Finished: Project III/21

Optimus prime

So, the high difficulty rating stamped brightly onto the packaging had raised my concern-o-meter, but no one told how the difficulty had been calibrated. Of the individual pieces the most difficult were the exhaust pipes, because I didn't have anything to roll them into cylinders, so they ended up being something weird instead. Or maybe they were expected to be like that, and I was just mentally locked to the smokestacks of the G1 toy.

All in all this was a very pleasant build, the subject was exciting and the model itself was decently straightforward. I even managed to keep my foul fingerprints nicely off the shiny external surfaces.

Basic photos

Below I left the usual set of photos around the model. Optimus' pose was surprisingly backwards-leaning, perhaps he was admiring the Underbase rising in the horizon?

Comparison shots

Of course I rushed to take photos of Optimus Prime next to the Bumblebee I had built the last time. Clearly these two models were not made to the same scale in any sense of the word.

The leader of the Autobots was pretty shiny and as if he had just taken a shower in a car (truck?) wash, especially when compared to lord Megatron who had a couple of years on the shelf. I imagined that Megatron's surface had suffered over time, but no, he had come here with a duller armour plating to begin with.

Stomping ahead

Final components

Before the head itself the backpack was to be done, and to be left waiting. I was almost optimizing by installing it already, but a quick "hey, let's check what's coming up still, just in case" check saved me and this build.

The face here looked otherwise familiar, just a bit too tall. I expected that to be straightened during the next steps.

Oh yes, the ninja mask repaired the long face immediately. The most difficult thing in this face building operation was to get the pieces folded into correct angles without accidentally splitting the pieces apart.

Apparently the unusual height of the head was to cover up the extra step that ended up being in front of his jaw. This had obviously absolutely nothing to do with the good old G1 toy, but as I think I pondered on that in the first post, this model was depicting a more modern version of Optimus Prime than the one I grew up with.

The helmet with the ears/antennas was one of the worst subassemblies so far, thanks to the round shapes. Luckily I got it done in one piece without getting bothered.

Combining the head's two parts was about to give me grey hairs. Again it got done succesfully without smashing or bending the components into a mess. This was one of the details in addition to some random weird corner shapes that increased this model's difficulty rating.

Putting the backpack complex into Optimus' torso was almost scaringly easy. At this point I noticed that I had left a couple of few-corner edges open from the small of his back / corresponding sides, either because I had just ignored those in the instructions or didn't understand to do it as told (as you could see in the first photo below, I had also misread the image for attaching the left arm and got him almost keeping his free hand against his hip instead of down-front).

The robotic mittens

Building and installing the upper limbs

The shoulder with its pretty awful exhaust pipes was a bit of a weird setup to build. That still unclosed shiny, pointy bit in the first photo was the piece where the lower arm was attached later on. While working on this left arm, I didn't manage to attach all the four points, but it stayed tightly enough as it was.

Ion Blaster

Much more often than swinging his Energon Axe around like a mechanic viking, Optimus punctured his enemies full of holes with his ion gun. I would be lying at all if I said that I would have immensely enjoyed the axe as the weapon for this model. The Blaster was a surprisingly complicated thing, due to its shape and one of the barrel pieces remained looser than I wanted it to be, thanks to some very tight spacing to close the connectors properly. It was recognizeable and that was great.

As soon as the gun was built it was attached onto Optimus' right fist. This installation was tight and proper, and didn't shake loosely.

Now I knew to be extra careful when attaching the forearm to the upper arm. The image in the instructions was pretty foul, and it wasn't that clear (to me at least) if the key piece was supposed to go this, that or some other way. Adding to my state of concern was that if I installed the gun-arm rotated 180°, it'd look like the poor robot had his elbow uglily broken, pointing behind him.

Attaching the appendages

The right arm sat into its place just nicely, even though again the space to tighten the attachment pieces had become somewhat challenging. I managed to avoid making ugly scratches to the outer surfaces, which was also a positive thing, considering how much they would've shown.

Torso

Mid-body building

Hips

Now that I got the legs done, I attached them to the hip block. With these the guy'd stay standing firm, unless the rest of his body wasn't too heavily off-balance.

