| ALTERNATORS
SMOKESCREEN (G1 VERSION)
PROJECT #239
CLASSIFICATION: REPAINT
BASE FIGURE: TRANSFORMERS: ALTERNATORS SMOKESCREEN
MATERIALS USED: ENAMEL/ACRYLIC PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: "DINOBOT ISLAND" PART 1
"The name's Smokescreen...and I never walk when
I can drive!"
Preamble: The Alternators line is one of
the most exciting things ever to happen to contemporary Transformers toys.
They're brand-new toys specifically designed to represent the original
characters, only with insanely realistic details in vehicle mode and more
points of articulation in robot mode than you can shake an energy conductor
at. And, yeah, they're officially licensed by the automotive manufaturers
to boot, if you get off on that sort of thing. Me, I'm just delighted
to have this intricately-designed Smokescreen toy that actually looks like
Smokescreen.
Well, I should say he looks like Smokescreen up
to a certain point. Hasbro decided to restrict themselves to
painstakingly reproducing a specific real-life vehicle model, which means
that this version of Smokescreen was predominantly blue, rather than his
characteristic red-white-and-blue racing stripes. I've always thought
that a Transformer's color scheme is one of his single most important identifying
features (especially since, in Smokescreen's case, his colors are pretty
much the only thing that distinguishes him from Prowl or Bluestreak),
and that this really amazing toy could have been an even more amazing
toy if it had been produced in colors that were more clearly evocative of
the character. So, I bought a second toy and resolved to do it myself.
(Some people in the fandom complain that Hasbro repaints the same toys
and sells them over again to force completists to buy two or more of the
same toy. Me, I've realized that all Hasbro has to do is release
one toy in the wrong colors, and they force me to buy a second one
and do the painting myself. Diabolical.)
Construction: I think I spent more
time on the prep work for this project than I did on the actual painting.
The most time-consuming part involved taking a cotton swab dipped in
paint thinner and taking off all those dozens of racing sponsors and logos.
(I guess I could have just done the windows, since I was going
to paint over everything else, but I was afraid some of the
tampo-printing would still be visible if I only applied one coat of paint
over top of it. This is a toy with a lot of moving parts, so I wanted
to apply as few coats of paint as possible, lest the paint began to interfere
with the working joints.) For the same reason, I got rid of the Autobot
symbols on his shoulders in the same manner.
Also, I originally created this repaint with
the intention of selling it on eBay (it wasn't until after I finished the
project that I fell in love with the toy and changed my mind). To this
end, I scanned the toy photos and package artwork from the box and digitally
altered it to represent Smokescreen in his G1 colors; I'd planned on including
the customized box with the toy as a selling point. When it became
clear to me that I simply couldn't part with this toy, I went ahead and printed
out the images and pasted them to the box anyway, just for fun. Making
them wasn't a total waste of time, since I was also able to use the digital
mock-ups as a reference guide when painting the toy.
Disassembling the toy in order to paint it was
pretty easy, and I actually had the foresight to use a magnet to keep track
of all the little screws and things so I didn't go losing one in the carpet.
Most of the parts that didn't unscrew, I was able to simply pop off;
this included the vehicle hood and roof, the robot arms and fists, and his
legs. Sadly, I ended up breaking both of the rear doors when I
tried to remove them. (They still work and everything, but they tend
to come off more easily now than before.) The only parts that I couldn't
get apart, but wanted to, were the inner and outer door panels (had to paint
around 'em, basically). I tried to match the look of the G1 toy as
closely as possible, which included little details like painting the rear
directional signals (the tail lights are made from translucent plastic, so
I used paint thinner on the silver deco and replaced it with orange) and
the two-tone license plate. I also had some fun adding some paint deco
to the vehicular interior, in order to bring out the detail on things like
the door locks and onboard cassette player.
Naturally, no project is complete without reproduction
stickers from Delta Star, so I asked
him to make me some double-sized versions of the "38" logo for Smokescreen's
doors. He sent me one for the hood, too, but I ended up putting an
Autobot symbol there instead, using a smaller one for his rear windshield
to imitate the placement of stickers on the G1 toy. He also made me
an extra-large version of the racing lights for the top of his windshield
in vehicle mode. I think the stickers go a long way to helping the
toy look authentic.
Comments: I guess Alternators Smokescreen
is one of those toys that lends itself really well to paint projects; I've
seen lots of other fan repaints of him into various characters (Prowl seems
to be a popular one), some more thoroughly modified than others.
Unfortunately, after doing this project, I'll never look at my original
Alternators Smokescreen the same way again. He just looks like a cheap
knockoff by comparison. |
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