I've had this spare Bee for a while just waiting for SG Goldbug to come in. Figured it would be okay to roll the dice since the rumored Hasbro one (somewhere in the Leaker thread) might end up with the non-VW body again. (With my luck, that won't be the case, so you're welcome, universe?)
Got fairly lucky with this one, all things considered. Disassembly was surprisingly easy and non-destructive. Most parts were pinned rather than riveted (the opposite of Earthrise Starscream, thoughts of customizing which I gave up immediately), and the windshield's pin slipped out with surprising ease. The hardest pins to knock out on this copy were in the right shoulder and collarbone; the latter's knurled bit was stuck in the plastic. My cheapo recasting (make cast of existing head with oyumaru, use putty to make new head from that cast) ended up being decent, even the helmet antennae. Ended up a bit of a soft sculpt that I still had to tweak (and the paint obscures the rest of the flaws), but hey. No sacrificed head is always a win.
The color layout for Goldbug is something of a compromise. The show model has everything but the head in gold, with black windows. The comic/Universe profile has blue upper legs and upper arms. Initially I tried all Metallic Gold for the upper body (Tamiya TS84) save the head, and left the legs in the original color. It was... okay.
While these were decent results (that Metallic Gold always really sings), I felt that it was the wrong shade of gold, and I decided I did miss the blue. So I went and ordered the regular Gold paint (TS21), and dug out some blue paint as well. For a while I wasn't sure the new shade of gold was really working since they looked the same in that light, but it turned out to be a bit richer and more saturated, as intended.
Gave it a couple of thin gloss clearcoats (may try for another coat later on) just in case, but given how scary it is to transform this mold (the windshield/hood piece fit), this might stay in robot mode for A While anyway.
