CLASSIFICATION: REPAINT
MATERIALS USED: ENAMEL PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE

"All right!  Hot Rod is back!  Let's party!"

Preamble:  Hot Rod, like almost all of the characters introduced in The Transformers: the Movie, was conceived as an animated character first, and then retro-engineered into a transformable Hasbro toy based on this animation design.  Obviously, some concessions had to be made, since it's one thing to imagine the transformation for an animated character, but quite another to build it in three-dimensional space.  The transformation sequence created for the animated character was far too ambitious to reproduce at this scale and level of complexity (it looks like his arms are supposed to rotate on an axis to form the sides of the car mode, and his pelvis somehow forms his windshield).  One of the biggest problems with the Hasbro toy, though, was his color scheme.  In the movie, Hot Rod is a bright shade of magenta, and this was reflected in the early toy prototype pictured in Hasbro's 1986 catalog, but the final version of the toy is a dark maroon color.  This was the more muted color scheme in which Rodimus Prime would appear during the third television season, but Hot Rod was supposed to be a little flashier than that.

Construction:  My Hot Rod toy had already broken in two places (the canopy had broken off, and one of the hinges on his neck had snapped off), so I had to repair these parts before I could begin.  Also, the stickers on the toy would have to come off.  Since the toy was based on the movie character, Hot Rod's design was already complete in its animated form; the stickers were completely superfluous.  (There's also the fact that unlike the stickers for most of the 1984-85 toys, which were designed by artists at Takara , Hasbro created the stickers for the 1986 toys and they didn't even look that cool.  Hot Rod's rainbow triangles are, to me, utterly ridiculous-looking.)  After scraping the stickers off, I disassembled him so I could paint each part individually.  I also took the tires off so I wouldn't get paint on them (something I've accidentally done with some of my die-cast car repaints).  Using my character design for Hot Rod as a reference, I repainted all the maroon parts a bright magenta color.  His head, arms, pelvis, and lower legs got this treatment, as well as his canopy and the sides of his car mode.  I took what paint was left and turned it into a darker maroon by adding a few drops of black, and I used this as a highlight color for his front bumper, part of his pelvis, and parts of his helmet.

I didn't paint his upper legs since they were already the right shade of orange (and because the paint would scrape off during transformation anyway), but I did paint his chest, collar, knees, and the center of his spoiler this color.  His fists and the inside panels on his shoulders became grey; the lower legs and feet became black; and I painted his exhaust pipes, engine, and hubcaps light grey.  The flame decal was made from a sticker that I cut to the right shape and painted yellow before applying it in place.  I also painted some details on the components on his wrists, which originally lacked paint applications completely.

Comments:  Even though I painted a few of the moving parts, the toy still transforms perfectly, and in my opinion it's a tremendous improvement on the original colors.  (Almost makes you wonder if Takara is going to do another Hot Rod reissue in anime colors.  Hey, it could happen.)