when it comes to the 5 member Energon Combiner teams of Superion, Constructicon, and Bruticus maximus and the 3 individual core body combiner figures of Stormjet, Steamhammer, and Baricade, baricade happens to be the best designed figure when it comes to how well and solidly built Baricade is in vehicle , robot and core body combiner mode.

while Steamhammer comes in a close second to Baricade when it comes to the fact that he is built every bit as solid and posable when set up in core body combiner mode, has a reasonably well proportioned body in robot mode but loses points for the vehicle mode when it comes to the fact that his arms dont really lock down into place in a well thought out manner.

while Stormjet happens to be the worst designed of the 3 when it comes to the his core body combiner mode having nor mid waist rotating joint all together and then theres the fact that those 2 sets of folded up panels on either side of his body don't really provide much support for the lower waist and the very loose tab hole connection on his lower waist and underside of the jets nose doesn't really work all that well either, and then theres the fact that his robot mode is very mis proportioned through the arms legs and body

Clearly Baricade is the best designed figure of the 3 core body combiner figures to work with as a starting base figure kitbash wise

i have been giving this quite a bit of thought lately people

picture Stormjets head on Baricades body for the individual robot mode.

now in cored body combiner mode picture armada skywarps head being used to replace Bruticus maximus's head with Skywarps head also being remolded through the forehead to give the head a cat headed look for the helmit part of the head.

With the upper arms and upper legs swapped out to complete the clasicc blue on silver grey colorscheme i believe that baricade would make for a rather suitable body for victory/energon Leozak's character

while a set of flat paneled zoid blox plugs could be epoxy glued onto the sides of the lower arms so thatcybertron clocker as jarugar can lock onto Leozaks back to form liokaisers back armor

thoughts people?

My thought: just use Stormjet. He's a jet. LeoZack is a jet. No modification required. Turning Barricade into a jet just sounds like torture.

What I personally think would be the best would be modifying Stormjet so that he doesn't form the waist and upper legs.
Instead he combines with Jaruga/Jargua/whatever, who's formed from at least Barricade's legs, although it would probably be better to swap out most of the rest of the vehicle for something more appropriate rather than try to turn that truck into a jeep.
Stick the lower body onto Cybertron Swindle if it'll fit. *fiddles with the toys* Bleh. Looks like a deluxe Energon Autobot powerlinxed with a Mega Autobot. I even tried the Energon Constructicon loader mold, but the torso is the same height despite the arms being a tiny bit longer. Still, that's the basic concept behind what I think would work best. *fiddles some more* HAH! I got it! If you flip his legs down 3/4ths of the way and angle the leg connector peg back so that it doesn't protrude out the bottom, you can shorten his legs! and... if you stick Sledge/Bonecrusher on top... he's a tiny bit taller than the F-22 mold, but not by much. Awesome.
Huh... TFwiki says Jarugar is a "Baja-style racing buggy". It definitely doesn't look much like Cybertron Swindle... ah well. I still think Onslaught's missile legs are just perfect for Jarugar. I think Jarugar requires the most work... because he's got 3 modes. You can't just stick Sledge or Swindle on top of Barricade's legs and easily connect it to Stormjet.

found this over on the tfw2005 forum

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-cus...-twintwist.html

with a head swap and a flat panel hinged folding joint to make it so that the jet cokcpit and nosecone can fold down onto skyblasts back i actually think skyblast could make for better jet style body for leozack with barricde serving as a new body for jarugar

it might be possible for leozak in jet mode to lock onto bruticus maximus's back with bruticus's back serving as the front of his body for the combiner form with leozak/stormjet pegging into place to for the chest/brestplate armor while still leaving sufficient room for energon treadshot/hellbat and energon windrazor/gaihawk to lock on as the arms for lioakasier

what are your thoughts on the matter?

I think without chopping Barricade in half, he wouldn't make a good Jarugar, because he'd be bigger than Leozack. and according to the wiki, Leozack is the leader. I have no side-by-side toy comparison pictures to know if his original robot mode was taller or anything.

Bleh. I need more time to try and figure some cool way of redoing the torso... I thought it would be easy to transform (or modify?) Stormjet to allow a different member to replace his waist and thighs in combiner mode, but there's no room to fold them up the way they were in vehicle mode or flip his hips out of the way.
You need more than just the limb connection points. You also need them securely fastened so they don't move around when you attach a limb to them. It's not official product, so you don't have to worry about it falling apart from use, but you do need to be able to get some pictures of it. If it gets put on display at BotCon, you don't want it falling over.

i just experimented with the whole zoid plug nob mod and it works like a charm what i did is that i went and took cybertron clocker in vehicle mode but kept his arms in robot mode with the folding hinge panels for the shoulders having been trimmed down to let the arms stay out in vehicle mode when i used the knobs to lock cybertron clockers car mode into place on bruticus maximus back

other then the zoid knobs being set up on top of the wheels on barricades lower arms and placing a set of precision placed holes into the back of skyblasts lower legsjust beneath the rotating kneejoint to accomodate the plug nobs

all and allliokaiser looks damn good sporting skyblast/leozak as the chest and brestplate armor

he actually loosk like a muscle bound monstrosity throug the body the legs and arms

So Clocker AND Skyblast are attached to Barricade? I'm confused.

I dunno. It really depends what you want out of this. It's not necessarily the same thing I would want out of it. and I don't really have a sense for what you want, what are the constraints you put on it, and what is your experience/capability.

