Early Prototypes
In August of 2002 I tried to figure out what would be the best way to make my Cybertronian Bumblebee. Since I had success with styrene in my Jazz project, I thought that was the way to go. I started with sketches of how I envisioned the transform would work, then I made a crude kitbash from existing minicar parts. I cut up some Bumblebee keychains and used modeling clay to give me an idea of the shape I wanted the fenders to be. I tried making those parts out of sheet styrene, but this proved tremendously difficult and I wasn't satisfied with how the styrene body panels were coming out. I also felt too restricted working within the limitations of the existing toy. I decided to put the project on hold until I learned how to make parts some other 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 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 3-B01 Test Shot-B01 was the name I gave to the resin test shot of the clay master sculpt. Once I made this I further refined the shape and then made the final molds from it.
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.