I have a bit of a love hate relationship with repaints. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I wish there was never another repaint on the planet. Some repaints are great, others very much less so. A little history to start with....

Repaints have been around as long as there have been TFs. In fact before TFs there were repaints. As we all know Microman begat Microchange, and Microchange and Diaclone became Transformers. Microman repainted it's figures several times a year - visit www.micromanforever.com for details. Microchange had several versions of Megatron - only one of which became a TF - the cassetes and Blaster. Diaclone mercilously repainted all their cars and planes - there's several diaclone repaints that would have made lovely TFs including a Police Car and Red Sunstreakers, Yellow and Blue Trailbreakers, Red Hoists, Red Tracks and Red & Silver Skids. Many of the others became many of the similar looking TFs we see now.

After the first 2 years of TFs the repainting trail goes cold - with the exception of some Japanese variants - until Micromasters. Here the bases and some of the other MM toys come with repainted MM toys from the 4 packs. Euro Action Masters vehicles and power suitsin the 2nd year are repaints of earlier driver figures. The Thundercracker is particularly hideous. The following year yellow non combining Constructicons show up in the UK. And then the G2 floodgate opens first with repainted cars, planes and dinobots, then following 2 different shades of Constructicons that do combine we get the G2 Aerialbots and Combaticons. G2 Gobots in anything up to 3 colour schemes show up, and when G2 was axed repaints of the Combat Heroes, Laser Cycles and Stealth Bomber were expected.

BW comes along and - via some euro toys showing in new colour schemes in Machine Wars - we get to the 2nd year when 3 deluxes are reused quickly to bolster the toyline - and to good effect, all 3 of Tigertron, Blackarachnia and Buzzsaw are very worth getting. 2 more plus a basic follow in the 3rd year, followed by a couple of exclusives with videos..... The same trick would occur with different toys in the UK. Japan gets BW and repaints Cheetor as a decepticon Shadow Panther, and extensively repaints during BWII and BW Neo - and not just the US toys - their Convoys each get several repaints.

Store exclusives of TM Rattrap and TM2 Cheetor follow in the US, which leads us to the Fox Kids line and a conserted attempt to repaint as many BW toys as possible. Dinobot is worth having, as is the TM Waspinator (he's TM Buzzsaw). The others are somewhat variable but top of the hate list has to be the appalling Waspinator - one set of parts cast in the wrong colour IMO - and the lurid blue Rhinox. OpOp comes back in Beast Machines as Primal Prime, and Jetstorm gets repainted as his own drone the Sonic Attack Jet.

In Japan meanwhile Car Robots had hit, which included repaints of the spychangers, new decos for the remaining MW molds, a repaint of Bruticus (his 4th paint scheme) and repaints in line of the Car Brothers and Megatron. These made it into the US version Robots In Disguise along with some other MW repaints, BM Obsidian and BM Jetstorm back for a third go !

And then came Armada.... Amrmada was the first line where the majority of the toys had repaints. In the line where they first appeared. This is what a lot of people balked at - the idea they're paying out for the same toy just a few months later.... the same thing happened in Energon, and by this time Universe had come along which was a line entirely of repaints of recentish toys, with Robotmasters following a similar idea in Japan.

So what makes a good repaint ?

1: Paint it Black

Always your first and safest option this. Take your toy and turn it into it's stealth mode/night camo/evil twin version. Good examples are the various modern Scourges and Nemesis Primes formed from recent Prime models, and the set of Black repaints in Robot Masters line.... Dark Sabre from the minicons and the 3 black Cheetor repaints are good too. A recent survey on TMUK and the HUB had black versions of toys - notably G1 Skywarp and the Scourge Optimus repaint showing up regularly.

2: Paint it like so and so

Another good move is to go for a hommage to a previous character - Armada was aiming for this with their end of line Powerlinx repaints but was unfortunately torpedoed when the cartoonists repainted one toy in the wrong colour leading to 2 needing changed colour schemes. But the Machine Wars race car was always crying out to be G1 Mirage, and the swingwing Cyberjet to be G1 Jetfire and Robotmasters gave us both of these and they look great. Been a bit harder with Energon's "make it G1 like from the word go" policy but E Ironhide (Hound), Beachcomber, E Starscream and Roadblock (Grapple) are all like their G1 counterparts. Roadblock gets bonus points for aping the Inferno to Grapple recolour in G1. I'll also throw in RM Doubleface's Armada Sideways hommage. And the white Battle in the Box Armada Magnus is another good example - so good that I'm surprised this is only the second "paint Prime white" repaint.

