Studio Series Devastation Optimus Prime

OG is totally uninspiring

I wasn't impressed with when first I saw the pictures. The figure is lanky, no fuel tanks on the legs, the truck mode is too long, no mandatory blaster, the axe... is that even an axe? The trailer hitch is too long. Only the windows are nicely painted. That's the only good thing about this figure. 

I passed on it serveral times when I saw it on display. It looks pretty bad in person. 

Then one day I thought, why don't I get this figure to try cell shading the figure? There are lots of pics on the web on beautiful cell shaded Macross figures and Gundams. These looks so professionally done using airbrush. Then there are some who used paint markers.... wait! Cheap paint markers can do cell shading too? Hey! I could very well try that too! 

So I started watching some YouTube vids, downloading some pics of cell shaded optimus primes. Some were great, some seemed over the top (to me). Now the vids convince me cell shading is doable and I went off to get paint markers.... silver, grey, pink, light blue, white....

The shading of Prime's mask took a leapt of faith on the whites and blacks

White paint always hates me

Lots of trial and error, cleaning up with CIF (did I mention it removes ANYthing?). Then try again, then cleaning it off and redoing. 

Adding streaks of pink to Optimus

Finally touching up the cab and the borrowed gun

Robot mode

Truck mode

Waste of plastic of an axe

Lots of mistakes were made in this project. Paint markers can never be compared with an airbrush, the painted surface will be uneven and unrefined. The main thing is I have had fun!