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Kitbashing has become a wildly popular art form in recent years. And it's been a small part of HMW as well with a few of us kitbashing our own characters.

We've had a few new faces lately and I thought some of them might be looking to learn how to kitbash, or just pick up some general tips. So consider this a little getting started guide.

Now when it comes to kitbashing and for people starting out I ALWAYS recommend finding a junker on E-Bay and working on it. You get a trashy figure for what should be a cheap price. And I especially find the Seeker and Sideswipe G1 molds the best as they're easy to disassemble and reassemble.

Recently I snagged a near complete (missing his fists but I had them to spare) G1 Dirge for $15AU off E-Bay. He arrived earlier in the week and you get what you pay for. His stickers were stuffed and many of his joints are loose.



The first thing you have to do of course is to clean him up. I removed the stickers and because of the age, and residue left came off easy with methylated spirits.

Once cleaned up you can start on taking him apart.

I started by seperating the nosecone/cockpit from the main body. This is held in place by a small pin, which was so loose on Dirge it actually fell out. However if you need to remove it, it's quite easy. You need to work out which is the head of the pin, and which is the bottom of the pin.

If you haven't worked it out, the first pic is the head of the pin as it has the larger surface. So with a nice pointy object you can poke down and against the base of the pin, give it a tap until the pin comes out, and this will be the result.


Next I took apart the main body. This is done by removing the three screws in the chest.


Once they're out you end up with this lovely assortment of parts.


A little tip (not one you necessarily need to follow) is to put the screws back in once everything's taken apart. This saves you from losing them. Plus in the case of the plastic part of the chest it's a handy way to elevate it when painted.

Now as you saw in previous pics the diecast part of the chest was fairly pitted so I wanted to clean it up before I started on painting it. Using my handle little Dremmel tool and a few small flexible sanding discs, I got the bulk of it back to bare metal.


Some areas I just couldn't get into but they weren't damaged. Once i'd finished I made sure I gave it a good clean ready for priming. Because it's diecast I will be using a metal primer.

And that's where i'm at today! Keep checking back for updates and if you have any questions feel free to ask!

I'm also taking suggestions on names.

01-08-2010 UPDATE



07-08-2010 UPDATE

First up on the on-going dissection is the cockpit/nosecone section.


Nice chew marks huh? Yeah, that's a common problem i've found with 20+ year old seekers. That rubber bit also needs to be removed before you can fully take it apart.

I've found the best way to do this is to warm it up. Just hot tap water does the trick. Doesn't need to be super hot, in fact you can leave it under the water for a minute or two then just pry it off.

Once it's off it's just a simple case of removing one screw and the rest comes apart.



Take note of the small split washer. This goes between the two sides where the pin that connects the cockpit to the chest. Expanding this little washer is a good way to tighten up the cockpit in robot mode.

Next on the list is the legs.



First thing you have to do is get the thruster off. A nice sharp blade between the thruster and the leg and a little bit of wiggling/prying will get it off.

And just like before, removing a screw will take it all apart.



And last for today is the arm. One screw here removes the "shoulder" joint. The arm however stays together. And it's a bastard to get apart as there's a plug inside at the bottom of the arm that is difficult to remove. I found the best way was to slide a knife in at the top (easy to pop up) and work it down, WORKING SLOWLY. I can't emphasise you take this slowly as I have snapped the plug on others in the past. It will eventually pop out though, you just have to be patient.



Last but not least before painting, always give the parts a wash. This is especially important for original G1 figures as they tend to accumulate a LOT of dirt

I've been contemplating picking up a Smolder for Turning into Plague Bringer.

As for that Dirge, I recommend calling him Strudel-Meister.

Kitbashing is awesome.

Let me see if I still have the Combiner team pic I made a few years back in my photobucket account...

edit: YES! Here we go...
The Necronomitron
Note the chest plate, made from the cab taken off Motormaster, altered to be detachable (see below) and the addition of shitloads of guns.

(Ive since updated the head, but as its in storage I cant photo it)

Comprised of: Hard Wired
Brawl, repainted to a camo design, and with the righthand side of his turret removed and replaced with a BFG as his alt used to be the Autobot hardhead.


Mal Practice
First Aid, painted black, with the front of his 'hood' cut back with a dremmel so it can stay closed and see his face, thus giving him a more sinsiter 'hooded' appearance.


Evil the Car
Simple replaint of Drag Strip, masking tape used to stencil in the red flames.


Generic Seeker #867 (think it was called Jet Black)
Airraid (I think) with seeker-style slung missiles added (found on a junker Tracks)


And Primal Fear (still needs a lot of work...)
Cab modified to be removable to make chest-oeice of combined form, painted to look Optimus Prime-like to ridicule the millions of prime clones out there, but also to make a demonic-style face when all parts are attached to the combined formGrey body artificially aged. Still needs work to make it look like concept pic, but Motormaster is a **** to kitbash.




[edit: the thread of spam in this thread has been moved to the spam thread that has the spam in its thread.]

Excellent thread Burn and great to see WarPorn in plastic Psychout!

I'd just like to add a recommendation to anyone new to kitbashing.

Don't run before you can walk!

I started kitbashing and repainting with some pretty extravagant ideas and soon found I didn't have the painting skills or modelling talents required. I trashed a Cybertron Legends Prime hoping to make a Scourge/Nemesis Prime so I moved on to buying a couple of KO oversive versions and trying again. The first one the plastic died part way through but I'd definately inproved and the second one was reasonable, not great and not good enough so show people yet.

Next up was a KO Classics Megatron, he was nearly the right colour (Henkei one hadn't come out yet and I hated classics megs colours) but he had a red face and shell. A silver metallic sharpie sorted the face and a can of black paint sorted the shell but I left the detail work until I'd got better.

Anyway I've not had much time to work on skills but I've dont a few more bits and pieces and once I've got my workstation up and running again I'll be adding the detail work to Megs (despite me owning a Henkei one now!). I've also got a full repaint planned and this time I'm sure I can manage it.

As for 'proper' kitbashing I'd really advise trying simple things like headswaps and adding extra weapons first before getting knives and dremels out.

Just the one small update with the chest part now being painted.

Weather has been far too wet and poopy to attempt much painting. Everything takes forever to dry.

Another disassembly update.