Many fans who had not read the bio were confused to see Bonecrusher in a NEST redeco. Well, thanks to notes from Hasbro designer Sam Smith, we get a description on some of the easter eggs showing this bot's true allegiance. We also have his notes on NEST Ratchet and Mark Maher's notes on the Creatures Collide set. FYI, when he writes about "hardware" he is referring to screws and pins. These posts come from Instagram.
SS-95BB N.E.S.T. BONECRUSHER
One of the best ways to kick off the weekend is with some new Transformers drops, especially when they come as a surprise for our team as well! I have a couple of items to share, but we’ll get started with N.E.S.T. BONECRUSHER.
Now you may be asking yourself, “Wait, Isn’t this guy a deception? didn’t he die in Movie 1? Before N.E.S.T. was established in Revenge of the Fallen?” You betcha! So why is he showing up as an autobot clad in NEST colors? Because he’s in disguise! At least that’s how this character was justified as we planned him out for this program. While Bonecrusher does get defeated in the highway battle with Optimus Prime in movie 1, his character reappears in the desert battle of Revenge of the Fallen, so in some form of continuity, he is still around during the inception of the NEST program. Bonecrushers vehicle form as a licensed Buffalo Mine Sweeper is a perfect troop transport, so while we were identifying alt modes that might lend them selves to work for this segment, Bonecrusher rose to the top.
While establishing the deco for this character, I did want to ensure that he remained a deception, but perhaps he was doing a reconnaissance mission for Megatron. His fictional serial number on the side of the vehicle translates to “ALL HAIL MEGATRON” and a deception logo that is hidden behind his spare tire gets revealed during transformation.
The color palette for this segment was a lot of fun to work in, and it relied heavily on varying shades of grays and blacks. It also provided the opportunity to revisit Bonecrushers vehicle mode, and highlight a lot of painted detail in places that were not utilized in the original release. You will find a lot more lights on this vehicle form, as well as some intricate mechanical detailing on the robot mode.
Overall I had a blast working on this guy, and it was a fun deviation to work some storytelling into the pack, even if its only intent was to assist me in creating the deco spec. I hope you all enjoy him as much as I do, but be sure to let me know your thoughts below!
SS-96BB N.E.S.T. RATCHET
Ratchet felt right at home when looking for characters in this program. As a service body Hummer H2, he already shared a lot of the same vehicle aesthetics as the Hummer HX concept and the H3T used in the films. With a color palette established on Bonecrusher, I set out to make the SWAT team version of Ratchet.
Armed with his DOTM blaster which seemed like a more fitting accessory for the pack, Ratchet is clad in all gray and black tones, with a lot of newly allocated deco to ensure that he felt different from his previous releases. similar to Bonecrusher, I tried to get a lot more of the vehicle lights to be illuminated with paint in this version, along with some nice mechanical detailing on the robot mode.
Along with the NEST insignia on the side of the service body, you will also find a familiar numerical badging in the serial number on his door. “FD681 SR43” which references to “Fire Department 681” “Search and Rescue E4” which were his identifying markings from his various vehicle liverys used in the first 3 films.
This program was a lot of fun to work on, and I hope there are opportunities for more fictional studio series expressions in the future. What do you think of these characters, and this NEST program overall? Lets discuss it in the comments below!
Now that some time has passed, I’m able to share with you the Creatures Collide Buzzworthy Bumblebee four pack! I had a really great time working on this pack and I hope all of you have had a chance to scoop it from Target.
So I’ve seen a lot of great pictures being posted of these great characters, but I did not see many mention the black hardware that was issued on all of the creatures in the pack. I thought the black hardware was essential to relay how evil these guys are. I tried for copper hardware for the main man Goldbug but alas, that hardware does not meet our current safety standards.
As you swipe you can see I was able to keep all the extra heads for the creatures. My idea behind this was just lil old Goldbug going up against an army of insecticons and predacons, obviously he triumphs defying all odds. The extra head with ransack was to utilize your Legacy Kickback for that sweet G1 look with the black visor! For the Waruader Parasyte you have the alternate head that is linked to the Skywasp horrorcon prototype that was never released back in the day of beast wars. The other head of Scorponok was paying homage to his first toy release mutant battle mask. I did my damnedest to try to match that crazy pearl essence metallic blurple color on his OG toy but I ended up leaning more towards predacon purple and I even matched the partial transparent look with the metallic fleck the original rocked.
I've been really trying hard to have secret features hidden in the first molds of character releases to sweeten the deal for their redeco releases. That mid section torso was the idea me and Kunihiro san worked on together to give the redeco Ransack as much love as possible. Be on the lookout for more features such as these!
This pack also delivers the #netflix Bumblebee licensed VW mold which was also my plan up front when we did the Shattered Glass BB. This place moves incredibly fast and thoughts such as these always don’t come to fruition, but the fact that this release happened, gives me all the warm and fuzzy feels!!
Still trying to answer comments when I can, apologies for all that I miss! Pulsecon soon!!!!
