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[Protek]

Wing Saber has been introduced to us in the Unicron trilogy. While the character itself didn't appeal to me much, I thought the name was pretty cool and catchy.

I've been playing with an idea to make a G1 Wing Saber for some time now and finally I got around gathering some parts and begin the project. Here's a teaser of what's to come...

[Tformer]

Cool idea!

Are you going to try and replace the head with something a little closer to the Energon design as well?

[Protek]

Cool idea!

Are you going to try and replace the head with something a little closer to the Energon design as well?

Nope, just the regular seeker head but there's more to Wing Saber's background than meets the eye.

[Protek]

Here's another teaser. This time it's Wing Saber's bio.

WING SABER AUTOBOT

PRIMARY FUNCTION: WARRIOR

"Appearances don't always do justice."

BIO
A noble and valiant Autobot - in a Decepticon seeker body. Back on Cybertron, Wing Saber was a Valkyrie class elite seeker. He was brave and skilled although slightly pompous air fighter, who looked down on the "inferior" regular seekers. When the war broke out, Wing Saber joined the Autobot cause. As the war went on, Wing Saber's detraction towards Starscream and his kind turned into pure contempt as he felt that they had lost the ideals and honor of the seekers. On the Decepticon seekers' side the feeling was mutual and one day on Earth they ambushed Wing Saber in air and despite him giving a good fight they managed to shoot him down. Wing Saber was found in a critical condition and his body was damaged beyond repair. In order to save his life, Ratchet and Wheeljack needed to use Wheeljack's latest invention that was capable of transferring a spark into a new protoform. The only problem was that they didn't have any protoforms they could use, so the only option was to move his spark into a captured and deactivated Decepticon seeker drone body. When Wing Saber regained consciousness and realized what he had been turned into, he became furious and lashed towards his saviors. He just couldn't cope with being trapped in a body that represented everything he hated and despised. The fact, that another attempt to move his spark into another body would most probably prove to be fatal, didn't help either. The former brash and arrogant warrior turned into a grim and secluded one. Although Wing Saber may resent his appearance, he has adapted into the abilities that come with it surprisingly well.

WEAPONS/ABILITIES
In jet mode, subject is able to reach mach 5 and sustain a cruising speed of mach 3½. Compared to other seekers, subject has an outstanding maneuverability and an extended operating range. Subject wields in both modes dual plasma cannons that can shoot 1200 rounds per minute. The seeker body makes it possible for the subject to penetrate Decepticon outer perimeter scanners without notice, since the scanners ignore the seeker energy signature.

WEAKNESSES
Subject's self-contempt may sometimes be so overwhelming that he is incapable of performing any tasks. Subject needs to activate a specific beacon, when approaching Autobot base. Failing to do so triggers an alert in the Autobot outer perimeter scanners as they're not able to differentiate the subject from a Decepticon seeker.

[Protek]

Ok, this is not the bot I'm going to kitbash. I just thought this Valkyrie knock off would be perfect for depicting, how Wing Saber looked like before he was nearly killed. I just added an Autobot insignia and voilá! We have Wing Saber!




This post has been edited by Protek: 10 March 2012, 00:13

[Protek]

A bit of update. I assembled Wing Saber's torso from the pieces I got. I'm still missing a few pieces that are listed here but Wing Saber is slowly coming together.

First the alt mode:


And the robot mode:


Once I get all the missing parts, I'm going to get probably a Thundercracker label set from Reprolabels. Good thing I decided to get the Nordcon non-attendee package because it contained the Autobot insignia label.

This post has been edited by Protek: 13 March 2012, 21:28

[Fighbird]

Hey, that looks pretty good - a nice blend of colors!

Was it easy to replace and reassemble the nose/head fuselage section again?

And good to hear that the NordCon freebies came in handy. You know, if you added one of the country-enhanced symbols from that sheet it would really make your toy unique...

[SureShot]

Pretty sweet looking. However I might have preferred going with a G.2 Starscream fuselage/body (white), but that's just my taste

[Protek]

@ Fighbird: The pin holding the fuselage between the air intakes came off pretty easily with a hammer and a nail.

As for the colors, I wanted Wing Saber be as grey as possible to to give the impression of a generic seeker, which in my perception is as dull as possible. It was a lucky coincidence that the Galaxy Defender sported the same color scheme as I ended up with my project the blue and black details give a nice touch to the otherwise grey body. This actually gave me an idea of a theory that the colors of a Transformers character are integrated into their spark. As we all know, when a character dies, the body turns grey. So I figured, if a spark is transferred to a new body, it adopts the colors from the spark. In Wing Saber's case, I wanted to achieve a hybrid of a revived character and a generic soldier that blends into the crowd.

[Protek]

Got a pair of back wings today. I took a chance as they were advertised as the larger peg model and I wasn't sure if the holes in my tail fins were large or small variant. Turns out that my fins were the with the small holes so the wings don't fit into the tail fins.

I guess I have to drill the holes slightly bigger to get the wings to fit.

[Protek]

Ordered a pair of tail fins with larger holes that fit the vertical stabilizers I got before. Unfortunately, the stickers are in pretty bad shape in those, so I still might resort to modding the first tail fins to accommodate the stabilizers.

Still short of left fist, nosewheel and robot mode weapons.