I've never minded touching-up features on my bots, and I have done a couple of so-so kitbashes, just for fun, but nothing like this attempt. I'm still a little miffed about the Botcon seekers I won't be getting due to brokeness, and I needed an outlet. After reading( and re-reading ) Jin's handy little guide to painting, and seeing someone else ( sorry, I don't remember who ya wuz. ) make their own Thundercracker out of a Classic Screamer, I decided to give it a go. No extra Screamers here, but i did have 2 extra Ramjets. One became a sacrifice to the gods of cheapskatery. This took me 2 days, and some cheap Anita's Acrylic Craft Paint, which I'm sure I shouldn't have used. But it was all I could find locally. Oh, and a can of clear acrylic sealer, a couple of cheap brushes, one of my wife plastic bowls (no, haven't seen it honey! ), some toothpicks to hold up parts so I didn't have to finger them too much, and way more patience than I'm usually capable of. I haven't decided if it's finished, because I'd like to make his red&white wing stripes, but probably won't. Anyways, my first real paintjob, whadda ya think? Please, no foul language. Oh, and sorry about the sorry pictures. Cheap camera.

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Tiny pics Otherwise, it looks great! Fantastic first try! Looks like you took away quite a bit from Jins guide. Very nice my friend.

Thanks! Yeah, gotta give credit to Jin and his sweet guide. And yes, I wish I had a real camera...

It looks good; it's certainly just as good as the one from Botcon. Also, if Takara ever gets around to it, you can buy all three Masterpiece cone head Seekers for the price of that Botcon set.

The acrylic paint you said you used sounds like what I'm doing with my Classics Thrust. While I had used acrylic model paints for my Classics Thundercracker and Dirge, I had to use some acrylic craft paint. I did that because I couldn't find the correct shade of red that I needed for Thrust. I also had to buy some clear coat model paint to seal it, since that stuff scrapes off very easily. The craft paint seems like it was made for everything else but plastic.

Yeah, the craft paint had me worried all along, but after I gave it a couple of light spray coats of the Acrylic Sealer, it seems like it's going to hold up just fine. And anyways, it's gonna get displayed, not played. Areas that repeatedly rubbed off during painting, like where the wings swing from, I finally did a little scraping and sanding, to give the paint a little clearance. Which seems to be working pretty well. So far anyways....

That's pretty awesome for your first repaint.

VERY clean from the pics you took. Nicely done!

If you want to get those stripes and don't think your paint skills are up to snuff, what about automotive pinstriping? It's just a guess, but I *do* know for sure there's some type if adhesive detailing tape in hobby shops that would do nicely.

Thanks! And thanks also for the info, automotive pinstriping hadn't crossed my mind, but it might be do-able. Also, yesterday I was at the local Wallyworld, looking(in vain) for some new TF's, when I saw a kit in the model car section that claims to let you create and print your own stickers. It was about $30 though, and since I have no idea if it's worth a damn, I can't justify getting it. Maybe someone around here has tried it out and can tell me about it. Hopefully...

Cool! Looks like a factory figure from here so you did a good job on the painting.

And you're right, craft paints you get at michaels/wal mart are indeed formulated to stick to wood, plaster, cardboard, rock, and everything except plastic, metal, and glass. Craft paint like porus objects so you need quality model paint like Testors, Games Workshop, Vallejo paints, Polly-O, Tamiya, etc. They're formulated to stick to plastic and smooth surfaces. Enamels are suited to stick to glass and metal better than acrylics tho.

Well, IMO, if you think I did a good job, then I did a good job! I appreciate the kind words. I definately learned some things, mostly what NOT to do, while making this, so if/when I try it again, it'll work out better. And easier.

I think maybe the only reason the el cheapo Anita's paint worked out for me is that I did thouroughly wash the bot first, and then lightly scuffed the surface with some ultra-fine modelers sandpaper. I wasn't going to scuff it, but I quickly realized that I needed to sand off the Ramjet stripes as they reallly wanted to show thru!

Here is my dirge (ramjet repaint) I used metallic enamel paints (midnight blue/ copper) and deliberately simplified the paint job. One of my main goals was getting rid of all the white, so the joints are a bit stiff now. My idea was to make a 'tribute' to the mold I think my version is pretty evil looking.Click to view attachment

Are the eyes on yours still red? I painted the face of mine blue but the eyes stayed red. I thought that was awesome. I still have to fix some of my colours... but I'm pretty sure that I will stick to the midnight blue/ copper/ black (semi gloss) colour scheme. Somehow the red and white details don't do much for me.
I am also considering cutting the tail fins off and glueing then underneath the front of the wing. Will have to wait and see for that one.

