| ANTHRAX
PROJECT #251
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: SPYSTREAK (TRANSFORMERS: BEAST MACHINES)
MATERIALS USED: AERIALBOT KNOCKOFF PARTS, SCRAP PLASTIC, SCULPEY MODELING
COMPOUND, SUPER GLUE
FIRST APPEARANCE: "CHILDREN OF CYBERTRON"
"What I'm proposing, Megatron, is a merger. My
Decepticon forces will combine with yours and allow you to take control of
Cybertron."
Preamble: Anthrax is a fan-created character
who appears in my G2-era story, "Children of Cybertron." I came up
with a character design for her back in 1994, complete with vehicle mode
and an approximation of what the transformation would look like, but that's
about as far as the design process went. It wasn't until Hasbro produced
the Beast Machines toy line and released a Vehicon toy named Spystreak
that I began to think about building a toy in her likeness. I swear,
if I didn't know better, I'd say Spystreak was based on Anthrax.
They share so many design elements that it can't possibly be a coincidence.
(I've long suspected that Hasbro and Takara have installed spyware
on my computer, and as far as I'm concerned, this cinches it.)
Anyway, I did some initial design work on the
toy, but ended up putting it away for a long time, partly because of a lack
of materials but partly because I wasn't really satisfied with the design.
When I get stuck on a project like this, I usually let my subconscious
mull it over for a while and eventually figure everything out. Sure
enough, I picked up on the project a few years down the road and knew exactly
what changes needed to be made. The fact that it just happens to be
the tenth anniversary of the character's creation is utter serendipity.
This is only my third attempt at creating a
transforming toy, a concept which tends to pose its own special engineering
problems, but I'm rather pleased with the results this time.
Construction: Spystreak was the obvious
base figure for an Anthrax project, but I needed to make a few major design
modifications. Spystreak's jet nose is mounted on his arm in robot
mode, so the first thing I had to do was figure out how to alter the
transformation so the cockpit ends up on the chest. After cutting the
jet fuselage off the forearm (and ditching the missile launcher attached
to the other arm), I reattached the fuselage to the body, creating a working
hinge using the arm connector from a broken G1 Ramjet toy (as luck would
have it, removing the lever that activated the grabber claw left behind a
nice gap to incorporate the new hinge). I added a peg to the rear of
the jet that would lock this piece in place when it folds over for the
transformation, and a pair of smaller pegs to hold it in place for jet mode.
I also cut off the nose of the jet and retooled
it to make it detachable, so it could plug into the toy's chest for robot
mode. In the end, though, I thought this made the toy look too fat,
so I made some changes so that the cockpit window detaches and attaches to
the robot chest instead. (The jet nose is still detachable, of course,
though removing it isn't required for the transformation to robot mode. I
left the peg on the bottom so Anthrax can carry it as a shield or
something.)
Some of the design changes I made were strictly
cosmetic. I swapped the lower legs, for example, because I wanted Anthrax
to have wings on the outside of her legs in robot mode. The forearms
also got switched around. The upper arms were huge and ungainly (and
not particularly feminine), so I cut away at the blocky shoulder armor until
I arrived at a pleasantly rounded shape. (The shoulders are actually
designed to plug a gap left open in the jet mode, though, so I took two of
the pieces I'd chopped off and glued them to the jet body to complete the
fuselage.) For the lower arms, I cut chunks out of the wrists and replaced
those laughable "fists" with the hands from a Qui-Gon Jinn figure. I
also added a pair of wings (left over from a flying RoboCop toy used for
a previous project) which more or less blend into the contours of the jet
mode, but which protrude from her back for robot mode. The missiles
(projectiles that I think came with an X-Men toy) have pegs that attach
to the wings and swivel into position for each mode. They're also removable
for use as handheld weapons.
I'd thought briefly about retaining the original
Spystreak head, but my desire for a more female-looking face won out and
I replaced it with the head from a Queen Amidala figure. After chopping
off her hair, I built her helmet with Sculpey, being careful not to make
it so big that her head wouldn't retract into the body. The antennas
are made from flexible vinyl plastic so they can bend slightly as her head
retracts.
This project represents my first experiments in
using fabric dye to stain the plastic. I knew painting the ball joints
would never work since the paint would scrape off, so I bought some black
dye, treated the upper arms, upper legs, fists, sword, and front half
of the body, and let the parts soak overnight. It worked amazingly
well. The only real complications I ran into were the dye not dissolving
all the way (water wasn't hot enough) and one of the plastic parts beginning
to melt a little (water was too hot that time).
This is one of the only projects I've ever painted
using colors straight out of the bottle. (I figured it was probably
a good idea this time since I anticipated having to do paint touch-ups just
in case there were still parts that scraped together a little after the final
assembly.) For the cockpit window, which is made from the corner of
a microcassette tape case, I actually painted the inside of the
translucent plastic so that the outside surface retained its glossy, glass-like
sheen.
Comments: When I designed Anthrax a decade
ago, I never imagined in my wildest dreams I'd ever try to construct a toy
in her likeness. I made her transformation realistic enough that I
was able to recreate it pretty faithfully in three dimensions, even though
I did have to make a few concessions here and there.
ANTHRAX
FUNCTION: MECHANICAL ENGINEER
"Without science, there can be no
warfare."
Crafty, mysterious, inventive...has scientific
curiosity, constantly asks questions, but reveals little to others.
Dislikes harming creatures unless it will further science.
Specializes in designing new Decepticons. As Cybertronic jet,
can fly 4000 mph for 3000 miles, armed with laser cannons and air-to-ground,
heat-seeking missiles. As robot, optic sensors determine molecular
composition and chemical properties of metal. Electro-sword generates
400,000 volts of electricity. Agile in combat, but tendency to be
distracted makes her vulnerable.
STR: 7 INT: 10 SPD: 9 END: 5 RNK: 9 CRG: 6
FPW: 6 SKL: 10
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