| JAZZ
(PRETENDER)
PROJECT 195.1
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
MATERIALS USED: PRECISION SCREWDRIVER, ENAMEL PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS #1 (AS JAZZ); TRANSFORMERS # 59 (AS
PRETENDER)
"Whoa there, m'man. Can't have you damagin'
my snappy new Pretender duds! You do that, you eat floor, dig?"
Preamble: The year I built this project,
Hasbro unveiled a new line of Playskool brand Transformers toys. That
strikes me as kind of funny, since there was a time when nearly every
Transformer released seemed like it was designed for preschoolers. Take
the Classic Pretenders, for example: oversimplified versions of four of the
most popular Transformers toys, with absolutely none of the complexity that
made them interesting in the first place. Jazz was perhaps the least
satisfying of these, since the Pretender
version was a clunky, poorly-designed version of the original toy, with
stickers for windows, a stump for legs, and the inability to see over his
own chest. He also had almost no paint operations, except for his helmet,
which was colored blue for some inexplicable reason. I guess that works
fine if you're Marvel Comics and can only think in primary colors, but I
prefer something a bit more accurate to the cartoon series that made Jazz
a popular character in the first place.
Construction: The first thing I did
to the toy was ditch the window stickers and cut away at the plastic underneath,
gluing thin sheets of clear plastic in its place to create real windows.
I had to leave some of the plastic visible inside the vehicle
cabin, since some of it holds his body together and I didn't want to completely
demolish his structural integrity. The next problem was how to adjust
the vehicle hood so Jazz could actually see past it; my solution was to carve
out new grooves inside the hood where it connects to the body. Now,
after swinging the hood down during transformation, pressing down on the
hood makes it slide down into the new grooves so that the robot head is actually
visible. I also separated the head from the body, which is held in
place with a peg, so that it can also slide up a little. (Sort of like
the original Jazz toy, only in reverse.)
I really wanted Jazz to have separate legs, so
I cut away at the middle of his stump so that the fronts of his legs were
two separate pieces. I also carved out the bottom of the stump so that
he could have an actual spoiler in car mode, covering up the resultant gap
in his legs with a piece of sheet plastic. I thought that sticker on
his bumper with the headlights and front grill looked really dorky, so I
got rid of it and drilled new holes for his headlights, carving out rectangular
gaps for his front grill and turn signals. In the process, I finally
discovered the limitations of my tools. The X-Acto knife I was using
wasn't a fine enough instrument for such delicate work! Now I know
why the professional sculptors use dental tools.) I did use the sticker
for the front grill on the finished product, though. No reason to waste
it.
I also gave Jazz a whole bunch of new paint
operations. For his vehicle mode, I painted his rear bumper and fenders
to match the rest of his car body, and painted some new racing stripes.
For his robot mode, most of the work was on his legs; after scraping
the copyright stamp off the front of his left leg, I used a knife to cut
the shape of the new details. Making a cut with my knife on the surface
of the plastic raises the edge just enough that the paint stays in the lines
quite nicely. The new headlights and bumper got a new coat of paint,
along with his forearms and his entire head.
Comments: I had put this project
away for a long time because I wasn't entirely satisfied with the
modifications I'd made to his hood for the transformation (I originally created
this page in August of 2000, if that gives you any idea), but after looking
at it again, I think I did a pretty decent job considering what I had to
work with. The toy is a lot more fragile, now... but no more
than the original Jazz toy, now that I think about it. |
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