While there are countless 3D prints of the popular Transformers, “TruckBot” is special in the fact that it’s a custom character that actually transforms much like the official toys.

Maker Neil Hengist is the man behind this impressive project, telling us that it was modelled in 123D Design over the course of four months.

Aside from the need to include in all the articulation to make movement between the two forms work, it was also designed to be printed in multiple colours of filament at once.

On top of all that, it’s quite compact coming in at only 20 separate parts that also includes moving arms and legs.

With the complex model finished printing took around 55 hours, but Hengist says that a single extruder printer would only take around 25 hours to complete.

He’s also made it easier to create on those printers, where you should drag across all the all appropriate files for each part to print. From here the files will group together and can be printed.

If you’d like to give that a try and make your own the files are available for free from Thingiverse. The finished version you see on this page is 23 centimetres long in “truck mode”, and slightly less than that when converted into the bipedal robot. You’re going to need a lot of filament for this one.

As it was printed with multiple colours there’s no need for paint here, and the pieces connect together so well that no finishing was necessary. You may still want to break out the sandpaper if you want something completely smooth.