B01 Testshot
The step after making the clay prototype B00 was making testshots off it. I made molds of all the clay parts and then cast three complete copies in resin. These copies I named B01's. After they were made I destroyed the molds since I didn't need to make anymore exact copies of the original sculpey master. I took one B01 and further refined the form until the parts were nice and smooth and they lined up better. I changed the shape of the wings because the shoulders needed more reinforcement and the bulkier arms supported the internal shoulder mechanisms better. For a little while I considered molding a makeshift Cybcon logo into the undersides of the arms, but we decided against doing that. I primed the parts and sanded them down until they were nice and smooth and then I began making molds from this final resin master. Unlike a lot of resin casters out there, I don't use legos to make my mold boxes. I've found they leak too much. So I make my boxes from thin cardboard (like cereal boxes) and glue. I have more control over the shape of the molds that way.
Project Origins-Here's a really long essay I wrote about how the project came to be and what I was thinking as it all came together.
Picture Gallery 1-Early Prototypes-My first failed attempts are shown here. These are the early prototypes I made back in August of 2002 when I tried to make a cybertronian Bumlebee out of styrene and existing Bumblebee toys. I scrapped these when I changed my approach and decided to engineer the toy myself from scratch.
Picture Gallery 2-B00 Clay Prototype-Pictures of the very first working prototype I made. B00 was my name for the clay proto, which was the first major step in the rebirth of the project. It was the clay master from which I made the very first set of molds that the testshots were cast from.
Picture Gallery 4-B02 Production Models-Here's when I cast the final 30 units and took them from raw resin to fully painted, fully assembled figures.