So while everyone else is excited about Studio Series '86 Optimus I... decided to do this.
See, Sunbow accuracy isn't really my thing. I find the decos a bit too flat and plain for my liking. I don't think strict adherence to toy decos is the way to go either, but if I had to pick "Sunbow" or "toy" as a starting point for my preferences, it would be toy. And ER Optimus is already a pretty good toy Optimus design. The MP 10 to SS '86's MP 44 if you will.
Still, it's never been perfect. The blue is a bit too bright for the G1 toy's rich navy, which really hurts the face. Siege Optimus, who uses the same head sculpt, painted the face behind the faceplate silver, allowing his blue eyes to pop even with the blue of his helmet. ER, for whatever reason, didn't do that. So his blue eyes get lost in the blue of the overall head design.
Meanwhile Netflix Optimus tried to be the toy-centric deco I wanted, but stumbled in a few places. First, they made his windows seafoam green in a desire to match the Netflix show's character model. Then they, for reasons of how the mould works, made his internal joints navy. Which kind of ruins it more than the green windows. Push comes to shove, I can get stickers for the windows. But those blue elbow and shoulder pieces, and hip pieces.... they killed the toy-centric look.
I knew that, once I had both versions in hand, that some sort of mix of the two would be what I wanted. Sadly... it didn't seem like it would work. Too many pieces of that toy are pinned in a way that makes removing them without damaging the rest of the toy impossible.
Until today.
He has ER Optimus' torso and internal shoulder, elbow, and hip joints. He has Netflix Prime's hands, thighs, legs, crotch/hips, head, abs, and front cab bumper. Thankfully this didn't require my weakness when it comes to customizing... paint. I just had to figure out what I could and couldn't remove as far as pins went, and figure out the right combination of parts between the two versions.
He's not done. I have some ToyHax labels on the way to complete the look. He's still looking mighty fine as-is though.
See, Sunbow accuracy isn't really my thing. I find the decos a bit too flat and plain for my liking. I don't think strict adherence to toy decos is the way to go either, but if I had to pick "Sunbow" or "toy" as a starting point for my preferences, it would be toy. And ER Optimus is already a pretty good toy Optimus design. The MP 10 to SS '86's MP 44 if you will.
Still, it's never been perfect. The blue is a bit too bright for the G1 toy's rich navy, which really hurts the face. Siege Optimus, who uses the same head sculpt, painted the face behind the faceplate silver, allowing his blue eyes to pop even with the blue of his helmet. ER, for whatever reason, didn't do that. So his blue eyes get lost in the blue of the overall head design.
Meanwhile Netflix Optimus tried to be the toy-centric deco I wanted, but stumbled in a few places. First, they made his windows seafoam green in a desire to match the Netflix show's character model. Then they, for reasons of how the mould works, made his internal joints navy. Which kind of ruins it more than the green windows. Push comes to shove, I can get stickers for the windows. But those blue elbow and shoulder pieces, and hip pieces.... they killed the toy-centric look.
I knew that, once I had both versions in hand, that some sort of mix of the two would be what I wanted. Sadly... it didn't seem like it would work. Too many pieces of that toy are pinned in a way that makes removing them without damaging the rest of the toy impossible.
Until today.
He has ER Optimus' torso and internal shoulder, elbow, and hip joints. He has Netflix Prime's hands, thighs, legs, crotch/hips, head, abs, and front cab bumper. Thankfully this didn't require my weakness when it comes to customizing... paint. I just had to figure out what I could and couldn't remove as far as pins went, and figure out the right combination of parts between the two versions.
He's not done. I have some ToyHax labels on the way to complete the look. He's still looking mighty fine as-is though.