Brawn
Autobot Demolitions

Brawn is one of the Transformers with the biggest different between his toy form and cartoon appearance, and so much the better since his original toy is pretty wonky. This custom is a simple paint upgrade, which mostly consists of giving him awesome chrome on the silver parts, since nothing says an 80s toy like chrome. While his knees were not originally silver, they get chromed here to better match his cartoon appearance.

All parts: Titans Return Brawn

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Cliffjumper
Autobot Warrior

Like Bumblebee, this custom is a paint upgrade of a third-party toy, used because it has the best mix of cartoon and original toy appearance of anything available (other than super-costly Masterpiece items, of course). The headlights and taillights are painted and then coated with some clear paint in an attempt to give it a glassy look, and the windshield and windows also received clear blue paint, since the original paint was pretty flat. Black details on the bumpers and an Autobot symbol complete the look.

All parts and accessories: Hot Soldiers HS-15 (third-party Cliffjumper)

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Gears
Autobot Transport, Reconnaissance

I think Gears was probably the first Transformers I ever had as a kid, and he’s one of the few that has survived all these years. This custom is a simple paint upgrade of a third-party toy, since it’s the closest representation of his cartoon appearance available. This mostly consists of giving him awesome chrome on the silver parts, since nothing says an 80s toy like chrome. An Autobot symbol also had to be added of course.

All parts and accessories: Mech Fans Toys MS-16 (third-party Gears)

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Huffer
Autobot Construction Engineer

Like Brawn, Huffer’s original toy looks pretty wonky. Unlike Brawn, Hasbro has never released a version of the character that closely resembles his cartoon appearance, so we go to a third-party product here and give it a paint upgrade. This partly consists of giving him awesome chrome on the silver parts, since nothing says an 80s toy like chrome, and some dark blue details were added to break up the plain orange and purple. An Autobot symbol also had to be added of course.

All parts - Mechanic Studio MS-02 (third-party Huffer)

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That wraps up the 1984 minicars, except for a bonus one, which I'm just waiting on a head for. When I get that one done, I'll post a group pic of all of them.

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Bumper
Autobot Strategist

More casual Transformers fans may never have heard of Bumper, a Transformers minicar which originated in 1984 but not recognized as a canonical character for many years. When Hasbro imported the molds from Japan that would be used for the original Bumblebee and Cliffjumper toys, there was a third very similar mold that they did not use. At least, not officially. But in fact, a number of this third mold were released in 1984 on Cliffjumper cards. The reason for this is not known, but over the years fans started calling this mystery figure Bumblejumper, or just Bumper. This custom is made from a third-party Hubcap toy, with the real spoiler chopped down, Autobot symbol added, and plenty of black paint around the bottom to differentiate it.

All parts except head: Hot Soldiers HS-16 (third-party Hubcap)
Head: Shapeways

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Now with the first series of minicars well and truly complete, I'll move on to something else from the first series. Should be some Decepticons next. It'll probably be Reflector, since I almost have the work on him/them done.

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These are all great

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Stinger
Decepticon Espionage

My Joecustoms.com Secret Santa must have noticed that I had started posting custom Transformers last year, since my package included a Classics Cliffjumper figure. It was only appropriate to turn it into a custom. In Transformers: Age of Extinction, an evil businessman creates what is essentially a clone of Bumblebee, decoed in red and black, and named Stinger. This custom adapts that idea, making Stinger a Decepticon who was cloned from Bumblebee (since Bumblebee and Cliffjumper have always had similar appearances. It's just a paint job, but really tranforms the figure (sorry).

All parts – Classics Cliffjumper

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Bombshell
Decepticon Psychological Warfare

The Insecticons were a favourite of mine as a kid, from their first appearance in the cartoon where they seemed much more strange and alien than the other Decepticons. This modern version of Bombshell is faithful to the original mold, so it gets a faithful paint upgrade as well. Chroming was an integral part of 80s Transformers, so the Molotow liquid chrome gets plenty of use here, including the little circles on the front of Bombshell's legs, which are clearly meant to evoke the screws that stuck out like a sore thumb on the original.

All parts: Combiner Wars Bombshell

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Kickback
Decepticon Espionage

The Insecticons were a favourite of mine as a kid, from their first appearance in the cartoon where they seemed much more strange and alien than the other Decepticons. This modern version of Kickback is faithful to the original mold, so it gets a faithful paint upgrade as well. Chroming was an integral part of 80s Transformers, so the Molotow liquid chrome gets some use here, along with the Model Master flat black acrylic paint that I love so much.

All parts: Titans Return Kickback

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Shrapnel
Decepticon Electronic Warfare

The Insecticons were a favourite of mine as a kid, from their first appearance in the cartoon where they seemed much more strange and alien than the other Decepticons. This modern version of Shrapnel is faithful to the original mold, so it gets a faithful paint upgrade as well. Chroming was an integral part of 80s Transformers, so the Molotow liquid chrome gets plenty of use here, even more so than the others.

All parts: Power of the Primes Skrapnel

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Small Foot
Guardian

If you're going to do custom Transformers, you might as well do some GoBots as well, right? I ended up with an extra third-party Swerve figure due to an error with an order, and noticed that the form, transformation and colour made it a perfect candidate to turn into the GoBot called Small Foot. Some paint a little Molotow liquid chrome was all she needed. They've released a few modern Machine Robo figures, so between that and repurposing some Transformers, more GoBots are certainly on the horizon.

All parts and accessories: Mech Fans Toys MS-17 (third-party Transformers Swerve)

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Tank
Renegade

If you're going to do custom Transformers, you might as well do some GoBots as well, right? This figure comes from Action Toys' Machine Robo line, producing classic GoBots in modern form, including some die-cast metal parts. Tank here is a chunky beast, as he should be. He gets some chrome and some dark blue highlights, to bring his colours closer to the original, and the treads are painted black to give more variety to those parts.

All parts – Action Toys MR-04 Battle Robo

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Reflector
Decepticon Reconnaissance

Reflector appeared regularly in the first season of the Transformers cartoon starting in 1984, despite the fact that the toys for the character were not available in North America until 1986, and even then it was only by mail-order. It's almost certain that Reflector was supposed to be released as part of the first wave of Transformers toys, but for some reasons plans had changed before the toys shipped out, but not before the cartoon began production. Which was probably a good thing, otherwise the Decepticons would have been a bit short on characters in the early episodes. At any rate, this custom group of Reflector (it's unclear if it's supposed to be different individuals or one Transformer who can clone himself) gets the chrome treatment and some additional paint as well. The colouration matches the cartoon appearance rather than the toys.

All parts and accessories: Siege Refraktor (x3)

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