| SHOCKWAVE (LASER
GUN MODE)
PROJECT #378
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: ROBOT HEROES SHOCKWAVE
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, SUPER GLUE, ACRYLIC PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: "MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" PART 1
"I must protect Cybertron against all hostile
threats!"
Comments: I'd originally planned to completely
scratchbuild my version of gun-mode Shockwave around the same time I was
working on the Insecticons, but I temporarily put the project on hold for
lack of suitable materials. Of course, as soon as Hasbro released their
cute and cuddly Robot Heroes figures and Shockwave just happened to
be among the characters to receive this treatment, I immediately snatched
up an extra one to rebuild into his transformed mode.
Even though the Shockwave figure I used was
disproportionately super-deformed, I was still able to use it to build a
normal-looking version of the laser gun mode. I chopped the figure
into pieces and more or less reconfigured the figure in the same way that
the G1 toy actually transforms, using one of his lower legs as the gun handle
and building the cannon of the laser gun out of his arms. I had
been planning to cut off his backpack and use it as the back end of the gun,
but his robot head was actually more suitable so I used that instead (insert
joke here about Shockwave's head being stuck up his reactor linkage).
His gun mode wouldn't stand up on its own without
some extra support, though, so I had to mistransform him and add his robot
feet back into the equation so that he could balance unassisted. (I
think this is listed in the instructions for the G1 toy as one of the "alternate
transformations," so I think I can technically get away with doing
this.)
This project also just happens to be just the
right size for the original G1 Shockwave toy to carry as an accessory to
re-enact the strangely-animated scene from "Desertion of the Dinobots" part
1 in which Shockwave is carrying a gun-mode version of
himself. |
