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"Just a shadow of my former self, don't you think?"--Starscream, "Ghost in the Machine" (TF)
I've never been completely satisfied with any single incarnation
of the Starscream toy, since none of them bears more than a passing resemblance
to the character from the cartoon series. The original G1 toy is probably
the closest, but it still suffers from a few problems that really don't do
the character much justice--especially when compared to his cartoon model,
which was my final goal. I don't consider this a true kitbash as such,
since the majority of the changes I made to the toy are cosmetic, at best.
Once again, I grappled with the poor depth perception of my scanner coupled with the bulky shape of the toy. I will be replacing these images with more clear photographs in a few weeks. In the meantime, I decided to compromise a bit by including some close-up scans of some of his body parts.
Parts Used:
The original Starscream toy (minus the weapons).
Ramjet's fists. I know I'm going to try to find an un-modified Starscream toy one day, and I realized that a pair of black fists are far more expendable than Starscream's unique blue ones.
Two guns from the Robo Links toy line. I've been using these as Starscream's guns for years since I lost one of his original launchers a long time ago. I think they look much better than the thick, stocky ones that came with the toy.
Your usual stuff--paints, an X-Acto knife, super glue, and some putty.
Construction:
First, I used my fingernail to scrape off most of his original stickers, both factory- and consumer-applied, which have long since faded (using a metal hair clip to dig into to air intakes and inside his feet). If you ask me, the look of the toy is much improved by the removal of the stickers.
I was going to just stop here and paint him, but I got to thinking that what he really needed was longer legs. I took him apart and realized that if I scraped away a bit at the leg connectors, I could actually extend them by about 1/4". It's a subtle difference, but one that I'm quite pleased with--it actually gives him upper legs, and makes him slightly taller to boot. You can see the extended legs in the scan to the right.
I also wanted his wings mounted higher up on his back, so I added a second
post to each wing
for
use in robot mode. I simply drilled a new hole in the
side of his body to accomodate the second post when he's in jet
mode. I also shortened the original wing-posts so that his wings
meet the jet body more closely.
Here's something that's been bugging me for years. I carved off the bump on the top of his cockpit which was apparently meant to reinforce the strength of the cockpit. Even without the bump ruining the lines of the jet mode, it still seems plenty strong to me. I also scored grooves in the cockpit to more closely resemble his cartoon-self.
Finally, I filled up the screw holes in his chest and pelvis with putty in preparation for painting him.
Painting:
I disassembled the toy completely in order to paint it (well,
except for the jet nose, which I couldn't figure out how to remove). I
painted his stabilizer wings, robot fists, feet, and those things on the
front of his legs a nice sky blue color, making the jet thrusters grey (they're
supposed to be, according to the cartoon).
For the "air vent" style panels on his knees, I considered using a home-made label of some kind, but I really didn't want any labels on this guy. Instead, I carved out notches on the toy and then painted them dark grey. I discovered that scoring grooves into the plastic warps it just enough that a thin mixture of paint will not cross the grooves. That became the ideal way to paint the stripes on his wings, then--just score the outline of the stripes with my hobby knife, and then carefully paint in the stripes. Worked beautifully.
Matching the precise color of greyish-silver for Starscream proved very difficult. I added a touch of silver to try to reproduce the semi-metallic effect (produced by the tiny bits of glitter in the plastic), but what really surprised me was that I had to add a bit of green paint to the mix before it came close enough to match. I used the grey paint on his waist, upper legs/wing connectors, jet nose cone, the outside of his arms, and his new guns.
The paint was wearing off of his die-cast metal body, so I gave it a nice new coat of bright red. While I was at it, I painted a bit more of the side of his upper chest and pelvis, which is concealed by the wings in jet mode.
The finishing touches included painting the cockpit a solid orange (which looks better than using a cockpit from Skywarp or Thundercracker, in my opinion); painting the robot face and eyes; and replacing the Decepticon symbols. The replacements do not appear in these scans, but I used a pair of nice metallic labels which I ordered from Delta's Repro-Label Page.
Transformation
His transformation from jet to robot mode is very nearly identical, except that you extend the legs, and remove the wings to reattach them higher up on his body. I remove his stabilizer fins entirely for the robot mode, although they can be stored on the holes on the back of his wings. (But you knew that already.) He uses the same guns in both modes, which means that they're a bit longish in jet mode, but that's a minor consideration.
Estimated Man-Hours Spent: A couple of weeks, on and off. I took my sweet time whittling away at the cockpit and the new guns because I didn't want to damage them, so it's hard to say. I also got sick midway through the project--not that it stopped me from working on him, but the fever messed with my perception of time a little.
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This Page Created 8/10/2000
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