I'm going for the same approach with my Dirge, though I'm not simplifying it per se (coincidentally, it's also my first custom) - darker blue (though not metallic), copper and black, going for a more sinister look.

Anyway, Rundown, that is worthy of BotCon. I'm really wishing I would've looked for a repaint guide before starting mine. Kudos to you.

I'm currently doing a thundercracker aswell. It's strange but I think that if Hasbro released all the seekers then I would be less likely to want them all. There is something about them telling me 'no' that I don't like. Thrust is a different story. Check it out.



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Dirge still needs a mod. Although I washed some of the excess paint from the canopy. Thundercracker still needs a little paint and his rub sign back.

Another one (sorry for taking over the thread a little)

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finally got that mod done on Dirge..

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Very cool. I was thinking of trying literally the same thing with my Dirge, but I don't have a Dremel and frankly, didn't trust myself not to mutilate the figure in some other way accidentally.

A dremel? What is that? This was done with a hacksaw from the $2 shop... it cost $2. The edges were smoothed with a stanley knife... also from the $2 shop. The paint is all enamel. It looks like Dirge now.

Heh, I like that! If I do another Dirge I'm gonna do exactly that with the wings. If only there was a good way to loose the engines off the wings...

A Dremel is a tool a lot of kitbashers use to carve into their figures. But the fact that you did that with a hacksaw amazes me, because it's looking pretty precise. Maybe I'll try something similar.

I like the engines... I like the swivel of the wings and how they look as leg armour. Dirge would have to be my favorite seeker. Hands down. It's just really crappy that the botcon version is so bad. It's like they didn't even try. I know that if Hasbro released these as general release classics I would have got all the coneheads, and maybe only one of the original seekers. It's kinda sad.
I did Thundercracker because I wanted to do another repaint. But I do really like his name. We even have a fish called Thundercracker! But how expensive is he? This whole lot cost me U$62 for 2 seekers, six colours of enamal paint, turps for clean up and the hacksaw (I stole the paintbrushes off my girlfriend).
With Dirge the loss of paint on the cone and canopy was accidental. The enamal just didn't hold. It adds a certain detail that I had been willing to sacrifice... added bonus!

Anyway besides a classic Rodimus that I have pretty much destroyed... I think that's it for me for a while. Well maybe until I repaint classic Megatron.

I've heard that acrylics hold better than enamels, and that's stayed true with my Dirge thus far.

And I would absolutely have bought all of the Seekers had they been mass-released. After I get another Starscream for my Thundercracker repaint (Classics are fairly scant here these days, so I'm hoping a collectibles dealer I go to gets his restock of them in soon), I might have to create a different character to have six Seekers, 'cause there's no way I'm capable of making VTOL wings for Thrust, and anything less doesn't do him justice IMO.

In total, after TC and Dirge are both done, probably around $80 total - figures, paints and brushes - as opposed to around $200 apiece on eBay.

do you have pictures of your Dirge?

Not as of yet, I'm only about half done - legs/wings and guns. If I get a chance later tonight I'll snap a few and post them.

I still have to make wings for my Classics Thrust. I think they will have to be built from scratch. I might try to make the fans or come up with some different VTOL engine. I might just mount rectangular engines, with intakes and exhaust ports, onto the wings and have the whole wings tilt horizontally.

So you know I'm sending you a SS to make into thundercracker right?

I decided to add another bit of colour to Dirge to break it up a bit...

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... ended up doing this. Now Dirge has nearly as much detail as a regular seeker. I'm really happy with him now. Time to fine tune Thundercracker...

I'll stick my neck out and state that acrylic paints are your best choice for this kind of work. It's near impossible to get a smooth finish with enamels. And even when dried, which takes forever with enamels, they show fingerprints like they should be crime lab tools. Plus acrylics can be thinned with water, mixed, and used for fine details more easily. Yes, if you handle the toy a lot it can wear off, especially if you are the sweaty handed type, but this can be fixed by a light coat of acrylic sealer. Then you can do what you want with it(within reason, nothing weird) and the paint stays put. Oh, buy a name brand, even walmart has Testors acrylics, if it's got a name you've never heard before then it's probably not meant for plastics.

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