated here pretty much part-for-part, with the few decals he came with. What's impressive is how he ends up looking rather Armadaversey-Starscream. Hell, he ends up REALLY looking a LOT like the upcoming Cybertron Starscream/Vector Prime 2-pack. I'm sure it's pure coincidence, but it's awesome.

Slightly-Tweaked Past HOCHs

And here are three long-done HOCHs that I've since done touch-ups and changes to, but have yet to re-shoot pictures for them. Ricochet (formerly Stepper) now has his solid-black rifle, which looks a lot better to my eye than the chrome gold. I've never been fond of the chomed rifles and stuff.

Galvatron was redone shortly after I dyed up "Matrix Glow" Ultra Magnus. I simply used a spare clear Galavtron's barrel and dyed it orange, and it DIDN'T end up crappy like Rodmius. I love the way it looks.

And then we have Burnout, aka "Diaclone Marlboor Wheeljack". For some reason, the picture of the toy in my Takara SF Land book had the "normal" Wheeljack's back-wings, which are that odd cleary-greeny-grayish. This, as it turns out is a lie and a falsehhod. The actual toy has clear-blue to match his windshield, so his wings have been painted accordingly. The Takara book seems to have a few other omissions/mistakes, which is a little creepy.

Generation 2 HOCHs

Optimus Prime truck mode

What else is there to do with the truck-mode Prime PVC, one of the biggest wastes of a character slot ever concieved? I was going to get some decal lettering to put "OPTIMUS" on the trailer, but ehn.

Actually, there is one thing I wanted to do, but I wanted to do it as robot mode instead... apparently there's a Korean G2 Prime, officially-licensed (or a VERY brazen knockoff since it says "HASBRO" on the box), that's about half again as big, and white where Prime's red, and theres a lot of other color weird tuff going on. It's neat.

Starscream

I'm not totally happy with this one. Oh, the white and gray came out fine. And the camo turned out fine. But the chest-bits.

G2 Starscream has this interesting salmon color covering the die-cast metal bits. I've yet to find any paint that matches this well, and I was even checking out the crafts section of a frickin' Wal*Mart, rather than the hobby shops. You'd think sompleace like that would have a salmony pink.

You'd be wrong, apparently. Iwent with the closest I could find, and even then, it doesn't photo the right color. Meh.

don't know why I like this color arrangement like I do. I'm not as down on the G2 recolors as many others are in general.

Robots in Disguise HOCHs

Fortress Maximus

I'm not sure how I feel about RiD's Fortress Maximus (aka Brave Maximus). His colors aren't... BAD. There's just... oddities I can't quite put my finger on. He looks a bit more jumbled than the other incarnations of the mold.

Also, I find it odd how the Japanese cartoon model for Fort Max doesn't really line up with the toy in places. The Japanese "Headmasters" cartoon models were generally a lot more toy-accurate. And... while... most of the details are here... I dunno.

This one was a bit of a bear to do. Mostly because I don't have a Brave Maximus, and GOOD reference pictures are hard to come by. I'd picked up the pewter Grand Maximus PVC at last year's OTFCC, for a little more than I really wanted to spend on any single PVC, but oh well.

Armada HOCHs

"Battle for the Matrix" Optimus Prime

The K-Mart-exclusive set, while an awesome deal on its own, was really confusing. Prime works rather well in gold and blue. But that he was the only toy in the set with a different color was odd. And that the set also came with Longarm yet NOT Red Alert... weird. How the hell did that happen? Were Longarm's molds part of a separate "tree" so they could make lots of him without making a significant amount of Red Alert parts?

But yes, the gold Prime looks pretty nice. For some reason the original PVC has a bright blue color for the blue bits, which I don't think the animation even supports. So, even though the base for this was a color Prime, it's 100% painted-over.

I'm not sure about doing a Super Mode version of K-Mart Prime. Not really enough changed there. Well, I mean, it wouldn't have that yellow paint that looks allright in animation as a gold substitute, but looks so crappy on a real, 3-dimensional object. And I'd give him darker blues... but still.

