A prime opportunity for lots of puns on the name…
…but frankly I don’t have it in me right now.
This is the first post I’ve made since my Bumblebee/Herbee post last year. It’s been a tough year. Early on in the year my elderly Mom had a mild heart attack. Things progressively got worse from there. Over the next 4 months her kidneys failed, she contracted pneumonia, she showed signs of late-stage dementia and ultimately passed away on June 19th, a few days short of her 88th birthday.
I’ve been doing things to keep me busy and occupy my thoughts. One of those things was buying a G1 Black Optimus Prime KO from AliExpress with the thought to turn him into Nemesis Prime.
The overall quality of the toy is pretty good, almost on par with my 40 year old G1 Optimus Prime. For a KO the box was impressive too. My one gripe was with the deco labels of which some were a little too big for their positioning. Most irritating is the silver cab strip which refuses to stay stuck down.
I considered throwing some money at the Toyhax labels but instead bought some matte silver vinyl labels from Amazon to print my own.
Let’s get converting
Before doing that I decided to work on the physical elements such as reddening the cab glass, painting the eyes red, and adding in the teal touches on the cab. The easiest task was going to be the cab glass thanks to the enclosed “Tech Specs Decoder”, the thin sliver of red plastic used to show the Tech Specs of the character from the back of the box. I popped the cab glass out by gently prying the tabs in the side windows and pulling the glass out. Next I marked up the glass alongside the Tech Specs Decoder and cut that to size. I aligned the trimmed Tech Specs Decoder with the cab glass and pierced the holes to slide into the cab section between the metal cab and the actual cab glass.
Next I added some red paint to the eyes. I’m not quite convinced they’re bright enough so I may take another look at that again later on. Teal went on next along with Decepticon insignia I also bought from AliExpress. I thought they were stickers when I ordered them but they’re actually transfers much like the ones that come with Airfix models.
Oh look! The *!%^ing silver strip has come away again.
With the silver strip peeling away yet again I decided to grab my craft knife and cut a 7mm strip from the silver vinyl I used for printing the trailer stripes. The vinyl isn’t quite as shiny but it’s good enough and it applied quite well. I’m optimistic about applying the trailer stripes now.
Time to switch the labels on the trailer
The trailer has remained in the box for now but it’s time to get those labels switched over.
The before view of the trailer with the original labels
The Autobot/Optimus Prime labels came away quite easily, hardly surprising based on the cab’s silver strip. My Nemesis Prime labels came out a couple of millimetres too big but I was able to trim them down with my craft knife after applying them.
The after view of the trailer with the Nemesis Prime labels I printed
I’m quite pleased with the result. Considering the labels are matte they’re a little shinier then the original ones. The trailer is going back in the box for now, until I have time to sort out my display shelves, but here’s the finished result.
Wouldya look at that? The new *!%^ing silver strip has stayed on 🙂
In Memory of Mary May Colin
1936-2024