At this point the lower body got tightened into the baseplate, as in every other Transformer model so far. The pose was a bit more open than I expected, from the straight as arrow like in the toys it turned more into a ski-jumper's V style.

More recognizeable bits

The truck's radiator grille - sixpack of Optimus Prime was one of the key pieces that screamed who this character was, as soon as I had attached the piece to the model-in-progress. Just like the cockpit's windows just made the effect stronger. Building was a joyride at this point.

Legsies

A rohbut stands on its legs

Assembling Optimus started with the legs, the left shin to be more exact. As I've only lived through the G1/G2 properly, those box-protected wheels were a bit odd to me. Still, it looked plausible enough for me.

The thigh was almost ridiculously easy to set up and attach, as there were no fancy details or submodules. In the upper part of the leg, those two fan-like bits made me slightly cautious: had I prebent them at proper angles or was I going to have to fight them later on?

Right leg

The next identical but mirrored component was pretty quickly done. With these second copies the biggest problem in my mind has been that, even as they've been faster to do becaues I've known what goes where in which order and I have spotted some optimizations in my build process, it has carried a risk of overconfidence. That's why I've actively slowed myself down, to work on these a bit more calmly.

Project III/21

Freightliner FL86

Just behind the previous project the gift series also contained the leader of the Autobots. I almost used the word iconic here, but caught myself in time. According to the illustration, this was a bit more modern design than G1.

The difficulty-o-meter in the back cover was a more of a rare sight in MEM sets. This one was supposed to be just about the most difficult set they made. Sadly not all these had a scale, so I couldn't compare my own thoughts about the challenge provided.

As usual, an eight-stage guide and two sheetfuls of pieces. Nothing looked depressingly difficult at a first glance, so the surprises provided by the round pieces were going to shock me as they came.

Finished: Project II/21

Bumblebee

Of the usual Autobots, I had this idea that Bumblebee was just about the second-best known, right after Optimus. He used to have a bit more modern head at some point in the eighties, and returned to the original look after the Underbase storyline when Ratchet rebuilt him. Only because the medbot just preferred the old one. Why would you ask the guy himself what he wanted...

Partial assemblage: arms

No more armlessness

Who knows why the arms were the last things to build to this rohbut. The hand, forearm and the elbow were straightforwards builds and quickly connected.

These remaining pieces were quickly smashed into Bumblebee's upper arms and then shoulders. This was a joyfully nice wrap-up for the build. The other cat was also interested and came to oversee my work - and I guessed, to pressure me to feed them for the evening.

Partial assemblage: lower torso

Legs and hips

Half a hood of a VW Beetle wasn't the simplest thing to build, but on a general level it didn't end up half bad. The curiously shaped curves raised the challenge a bit. Nicely the instructions didn't suggest the fender/wing needed to be bent into the final shape from the start, but it got tweaked in three stages whenever another thing was installed first. These feet were much more impressive to view from the front than the ankle side.

The most special thing about these knee modules was that they were attached to the rest of the legs with only three studs per side. At least the thigh module could've, in my uneducated opinion, fit four studs. Nonetheless they got tight enough with just three.

The full legs consisted of four submodules. On the right side the connection between the shin and the foot ended up wobblier than I wanted, even though I felt I had squeezed the modules together well, before the tightening of the connectors. Maybe I had been a bit too cautious in my fear of breaking things.

The process of the left leg went just like the first one, and according to custom, a bit faster. That didn't have any visible difference to the looks of the results, which was positive especially for the first assembled parts.

When both legs were done, the first one was clearly less sturdy-feeling and a bit more flimsy. I trusted that when they were both attached to the baseplate and the torsto, the problem would cease to be one.

Craftily Bumblebee's legs were first attached to the baseplate and only then to the hip module. Personally, I would've appreciated more fumbling space when connecting the legs to the hip, but maybe this approach prevented some breakage.

There was a funny effect with the legs: Bumblebee seemed like he was hovering, even though the attachment studs were tightly on the baseplate. As we all knew, Transformers could fly, so a bit of a hover wasn't out of character. Again this post contains a few sessionfuls of building and such.