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The hardest part of this one (outside of figuring out what the hell to do fictionally with this, thanks to Liquid Velcro! for the idea to go full-on Diaclone-pilot) was really deciding on the colors. My source materials weren't the best, as I don't own these versions of the toys.
The "Takara SF Land" book that features the Henshin Cyborg, MicroMan and Diaclone lines really only had tiny pictures of the alternate Trainbots, and one striaght-on shot of the combined form. For such a complex piece, I needed a little more.
But Diaclone.net, a rather well-done Japanese fan-site featuring pictures of almost the entire Diaclone line and related toys (including comparison pictures to the TFs they became) had their own problems. While they had pictures of each individual alternate Trainbot... the pictures were frankly not the best quality. Very dark, and in need of some color correction. The picture below from their site is a version I did some tweaking to.
So I split the difference. I used the SF Land pictures' colors (figuring their sample was in much better condition), while using the Diaclone.net pictures for layout.
One thing I discovered that I didn't know was that the TF version of the Trainbots actually has an extra piece. That red thing that covers Raiden's abs. Neither Diaclone version has that. I wonder what the deal is. There are apparenly several other little construction differences between various Trains and their TF versions.
This was easily the most complicated paint job I've given any PVC. He's an odd mish-mash of colors, and there's all sorts of little details to him. I don't think I could even pick out a single "hardest moment" on this repaint.
Of course, I did myself no favors by trying to be a little more toy-accurate than the cartoon model's layouts.
The windows on all the original toys are unpainted, but I didn't really want to go with light blue like the original PVC. So I used black, what the hell.
  
Combined picture by Diaclone.net.
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