The other Botcollector boys tell me I'm supposed to be unbiased about which Transformer figure gets the vote for my next Kitbash job, but I simply can't hold back my happiness about Ultra Magnus winning this month's vote.  Ultra Magnus has been my favorite Transformer ever since the movie; his character as a whole, including his Vehicular and Robot Modes, his attitude, and overall personality, have made him a natural pick for me.  If I were a Transformer, I would be Ultra Magnus.  Wanting to see a big, bad-ass, and super-poseable variation on this character has been a fantasy of mine ever since the movie.

With Ultra Magnus being my favorite, the shopping for the appropriate figure took a little longer than usual.  I kind of wanted one of the larger figures.  Even though size doesn't matter so much with the Gundam models (even some of the smallest ones are really awesome), I wanted a figure that would strike viewers as sizeable as well as sweet looking.  Magnus is, after all, the City Commander.  While browsing through the models available, the Master Grade RX-78 struck me as the most natural pick.  There were several aspects of the model that were Magnus-esque; the rocket boosters on the shoulders seemed a good match for the big missile pods he carries on his shoulders in the G1 incarnation.  The huge and complex feet were also a good similarity between the Gundam model and  the original figure, both animated and as the actual toy.  What really did it for me, though, was the over-sized shield and cannon weapon.  These were two things I felt really came through as concepts from the original toy; substantial defensive armor as well as serious firepower.  As the City Commander, Ultra Magnus would act as the rallying point for his faster and specialized troops; he's the defensive force they all rally behind, and he will also clear the way for his grunts as they go to clean up the Decepticon survivors in his heavy artillery aftermath.

This Master Grade RX-78 bash has a little over 350 pieces.  The major stymie for me with this model was, again, the painting.  I actually got a very good match for the blue on the G1 toy, but I felt that my personal bash should have a more striking (heroic, if you will) hue.  I opted for the Tamayia colors for this kit; they dry nice and shiny, and the thickness of the paint gives off a nice brilliant color, even after drying.  I felt the deeper blue added a much nicer contrast and mix with his other colors; he truly became the Red, White, and Blue of the Autobot forces.  Getting the right mix for color was more of a pain than anything for this kit; the RX-78 has a lot of external pieces and highlighted details compared to other kits; knee pads, underlying mechanics, arm-mounted hardware, folding and adjustable rocket boosters, etc.  

This model has a lot of moving parts that expose underlying details, so getting everything painted right was a huge chore.  Construction on Master Grades is usually pretty tedious, but for this one it actually went pretty quick.  I only spent about 24 hours (spread over 7 days) on the job altogether.  I was surprised by how quickly the construction went along after the painting was finished.  My favorite part of this project was the actual construction, by the way.  Every time I called it a day, it was really cool to see how far he'd come.  It was already looking like Ultra Magnus when I just had the feet and shins done and ready for more.

The major "bash" aspect of the job came into play on the head.  Making the Magnus head was the 2nd most difficult part of this project, after the painting.  I used a Beast Wars Wolfang face, a modified helmet from a different Gundam kit, two pieces of sprue (for the antennae), and a whole bunch of milliput to round it all out.  I painted the eyes of the Wolfang face a deeper blue for the super Autobot touch.

To improve this job, I plan to totally redo the head; the amount of milliput I had to use was substantially more that  I've had to incorporate into a visible aspect of a finished model, and it really brought home to me that I need to improve my modeling skills with the from-scratch creation of external pieces of my Kitbashes.  One thing that I don't think will be possible is a transformation; this kit has almost no room for alterations on his pieces, and no alternate mode would even remotely approximate a vehicle, I don't think.  I will be spending a LOT of time trying to get this head perfect, though.

Thanks for all the votes, Transfans, and I await the tally for my next project.  Your vote is my Kitbash.

Don't forget to check out Q's other Kitbash projects on the current Kitbash page:  Click Here!

Doing some kitbashing of your own?  Feel free to share your work with us!  Drop us a line and/or send pics to us!