To really super charge our new Animated Optimus Prime, let's zap in his Wingblade upgrade kit!
This armor and wings add on kit really helps to give Prime a bulkier and souped-up look, what with his new wings for flight and beefed up hands and over-the-shoulder twin canons!
These hands feature articulated fingers so that he can still hold weapons in them! From the back, the wings attached onto the main jetpack come equipped with a bunch of 5mm effect parts ports. And these are perfect to adding in all your favorite bloosh bits!
Of course, the front twin canons are sized to also take on effect parts, for maximum frontal firepower!
But being an armor set, it's also going to have to be able to help Prime take on some hits! So a bunch of 3mm pegs were designed into the canon and hand armor for that effect.
For alt mode, the hand portions attach onto the main jetpack, then the canons attach right on top of them in the provided slot. The whole setup is then mounted onto Prime's alt mode using the pair of rectangular pegs on his feet!
=== Assembly ===
The attached image show how the parts go together, with only one side of mirrored parts are shown for clarity.
A key point to note for this kit is the dimensional tolerances of the parts which fit together - as they need to be tight enough to hold parts together and yet not be overly tight as to be in-movable. While this depends largely on your printer's settings and calibrations, you can try to do some light sanding if parts end up being too tight together, or use a dab of superglue/floor polish for bits where they end up a tad loose.
For the paint scheme shown, we liked the original metallic sheen of the parts, and so chose to use Tamiya spray paints for them - notably TS-17 Gloss Aluminum, TS-54 Light Metallic Blue and TS-95 Pure Metallic Red. Some masking will be required too!
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So we hope y'all also have fun doing up the Wingblade addon kit for your own Legacy Animated Primes too, seeing as to how the original has now become the rare grail that he is.
Happy 3d printing as always! =)
[28 Jan Update]
For folks who are struggling with the Prime's arm pieces rotating when held in his hands, here's an alternative version with a vertical tab to help better hold them in place!
This new version has been added to the zip file.
The author marked this model as their own original creation.