Customs Stepwise's paint and stickers projects (Rodimus update - back together and mostly done)(ish)

[Stepwise]

I dipped my toe into the Toyhax pool . . . and I bought a cheap airbrush off Amazon . . . and then I pretty much decided to forget the airbrush and go with spray paint.

First up - I posted these in the "post pics of your collection with the current theme" thread last spring, but here are the re-stickered Bee-Chain and Key-Jumper:





Beachcomber was a flea market find in high school, he has old tires from a spare Major Mo.



Swerve is part of why I started this whole thing - I tried peeling off the factory-applied sticker on his chest to take him apart to see if I could fix his leg. Turned out this release didn't have a screw there, so I just had to sorta push his leg into place.

 

[Stepwise]

Breaking this up into multiple posts . . .

Part of my G1 crew is disassembled at the moment - Rodimus, Optimus, Ultra Magnus, Topspin and Twin Twist are in bags and boxes waiting for me to figure out how to re-touch their chrome. I have most of their stickers already, but the chrome is slowing me down. (1st attempt w/ the airbrush was awful. and expensive.)

I do hope I can finish this project this weekend - I'm customizing a Devastation Sideswipe.

Pic from yesterday:

 

[Dvandom]

"Stepwise's" is correct usage. You only end in a bare apostrophe if the last letter is an s AND either the s is due to pluralization or you're writing for a newspaper (newspaper usage has some tweaks to save ink). So it should be Gauss's Law unless you're doing a newspaper article mentioning it. Stepwise ends in an e, so always use 's.

---Dave

 

[Stepwise]

Adjusted the thread title, ditched the built-in grammar question.

Real life is a pain in the . . . I had to start over on a part or two, then I ran out of paint and time to work on that Sideswipe project.

One thing I have noticed, though - it's really cool when the primer dries, especially on darker plastic. So many cool details show up.

 

[Stepwise]

No pins in place because I still have work to do, but this project is . . . yeah, I can't think of anything other than "coming together."

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

"Oh no! It's quickwood! Help!"

 

[Stepwise]

"Spareswipe".



"Sideswap."


No paint on these for now. No stickers either, but I'll Toyhax Sunstreaker up a bit, and I scuffed Sideswipe's windshield, so I need to buy a set to cover that up.

 

[Stepwise]

These look promising -

primer plus black paint as a base -



plus a coat of metallic silver -



Originally I wanted to re-chrome Rodimus, Optimus, and Magnus (and then I got the bug to do my Jumpstarters, too), but if this works out, I'll stick with metallic silver for all of them, and then I can use Tamiya finishing compound. All those parts will be be shiny, they won't be chipped or worn away like they were, and I won't have to worry as much about fingerprints or just smudges from trying to put things back together too soon.

(Edited - there's a note on the can of metallic silver - don't use clear coat.)

 

[Stepwise]

Rodimus Prime update -

Not as "done" as I was hoping, but some pretty good progress.

The smaller stickers look pretty good. The bigger ones don't. I don't have the hang of putting those on yet. I'm actually thinking about taking off some of his leg stickers - they're very much a toy thing, and I had the originals on there before I started this whole thing, but I don't know if I really like them.



The metallic silver on the pipes is pretty good. It's *so* easy to sand through, though.



For now I've got him put back together and back up on the shelf - I'm really trying to finish things up and clear off my desk instead of having a half-dozen projects all going at the same time. I'm planning to do more with him, though. I want to touch up his pipes and then put the same spray on his hubcaps, because they don't match right now.

It's weird. There's some satisfaction at having gotten this far - really, there are parts of this that I'm pretty happy with - but there's also this vague disappointment and a little bit of a "huh, what do I do now?" feeling. I know hobbies like this are supposed to be just that - hobbies, diversions, etc., but I thought it'd be a bigger deal.