It's Ultra Magnus, my first ever version of him! I've had 1000's of requests for an UM but I didn't want to do a repaint of a prime like everyone else. So I searched and searched for the perfect form. One day I was on David Willis of Shortpacked's LiveJournal chatting about the new Star Wars Transformers, the Turbo Tank in particular. Cybersnark of the AllSpark boards suggested I make it into an Ultra Magnus and whatta ya know, it's exactly what I was looking for. Here's where I'm kinda 'meh' tho. I tried a new approach to the custom instead of my usual drybrushed/paint wash theme I usually give my figures. UM was done in primary colors with some line-in detail and other shades of the same color over top. I keep having people on the TF boards ask me to change my style from making 'weathered' TFs to cleaner one. You know, like you'd see from a factory (ok, a little more detailed). Gundam-kit-esq I guess.

I'm not impressed with the end result, nor did I have fun painting the figure as if I had gone all out with wild paint wash shading and drybrushing. It was just as boring to me as what you see in on the shelf at Wal Mart. I could mistake this for the Titanium UM without a second look. So lesson learned, changing your style doesn't make you a better painter, it just makes you a sucker, heh. Stick with what you like, not what other people think you should do and develop it to the best of your ability. Ultra Magnus was made from the Turbo Tank body, Cybertron Long Rack head and front grille, Jazz's spearguns, and various fodder pieces. In keeping with my 'partsformer' theme, the chest 'v' and waist grille magnetically attach, whee! At least I kept something cool about him.