"Soundwave"

One of the things I really dug about Armada was its armies of background "generics" made up of character models from Generation 1 cartoons. And it's not like it was only 1984~1985 guys, either. Characters from Headmasters, Masterforce and Victory showed up, and I THINK maybe there were one or two models from Zone. Only in a few hand-drawn shots did we get any of those in Energon.

Soundwave is one of the few generics to show up who I could make a HOCH out of. I tweaked the color layouts for closer to toy-ism, just because that's what I do. I left the sigil on his chest alone because I wasn't sure if I wanted to paint over it and put a sigil decal on it, or what.

Lucky Draw Megatron

This is one of the few Lucky Draw items I think looks worth a damn. Yeah, he's predominantly black and gray and I generally hate that. But he's got a ton of dark purple, and the bright green and yellow highlights are awesome. It's not as awesome as Megazarak, but pretty close. Pity it had to be such a limited release.

Man, I want a Leader-1 in those colors. I prefer to think of all recolored Mini-Cons as new characters, and Lucky Draw Leader-1, I dub thee "Heavy Barrel".

On the subject of Lucky Draws... Hasbro was only asked about doing those about forty-eight hundred times over BotCon weekend. I honestly think most people don't REALIZE just what the Lucky Draws ARE. There's usually like... ONE given away as a prize. Rarely the number gets up to ten, but as a general rule we're talking one to five pieces in existance. (Not counting back-door specials.)

I can't imagine the $#!+storm Hasbro'd get if they said "hey, here's a one-of-a-kind only one person's gonna get!"

"Cerebros"

Hee hee. I need another Fort Max PVC. In... "Past" I think, we get a flashback to Cybertron, and we see Hot Shot's commanding officer. And it's Fortress Maximus, in hideous jade-green and red with white. NEat model choice.

I had no spare Fort Maxes, but I did have an extra Cerebros. So I extrapolated. Maybe his Headmaster component was a Mini-Con. Hee hee.

Energon HOCHs

Costco Optimus Prime Super Mode

Have I mentioned how much I love the Costco Prime/Overload set? Probably not. It's beautiful. Hazard Prime. These two aren't subtle. They're in WE'RE COMING IN AND WE ARE GOING TO F*** YOU UP colors. Also, I could buy the Overload mold a few more times happily. Throw in an Emergency Team redeco (or new molds along those lines, I don't care, as long as they're artillery), and mmmmmmmmmm goodness.

My only complaint abotut the set is that Prime's Mini-Con, Corona Sparkplug, was utterly unchanged from the normal retail version. This was vexing. I LOVE Mini-Con recolors, and both versions of Sparkplug are snappy little molds. Would even a different color chrome have been too much to ask?Orangey-red, maybe?

But back to Prime. Man, I love this color arrangement. It's not particularly Primey, no, but it's distinctive. I like the bright white and yellow contrasting with the blacks and darker grays and red. He looks DANGEROUS.

Sam's Club Starscream

Like Sam's Club Prowl, I imagine this is the post-Armada-Comic/pre-Energon-comic color scheme for Starscream. It'd have been nice if Starscream was in the se colors in the comic just before he got processed, but what can you do. They probably didn't even know this toy existed.

Starscream here proves the felxibility of "appropriate" color schemes. It's a very Starscreamy block of colors, just darker. It's Starscream doing the whole "terorist sneak attack" thing Tidal Wave and his crew were pulling off in the comic.

Cyclonus

And now we come to... Cyclonus.

Yyyyyeah.

Well, the powder-blue is a nice touch, as are the orange highlights. They do liven up an otherwise very dull color scheme. But overall, I guess I'm not wild about it. Maybe if he didn't have silver, which doesn't really show up against the light gray... I dunno.

I am glad I decided to wait and not get the Japanese versions of this and Energon Amrada-mold-Demolishor, figuring "they oughtta come out in Amercia, and it's not like they're gonna seel out in Japan if they don't make it Stateside."

Kinda wish I'd done that for the Cybertron Armada-mold-remolds, but oh well. Welcome to toy collecting, where there is ALWAYS a risk that the item you buy now may be drastically less expensive later. You buys your ticket and takes your chances, leave your entitlement at the door.

