Q here.  I began Kitbashing Gundams a few years ago.  I'm a pretty big fan of Gundams, which is probably natural  for most Transformers fans; they are robotic, a few even Transform, and they're a short jump from Transformers in their appearance  and overall coolness.  After building a few according to the instructions, I decided to see if I could pay homage to the Transformers and try to satiate my fanaticism for them by incorporating the characters into my Gundam habit.  After the first few, I was hooked.  Now I rarely complete a Gundam kit without the intermediate step of Kitbashing it into a Transformers character.  A lot of the customization can be done with a simple variation of the paint job and a few stickers, but many times the actual "Bash" part comes into play, using pieces from other models, figures, or even household items or office supplies. 

For Botcollector's first coverage of my Kitbashing projects, I chose one of the best and most difficult tasks to date:  Kitbashing Gundam's recent Perfect Grade MK-II into Optimus Prime.  The result was more than gratifying, and I feel that this particular customization does proper homage to one of the most heroic, historic, and beloved characters from the greatest toyline ever; The Transformers.  Kitbashing the Perfect Grade MK-II was definitely my most expensive and time-consuming endeavor, but one that I could not resist.  I knew even before I opened the MK-II box that Optimus Prime would be the goal for this particular Kitbash project.  The overall appearance of the finished model (from the pics on the box) made it a "Prime," if not natural, choice.  Plus, I have ALWAYS wanted to see an incredibly poseable Optimus Prime, and the Perfect Grade Gundams are some of the most poseable figures PERIOD, let alone robotic or Mecha-related ones.  As with most Gundam kit projects, the paint job came first.  The painting was the easiest part of the modifications; most Gundam models need to be painted anyway.  The only thing more difficult about painting in this case was matching the colors; I wanted to make full use of the classic Optimus Prime colors, and matching them was a bit of a chore.  It would be good if the model paint companies came out with a Transformers paint match series, but until then, I just get several shades of the basic colors I'll need, and try a few pieces, comparing them to the original figure's appropriate areas.  I chose  a brighter and more solid blue than are on the G1  figure's legs, as I felt this would add to the brightness and heroic appearance of the model.

The silver and red were much easier matches.  I took my time with the painting, watching a lot of Star Trek movies and episodes as I worked.  After about 2 movies and 10 episodes (I calculate most of my Kitbashing time in terms of television-watching units), the painted pieces were ready for removal from the trees and assembly.  As any Gundam enthusiast knows, this was a pretty time-consuming and delicate job with the MK-II.  With about 800 pieces, many of them less than 1/4 inch in size, this took some patience.  Luckily, I LOOOOOOOOOVE Kitbashing, and have a LOT of Transformers, Beast Wars, and Star Trek tapes to watch while I work.

The hardest part of the project was the addition of non-Gundam pieces to the head, to complete the classic appearance that all Optimus characters have had in Robot mode.  I removed the original Gundam "V" piece, cut it in half, and used Milliput (the best substance in the world for modellers of all types) to fashion extensions and attachments for the head.  Getting each antenna identical to the other was a pretty serious chore, and there was a lot of sanding and broken pieces (back to ther drawing board) before I got them smooth enough to hold a good paint job.

The project was finished after the original Star Wars trilogy, Star Trek II - Wrath of Khan, Beast Wars first season (minus a few episodes I'm missing), the Star Trek Next Generation series (a couple seasons and the series finale movie), and a few Anime movies I can't remember right now.  In normal human terms, this comes to about 60 hours.  I know that 15 straight hours were spent on the construction of the endoskeleton arms and legs alone, before the exterior plates were even painted.

One thing that the Gundam Model experience has taught me is patience; before I even thought of kitbashing I spent many hours perfecting the art of the model build and paint.   Once I could maintain a patient attitude, the whole experience became much more enjoyable.  Some things help with the delicate parts of building, where precision work comes into play.  For a while I used a Fly-fisherman's rig to perform delicate gluing and painting procedures; it has many small clamps and a magnifying glass that are all hands-off, leaving both hands free for working  underneath the glass.

This helps immensely with the finished product; the more detail and precision that goes into these things, the better the end result.  Most people would be very surprised to see how much difference it can make to the overall appearance just to put fine lines of paint detail, or perfectly fitted pieces, on the model.  With Optimus, I really took my time.  One of my favorite parts about the transition from G1 to this Kitbash model is the jetpack on the back; it's a natural addition to the often-flying figure from the cartoons.