Expecting a completely new-mold, 2-member torso would be expecting a lot from Hasbro, to say the least. but you're not Hasbro.
I dunno. Some fans get a kick out of making everything look like realistic potential Hasbro products, down to the limited paint apps, unpaintable plastic, and plastic mold color layouts; sometimes even limiting them to repaints (since that is the only thing you can base on existing product, other than... minor remolds such as... Armada Skywarp and Cybertron Dark Crumplezone. Some people like to make things so G1 it hurts. (like Devastator using deluxe limbs, with the same useless gestalt kibble for forearms and thighs as the original)
Some people paint a Gundam and name it after a Transformer. *shrug*
It really depends what you want.

Personally, I think a Jarugar that's larger than everyone else and a LeoZack that's smaller is strange, but it's a hell of a lot of work to try and rebuild half of Jarugar and who-knows-how-much of Stormjet, and I don't know what your experience is with this sort of thing is.
I also think a Barricade as Jarugar without any kind of modification to at least his vehicle mode would be very, very strange. It's funny that I could think of Jarugar more appropriate to Cybertron Scattorshot than to the Energon Barricade mold. I think toy size may have a lot to do with that.
I don't have Cybertron Scattorshot or Skyblast here in my apartment. Are they the same height in robot mode to the F-22 jet and tank limbs?

actually i am only using barricade for jarugar and skyblast for lezak

... but what do you want to do with this? I'm having trouble understanding what directions you are less willing to go, or are absolutely against.
or did you just want a little bit of feedback and less discussion?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3x5q5rmUMo

nuff said


energon sldege as drillhorn with a set of tank limb treads and nose cone as drillhorn

energon windrasor as gaihawk with a remolded forehead and energonstarscreams lower arm moutned wings as the rear wings

energon treadshot as hellbat with the main wings having g1 airraids main wing mounted wing missles and terrorcon divebombs head

energon skyblast as leozak with a remolded head and the nosecone reworked so that it acutally covers the head in vehicle mode minus the spider legs on the lower legs and with the upper legs reworked to have energon signal flairs flat panel hinged knee joints with a mounting plug l handle piece piece being plugged into skyblasts back in a centered lower back position to securely fit leozak into place as liokaiser brestplate armor

ergon barricade as jarugar with energon stormjets head with liokisers head made form armada skywarps and atlernators battle ravage 1's werepather head for liokaiser head with a set of plug holes made set in the back of skyblasts lower legs just beneath the sidefolding knee joint


and energon blight sporting kickbacks lower arms and chest with terrorcon cruellocks head


some zoid blox flat panel nob parts center mounted on the front set of wheels on barricades lower arms

a set of cybertron galvatron hands modded at the wrists to have a set of flat panel zoid blox plug knobs

kickbacks energon weapon being remolded through the radar dish to sport a set of knob holes for clockers gun to plug into

with some very small nano lego rocket parts being used to create the quad set of rear mounted missile cannosn on it with the 2 weapons combine to form liokaiser gun


does that effectively explain what i am working on?

uh... sort of, but that wasn't my question. I wanted to know what the rules/guidelines for your decisions on this project were, since you didn't seem open to my ideas, like the idea that Jarugar should not be larger than everyone else including LeoZack, or even for him to have his alt mode changed. (but I can see reasons why you wouldn't want to, since that huge cab gives room for the combiner head, although I don't think it needs to be quite that big, it would still be more engineering work)


Here's another thought: why is Drillhorn using a different mold from KillBison when the originals are so much alike? They're both alt modes that are blocks with 2-part treads of similar proportions. They transform the same way, sliding apart between the two tread sections into legs and upper body, with one set of treads on the legs and the other on the arms. While the Energon tank mold varies quite a lot from this (having single treads on each side, which don't attach to arms or legs), the tanks still look similar to each other in robot mode, just like the jets.

Here's a suggestion: use the tank mold for Drillhorn. If you want bulkier legs (for both DrillHorn and KillBison), cut the treads in half (or however long you want them), and glue the bottom half of the wings/treads along the legs (but not his feet, where they normally attach temporarily) so it's more like the original toy.

For a Drillhorn made from the tank mold, there are a lot of options. (I suggest 1b or 2b. I think they're the easiest and most elegant solutions. 2b would probably be more accurate.)

• 1) tank mode as normal.
  • 1a) attach the drill onto the front of the tank either as a replacement or alternative to the energon weapon. (if it's a replacement, it has to double as a foot, which is tricky because both hinged parts have to be flat on one side. I would suggest attaching it upside-down and attaching the drill to the heel. the flat surface is angled down rather than going straight forward like the dual-gun)
    Turn the [spark crystal / energon chip connector box that covers his head] into a cockpit like the original has.
  • 1b) attach the drill by gluing it onto an energon chip. This would be higher instead of at ground level. this one doesn't store in robot mode so well, (unless you turn him backwards in robot mode and have that box with the energon chip connection on his back, but then you have the tank tread wings in the way of his arms a bit.)
• 2) reversed tank mode.
  • 2a) put the drill hinged off the back end of the tank. Have it replace the box that covers his head. In vehicle mode, keep the head where it is normally in robot mode, hanging off the back of the tank, and have a hinged drill cover his head. glue left and right cockpit halves onto his shoulders. unfortunately, they're wedged between his shoulderblades in vehicle mode.
  • 2b) keep the tank mode transformed normally (instead of like it was in 2a) and attach the drills onto his arms, either off his hands, or on his forearms. Actually, you'll probably want the one disc rotated so that the turret is farther towards the back of the tank so his arms can extend further. This could allow you to use a modified energon weapon even more effectively as both a drill and foot, since the flat area required as a foot is above the dual-gun part, instead of below it like it was in 1a.
• 2a&b) Optionally, rotate his waist around so you can glue large peices onto the backs of his legs to be like the original version where it was high in the back of the vehicle mode, which were also the backs of his legs.

1a:

1b:

2a:

2b: