I wanted to share up something I've been working in recent weeks. I love Classics Jetfire, but can't stand the way his wings look and I miss that fast pack he had in the toon, so I decided to hack away at it all and kill Jetfire so that Skyfire can be born. The wing setup on Jetfire makes him look like a butterfly when they're all folded up and out--just not feeling that, so I cut the wings off and attached them to the fast pack. I shaved off the pegs that held the fast pack to the middle connector thing. I then glued the connected fast pack to the middle connector so that it can still snap onto his back. I cut the main wings off just above the pin so that they still swing in and out. I then attached them to the fast pack and snap the fast pack in upside down (to give it that G1 look--the large black boosters now face up). This looks better to me and it allows the wings to fold up better and look more G1 (no more butterfly look). I also did the leg extension that SMOG shared over in Radicons a long while back--this added some height and that coupled with the new wing setup makes him look taller and leaner than the squatty old Jetfire. Skyfire is born! I'm thinking of making a mini-tutorial on how to go about doing this for those that want a more G1/toon inspired Skyfire. Since these were taken, I've painted some gloss white on the wings in the final picture below to give it a thinner red stripe on them and I adjusted the fast pack a bit (it looks like it stands a bit taller on his back now, but not much). (still a WIP--but not much left to do)

Sweet!

I've seen someone else do that with the fast-pack, but you should consider molding them together so it's a solid block rather than two separate ones. Would look more like Skyfire.

Hard to see what's going on with the fast-pack and wings in robot mode. Maybe try a back view or back at an angle. So the wings detach in transformation? Does the fast-pack look alright without turning it around?

Maybe it's just me, but are those panel-lines black, because I'm a real critic against black panel lines on white parts. Panel lines should be like shadowing; they should be a darker version of the color, like a shadow, rather than always being black. They're not giant gaping maws where no light escapes. They're just little edges that are blown-up for the sake of sculpting scale and visibility. Black panel lines on white parts are like photoshop lens flairs to me.

A tutorial would be great

What leg extension?

Looks great.

But I'm very curious about what you're doing to Classics Prowl and G1 Jazz on your workbench...

The legs are attached to white boxes that allow his legs to slide out further than normal.

Randy

Cool custom but I don't dig the panel lines. You're going for the toon model so why make it over detailed like DW art?