Page updated 5/13/02
Now with good pictures!! This is my first attempt at a kitbash, so I hardly consider it perfect, but I really like how it turned out.
I was inspired to make this figure after seeing Dave Van Domelen's Megatron X from Shape Shifter's Punisher kitbash. I saw that he had a good idea, but the base of the kitbash limited the results, to a degree that he made it into a Megatron variant. What's more, Shape Shifters Apocalypse (link is to an Etoys site still selling the toy for comparison) had many characteristics I found made him resemble Galvatron, and what's more his alternate mode is similar as well. In fact, it appears to be a stripped down version of his cannon with a four-barrel gattling gun. In practice, the colors didn't match in cannon mode, so I'm planning on making it into a variant storyline like DVD's, but less of a departure from the base storyline.
I began this project last summer. I picked up Apocalypse at Toys 'r' Us while he was on clearance (the last Apocalypse, practically the last Shape Shifter there), and waited a while to prepare and debate. I usually don't like messing with toys, and Apocalypse was interesting on his own...until the chrome he was covered in began to degrade. Apparently Toy Biz doesn't do chrome as well as Hasbro. At this point I figured anything I did to it would be an improvement. I began to search for supplies and parts.
Dave Van Domelen's kitbashing site offers a guide to kitbashing on his Transformer section. In it he suggests using Milliputt brand epoxy putty, light grain, to mold the features, due to the fact that it smoothes when water is applied. I headed to a hobby store and found medium grain instead (they were out of light grain). To make the cannon, I thought immediately of a common design of water gun-one of those campy space blaster type guns, even with perfect coloration. I thought at first I'd make it translucent like the gun was, but cutting the excess off left a big hole where the handle used to be, and the more I tried to fix it, the worse it got, so I eventually covered half of the barrel with putty (which worked out to make the cannon more show-accurate). Soon, I was using leftover bits of the first water gun and other space-shooter water guns I found at a Big Lots to build the tread struts, the support strut and the hinge it swings on, and finally the cannon holder. Additionally, the rubbery triggers completed the hinge by providing an axle bar, and the plugs served to make pegs to hold the cannon barrel. To say the least, I found a lot of uses for those water guns. I just suggest using a coping saw when cutting them apart, fingernail clippers to trim the pieces, and be *very* careful if anyone else wants to try this. If anyone wants specifics on the parts used, feel free to e-mail me.
Once the basics were laid out, I began to work on the body. I built up the chest and arms, drilling a hole on the right one for the cannon (peg for the holder was a piece of watergun trigger). I endeavored to reduce the number of changes I would make to the original toy-its form was already good enough. One part was seriously wrong for Galvatron, and that was Apocalypse's head. Apocalypse is a bit too froggy for Galvatron. I pried it off his body and carved down the sides, and did a massive overhaul of his facial structures. About the only parts that were still Apocalypse were his eyebrows. I built his helmet, paying close attention to Galvatron's helmet design. While I did this, I also moved further on the arms and torso. The large A on Apocalypse's abdomen correlated perfectly with Galvatron's belt buckle and abdomen cross, and his shoulder pads provided an excellent guide for Galvatron's shoulder structures. I worked around the toy's musculature to develop the arms as close as possible to the Galvatron from cartoon. As a bonus, it seems, the lower arms were practically perfect for Galvatron so I left them as-is.
Once I felt the head, torso, and arms were completed, I began to work on the legs and add-on details. Galvatron has two structures on either side of his head which posed one of the biggest dilemmas of the project-I was guaranteed to lose part of his transformation by blocking the arm joints with these parts. I decided that the arms didn't really need to get hidden inside the body of the alternate mode, but they would have to just hang there otherwise. It doesn't hurt the look of the alternate mode, however, so I don't think it was too bad of a trade-off. The support strut and hinge were looking good, but there was little chance that it was all that would be needed to support the toy. I had to create a "foot" out of putty and build the hinge a bit so that it would stop against the treat struts. Moving on, I built up the knee and the ankle to closer match Galvatron's design, added little boxes to his thighs, and smoothed out Apocalypse's leg muscles. At this point I was running out of putty, though, and I was nowhere near completed.
I decided I couldn't afford more Milliputt (darn expensive stuff that), so I looked for alternative epoxy putties and came up with the Superglue stuff that comes twisted together. The ShopKo I frequent was clearancing it out, so I grabbed a package and began to use it. It was cleaner, smellier, and had cured were the two components met, making it lumpy (look at DVD's kitbashing guide linked above for a better explanation). It also did not smooth with water like Milliputt, so I had to smooth it out another way (sandpaper, woo). I also used this to add details to the legs, such as the red ovals and trim that surrounds the leg, with the shapes that go further down on the fronts of the legs. The tread struts, which were halves of a watergun handle, and the support strut I finished and secured to the back of the figure, which took more putty than I anticipated as the hinge did not want to stay on well. The result made the figure back heavy, so he needs support to stand or a counter-balance. I still needed treads, but I wasn't having much luck, until I located a building set named 'Multimac' that was made up of vehicle chunks and attachable treads/wheels. I borrowed two treads from this set, and molded the only two connector pieces that would work with the figure onto the tread struts, enabling me to attach the treads without making them permanent to this toy. I had finished the figure and his accessories, so for a finale I added a peg into the middle of the gattling gun to hold the cannon barrel.
I've been working on and off ever since painting and repainting the finished product, preparing to finally apply a coat of spray sealant to it and call it finished. The paints I've used are acrylics from Wal-Mart's crafts department, mostly flat colors save the metallic silver colors. I used white, dusk purple, red, tangerine (mixed with white for the cannon), metallic silver, dolphin gray, and royal purple for the tread struts. I finished by spraying everything with a clear-coat which keeps the paint from chipping off for the most part, although not perfectly.
Galvatron's transformation is straightforward, mostly pulling the core of his torso out of his body and rotating it towards the top (the head rotates to the back of the body), laying him down, putting his legs back together, closing the body, rotating the feet so that they fit together on a fold-out peg, and rotating the fists into his arms. The parts I added to his shoulders block the part of Apocalypse's transformation which allowed his arms to fit into his body, but I figure it would work as multi-directional jump-jets/cannons as seen in his gatling mode. The gatling mode is closer to Apocalypse's actual gun mode and uses Apoc's missiles. I painted those orange to match Galvatron's other weapons. The rear skid of the cannon can be flipped up behind Galvatron's head to match the show model more.
Galvatron is copyright of Hasbro, Apocalypse is trademark to Marvel Comics, while the Shape Shifters line of toys is copyrighted to Toy Biz. All page links attributed with Dave Van Domelen are copyrighted to him, and the link to Etoys above is copyrighted to etoys.com. All images of the Galvatron kitbash and this page are copyright Triceratron 2001.
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