Universe HOCHs

Battle in a Box Smokescreen

Yay, something to do with the spare Armada Smokescreen PVC! Turned out really well, I think. The pewter last-wave PVCs really take paint well. Must be the pewter paint mix was changed to adust to the way-softer plastic.

Course, this plastic also makes it hard for Smokey to stand up, hence the stand. I usually don't use 'em.

I'm not sure what I think about the colors. They work, and work pretty well. They're not outstanding or anything, but there's just enough yellow to make him interesting.

I'm inordinately fond of the Battle in a Box sets. My only real complaints about them are that the Mini-Cons weren't renamed, and that BiaB Nightbeat looks almost totally identical to K-Mart Oil Slick's "Search and Destroy Robot", which looks almost totally identical to the original Nightbeat Mini-Con. Three nigh-identical Minis makes Siph a sad obsessive Mini-Con owner. I hate it when Minis get short shrift like that.

Perceptor

I don't now why the idea of an evil Perceptor tickles me so, but it does. It'd have been nicer of TFU High Wire looked less like the normal High Wire, though. I realize that gang-molding means changing the black means the other two's tires change as well, but... well, the blue-gray at least could have gone a different color, I think.

Grindor and Sureshock turned out great, as far as I'm concerned. Plus with those colors, I see TFU Sureshock as acting liek a Mini-Con version of Crasher from the old Hanna-Barberra GoBots cartoon. Wicked bitch.

But still. Evil Perceptor is pretty awesome. That he's paired up with a grade-A loon like Sunstorm is even better.

Unreleased Smokescreen

So among the Universe exclusives that got trapped in limbo was a set using the Armada Hot Shot and Wheeljack molds, as G1 Smokescreen and G2 Drench.

But I don't particularly care about Smokescreen. DRENCH, man. How often do we get G2 homages? Practically never. And it's not like the Armada Wheeljack mold ever got a redeco. I want, nay, plead for the Drench to come out SOMEHOW. Hasbrotoyshop.com, the fan club, anything.

Painting this up was interesting. The colors actually work out on this mold very nicely. Even though I have no emotional attachment to G1 Smokescreen at all, I like this redeco a lot.

Just nowhere near as much as I lust after Universe Drench.

Robot Masters HOCHs

Black Body Starscream

Sweet Malted Christ, was I bored when I did this.

Thingofitis, it's one of the very few Robot Masters pieces I can do for HOCH, and if anything I strive to cover the field of Transformers as much as possible. For those who don't know, this color scheme was offered through uh... one of four Japanese toy magazines. Figure King.

As far as being a black recolor goes... well, this one is less impressive than the G1 Black Machine Wars "I Feel Pretty" Starscream, but better than your average near-solid-black recolor. The light gray breaks up the black quite nicely.

The gray is a mix of Fortress Gray and Skull white, the same one I used on several other Air Warrior repaints by this time. It matches the original Starscream PVC gray quite nice. I went with Tamiya's silver paint because it's shinier and chromier. And promptly put a big old thumbprint in it, which is visible in the picture. Of course, I didn't catch this until after it was too late to re-shoot against the background, as I don't own it and now neither does the toy dealer who let me use it as a backdrop.

And since this is not one of my favorite pieces, I don't feel like putting the effort forth to re-shoot.

At which point I run out of things to say about this piece, so thank you and good night.

e-hobby "Decepticon Disguise" Star Saber

You know, I was pretty happy when Takara announced the recolor to the Robot Masters Star Saber. And not just because it let me DO something with the damn pewter Star Saber PVC I had.

See, I've been pretty underwhelmed by the Robot Masters original molds. Oh, Optimus Primal is allright. He's kind of hard to mess up. The others are mediocre at best, while some, like BW Megatron, are infuriating. Star Saber doesn't improve on the original toy (which I have) in any real way, and the Victory Leo toy... is ass. One of the worst toys out in a long time. So I'd planned to skip those two. I was well on my way to NOT buying every TF ever by this point. I'm still a domestic product completist, but importing everything costs too damn much. I'd hit "new molds or new characters only" when it comes to Japanese product, and SS/VL was the first new molds I was planning to skip, since, well, I got the toys they're small versions of anyway.

