Hmm. There should be juuuust enough room in the altmode to allow for a chestpiece which folds in half along a central vertical hinge (or folds each side wing in by itself to cover the central spine) and then has the entire mechanism attached to the robot abdomen with a horizontal hinge.

 

(Very similar to G1 Astrotrain's chest wing folding together to form a fin, then being able to rotate out and down via a horizontal hinge in his abdominal area. Only the Magnus mechanism wouldn't need the Astrotrain chest-slot and slider.)

 

The resulting thin square-ish block would be attached to roughly to top of the robot abs sort of at one corner, and looking at the altmode, there's actually a bit of space between the robot wrists and also the robot thighs where such a thin block could rest in truck mode without having to detach.

 

This would mean that the front of the truck would look the same as it does on the unaltered version, and the windows wouldn't need to be covered up. It might even be possible to leave the roof of the truck white - I seem to recall the original Magnus toy had a white cab-top between his head and the blue shoulder components.

 

A more complex way to hide the chestpiece would be to split it into two like Masterpiece Optimus's chest-windows, and have each piece fairly complexly hinged to the underside of the chest 'shelf', so that they could end up being covered by the arm-kibble which forms the side panels of the front of the cab. There's quite a bit of free space under those panels and behind the truck grille.

Thanks for the helpful tips. I do think this one will stay as-is (can't beat G1 "toon" Magnus), but the tips may come in handy if I attempt a more technical one in the future.

hey, I think this turned out rather well hXcpunk23. That's a great bot mode!

This is my first Transformers kitbash/custom that I've attempted (I'm now working on a few others). I picked this up from a fellow board member here recently. I've been working on this for about a month and a half (on and off) and I've finally finished it.

 

Originally, I had considered just repainting the bland Classics Ultra Magnus, but everyone's been doing that since it was released (no knock to them, I love 'em all--I just wanted to do something different). I decided to take the "G1 approach" and do this as close to his orignal G1 (in robot mode at least) as I possibly could. Be warned, this can be considered a PARTS-FORMER (oh no!) simply because I am sticking to what was done on the G1/Diaclone orignal (parts galore).

 

Don't worry though, I only have technically 5 small parts:

 

1) The Magnus head is a MyClone Magnus head that I purchased from Alyosha's Corner (I carved down the peg on it so it would fit into the back of the Magnus head when it is folded down). So technically, I never removed the old Magnus head and it can be used still.

 

2) To create the missiles, I shredded a TRU (smaller) Energon Megatron's internal "wing" parts, cut off the tips, cut those in half, painted them, then glued a "connector" onto them so they can easily slide in and out of his arms in robot mode (just under the shoulder pad). These store under the cab in truck mode--just behind the side door panels. I considered incorporating the missiles into his vehicle mode, but it just didn't look right, so I stored them instead.

 

3) I took some small wooden sticks (arts and crafts crap at Wal-Mart) and created a couple of shoulder "beams" (or pilons--whatever those things are called). Yes, I said "wooden sticks" or popsicle sticks, if you prefer--lol (I haven't ordered any styrene yet and they do the job just fine until I decide to upgrade it). I painted those white and added a couple of pegs to the bottom. I hollowed a small portion of the shoulder of Ultra Magnus (the small indented spot on the top of the shoulder in robot mode). They "snap" right in and are removable. These fit just under the smoke stacks in truck mode (I painted the smoke stacks white to give him a white rifle in robot mode).

 

These are the only "parts-former" parts and while I love to see Transformers customs that transform completely without "extras" floating around, I do think the old school G1 "parts-former" rules can be applied and actually work here. So anyone ready to go on the offensive about this sort of thing, feel free. I know where you're coming from, but in some cases, parts-formers do in fact work. With that said, onto the show! (I'd like to thank EVERYONE who has ever done an Ultra Magnus custom--regardless of the line it was from--I learned a lot by seeing the great works of him that were done and I just wanted to share my take on it--feel free to share any ideas and pointers as well--let me know what you think):

 

 

I love your idea. I want to do something similar since I also got one of the Magnus heads, But still unsure how to attach it. Is it possible to give a step by step on how do it? How to make it fold up like the head he originally came with?

Hmm. There should be juuuust enough room in the altmode to allow for a chestpiece which folds in half along a central vertical hinge (or folds each side wing in by itself to cover the central spine) and then has the entire mechanism attached to the robot abdomen with a horizontal hinge.

 

(Very similar to G1 Astrotrain's chest wing folding together to form a fin, then being able to rotate out and down via a horizontal hinge in his abdominal area. Only the Magnus mechanism wouldn't need the Astrotrain chest-slot and slider.)

 

The resulting thin square-ish block would be attached to roughly to top of the robot abs sort of at one corner, and looking at the altmode, there's actually a bit of space between the robot wrists and also the robot thighs where such a thin block could rest in truck mode without having to detach.

 

This would mean that the front of the truck would look the same as it does on the unaltered version, and the windows wouldn't need to be covered up. It might even be possible to leave the roof of the truck white - I seem to recall the original Magnus toy had a white cab-top between his head and the blue shoulder components.

 

A more complex way to hide the chestpiece would be to split it into two like Masterpiece Optimus's chest-windows, and have each piece fairly complexly hinged to the underside of the chest 'shelf', so that they could end up being covered by the arm-kibble which forms the side panels of the front of the cab. There's quite a bit of free space under those panels and behind the truck grille.

 

Nice Bash! If you ever decided to make a chest plate that doesn't cover the windows in truck mode, maybe the one I did could help. http://forums.TFormers.com/talk/index.php?...=75913&st=0 It uses the empty space left between the arms in truck mode like Geminii suggests. It was a pain to make, but maybe it would be easier for someone else to be basing the mechanics off of mine rather than the trial and error approach that I used.

How much work was it to attach the Myclone head?

 

The truck mode doesn't work for me but I'd been eying the Myclone head to put on my white Magnus. However, as it stands, the Titanium is good enough for me.