Thanks! :D It's been a while since I watched the movie, so I had to look up Ironhide's quote.
No, I'm still scared of painting. :emo
Why I got him is kind of complicated, but there are two main reasons.
1, A popular mod for him is to carve the central gray piece so it doesn't hit against the bumper. This lets you slide the hips forward more. In addition, you're supposed to carve the top of the crotch piece so the bumper has more clearance.
That didn't solve the issue, and carving the top of the crotch doesn't do much because it leaves the hips higher and they hit the bumper then.
So I figured out a way to mod the backpack, which lets it swing around and securely clip where I think it was intended to when designed.
This lets you slide the hips all the way forward and his head is then flush with the top of the body.
That creates ANOTHER problem. His stature was no longer humanesque, and therefore displeasing to the eye.
I've posted about this before (with pictures), but basically it causes his head to sit far back while his hips are far forward and his arms are in the middle.
H
.A
..L
So to correct that, you can lean him forward a little. That lines everything up, but causes his head to look down.
So I added a ball joint to the head, and moved his hips back a bit so he lines up better.
So he still had a carved crotch issue, and I suspected that I didn't even need to carve the middle piece.
I found and Ironhide today and took the lower half from it and put it on the upper half of my modded Ironhide. It fits! And now there's not a huge hole in his middle when you look at it from the side.
So no carving of the middle piece is needed at all. (If you put his head on a ball joint, it's perfect. If you don't, and still want the hips all the way forward so the head is up that last little bit, only a small amount of carving to the middle piece is needed.)
That's lengthy to explain, and if it's not clear I apologize. In a week or so I'll have a guide prepared, and within it you'll find all the different options for display and how to mod him to be that way.
~Matt Booker