When the rather interesting-looking e-hobby "Decepticon Disguise" set came out... well, that got me the molds and I felt a little better. Vic Leo is still ass. But as far as black recolors go, well, at least there's plenty of dark turquoise and purple and copper breaking stuff up. Though frankly, neither one stands as well on their own as they do as a team. As a SET they look allight. As individuals? Ehn.

Bound Rogue

Okay, this is silly, but BBTS (I think it was BBTs) was having a big discount sale along with some other stuff (or was it HobbyLink Japan? Whatever), and I got the Beast Wars 2 12-PVC sets from Japan for like $5 each. I figured "hey, that'll supplement the HOCs nicely".

I knew they were small, but I didn't count on them being, well, REALLY cartoony. So I've held off on the others. Bound Rogue kinda works since he's a small mold and the beasts are small compared to the vehicles, but still. Maybe I'll do up more anyway... I mean, Smokejumper and Bludgeon are GONNA be small compared to RiD Fortress Maximus anyway.

Bound Rogue is SO Sonic the Hedgehog.

Pre-Transformers HOCHs

Zazorigan

For a while, I only had the pewter Scorponok "assembler" PVC. And I fear for its waist-peg. I'm sure it's going to snap off like way too many other pewter PVC pegs. But I got tired of it and painted it up before I got my color Scorponok. People have commented about changes I made to the face, but all I did was switch the faceguard around. No reculpting or cutting at all.

Zazorigan is one of the numerous Transformers deisgns to end up in a post-TF "Brave" series, though this time, no toy was ever made. (Apparently, badguys don't sell to kids in Japan, even less so than they do in the US. The Batman Syndrome is global, apparently.) He's um... a piloted mech. I think. I totally forget what series he was in.

Hm. Wonder how Energon Scorponok would look in blood-reds.

I wouldn't mind a Black Zarak pewter so I could make up the Action Master Elite Double Punch. Action Masters make me happy. A second pewter Scorp would make a good base for Giant Decepticon Warrior from the old Micromasters commercials...

Mechabot-1

It's pre-TF Omega Supreme, from... whatever the hell company made him!

Actually, it's a pretty nice damn color arrangement. I wouldn't have minded if the Guardian Robots were done up this way.

I waffled on painting the eyes or not, and went with "not" for no justifiable reason. I'm assuming the bulb inside the toy's dome is red, so maybe I'll paint the eyes red, but ehn.

Black Walther Gun Robo

Now, here's the black Megatron I was talking about earlier. Solid black plastic, blue interior bits. It's a really sinister color scheme. Kinda wondering why this wasnt the color scheme chosen for Megatron.

Well, I suppose that in the original line, this version didn't have all the stock and barrel accessories... but come on, that's easily changed.

Of course, I personally think the gun-Megs was limp anyway, and that Megatron REALLY should have been the Diaclone Gats-Blocker 14. Fourteen mini-vehicles combining into one mighty robot. Awesome. No "pull my trigger!" HERE, baby.

Ah well.

Cassette Robo

There are actually a lot of Rumble/Frenzy recolors in the cartoons. Most of them come from the More Than Meets The Eye opening 3-parter, but there's an odd yellow and black one in the Japanese Headmasters series. There's also "Enemy", a red and blue guy permanently affixed to an AM Radio piece of mrechandise from the 80's.

But there's "pre-Enemy", the pre-TF Microman cassette-robo coloration, which is kind of an Enemy-like reverse-Rumble, only with dark blue instead of black. It's a pretty spiffy color scheme. So I went with that because I kinda like it. He's no Cobalt Sentry like Garboil & Howlback, but hey.

No, this is not a Heroes of Cybertron/SCF PVC. It's one of the KT Collection toys, which was recolored as both Rumble and Frenzy. It's... a little broken. One of the piledriver-pegs snapped off, and the tip of one of the guns snapped off... and I can't seem to find my epoxy to fix them.

Man, I love the sculpt on this thing. The face is priceless.

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