3: Paint it like what it should look like

Some toys should look a certain colour. Cheetor should be yellow, so it's an obvious repaint for Nightslash Cheetor. If you've got a Starscream toy then the first options for repaints have to be a Blue Thundercracker and Black & Purple Skywarp. When Armada Thrust was repainted in the "wrong" colours fans cried out for the real red and black repaint....

4: Paint it Red and Black/Blue

A surprising one maybe ? But a lot of original G1 toys are mainly red with a combination of black or blue... Op, Sideswipe, Cliffjumper, Inferno.... This has been recently illustrated with the impressive Energon Quickstrike which makes a poorly & gaudily painted toy - albeit a hommage to G1 Springer - look superb.

5: Not too much yellow or purple

Unless of course it's yellow on Cheetor and purple on Decepticons. Lurid Puyrple on a wolf/eagle hybrid does not work ! Bright and Gaudy colours should be avoided.

6: Don't be silly

Universe Red purple Primal. Universe Purple Silverbolt. In fact many of the early Universe toys. And some of the Energon basics.... That E Strongarm or Offshoot look hideous.

7: Be original...

..... but don't forget 5 & 6 above !

E Doomlock. A completely different colour scheme and still looks good. Similarly TFU Windsheer is a completely new colour scheme and looks great.

8: Try a clear plastic

Rare one this outside of Japan but a clear version of a toy is frequently quite nice

9: Emergency

Until recenetly I thought that the Emergency services repaint was dead - hadn't been seen since G1, and usually involves a minor remold to add sirens and lights. However Energon Rodimus' Checkpoint repaint brought this particular form od repainting back to life.

10: Keep it simple

Really an extension of 1 & 4 above. Simple paint schemes are usually surprisingly effective.

11: Keep it small if possible

If you want to repaint a larger toy you really need a complely killer idea to make someone buy it again. Small toys on the other hand ..... I think TF collectors fall over themselves for things like the Micromaster combiner repaints and sets of differently coloured minicons. I've spent so much tracking down odd coloured minicon sets, I've got 5 or 6 versions of some and would happily pay out for a few more differently coloured Star Sabres.

12: Think about the name

And when all is said and done look at your toy...... Many TF fans are fed up with repaint powerups on existing characters and the chance to have new troop reinforcements from existing moulds is a good thing. Energon's Repaints - Dreadwing, Beachcomber, Overcast, Sixshot, Landquake and Quickstrike are all new characters that are repaints of existing toys..... Armada got this very wrong with lots of character powerups with only the Supercon Prime and Starscream repaints being the same character.

just a few thoughts of mine on the subject, feel free to agree/disagree.

Armada Hoist as Scavenger - green for white, purple for brown, orange & blue
Armada Wheeljack as Armada Autobot Wheeljack - white for black and grey for white, fix the broken Autobot symbol (ditto bellow for that last bit)
Armada Wheeljack as Sideswipe - red for black and black for white
Armada Wheeljack as Sunstreaker - yellow for black and black for white
Night Slash Cheetor as Cheetor - yellow for black & grey, clear green for clear orange.
Waspinator as Bumblebee - yellow for green, black for grey, dark clear blue for the wings and lightpipe. Similar to Buzzsaw but just different enough.
Armada Demolishor as Sixshot - green for Red, white for beige, green for the dark grey and silve for the light grey.
The orange version of Tigatron with the green swapped for red as Beast Wars Hooligan.

Other thoughts for other sizes:

I'd repaint the Machine Wars Wrecker Truck three times: Once in green and orange as Hoist and once in Red & Blue as Optimus and once in Red & Yellow/orange as Rodimus with a flame deco. (these take their que from a KO Iown in the Prime colours with flames which looks better than any of the official colours)

The Star Sabre minicon team twice in clear red and clear purple.

An all white Beast Wars Ultra Optimus Primal as Yeti Ultra Magnus. Email Me with comments or if there's something I've missed !