One cool item that I’ve really enjoyed adding to my Transformers collection recently is custom 3D printed Energon Cubes from local West Australian collector and Transformers fan Jason Campey. I bought a handful of the cubes a few months back from Jason, and liked them so much that immediately asked for more when he had them available as Trypticon kept trying to eat the ones I had.

Fast forward a few months, and I bought a container with 50 purple energon cubes from Jason. But once you have them, what to do with them? They kind of sat around for a week or so.

One bored Saturday, I started mucking about with different piles and shapes to display them in. Then I started treating them like kids wooden blocks, wondering what could I build them into. After making a pyramid, and then a wall, I settled on a legends scaled throne for one of my favorite G1 style rascals

I then later bought some Insecticons also from Jason, and looking up reference images, used a still from the cartoon when the insecticons were first introduced.

In the scene, Megatron pays the insecticons with a measly few crumbs of energon cubes – lying to the bugs and keeping the bulk of the hoard for himself and rest of the cons treating the bugs as slave labor like all good industrialists do.

The cubes are transluscent, so with a decent light (or a torch) you can see how nicely they light up. I want to get some LED’s to go with my display, but I’m unsure what is suitable, something with multiple LED’s would suit to go under the cubes.

While I dont have the third CW / TR insecticon yet, the simple act of putting a purple cube in a toy bugs hands brought a surprising amount of delight and joy to my day, as did taking some photos to share online on fan sites like TFW2005.

Here’s a picture below with the Insecticons I already had, with the old school “Deluxe” ones in the back row I got from Jason. These bugs are well hungry, and best kept out of your kitchen.

The cubes are translucent, and when lit up in the dark have a delightfully eerie glow to them that gives the impression of real energon cubes, which gives me that funny tingling feeling in my spine when I look at them.

Fortunately now that I have a heap of the cubes, I can keep Trypticon from devouring everything in sight, but he ALWAYS wants more – his appetite is ravenous.

The energon throne I made the center of a mini-display with sharkticons and small scale toys, and they all sit under the mighty Trypticon, who has a few cubes in his mouth in a reference to the episode “Thief in the Night” and Trippers knows that only “Carbombya Energon” is best.

Below is my mucking about with energon cubes made into a throne, I put a box underneath to act as a raised platform, because “It’s Good to be the King!”

The cloth thing is a cleaning cloth I used as a placeholder, so as not to see the box logo (a HASBRO Jenga box) in the photo, just to get an idea of how it might look.

I happened to get Whiplash on the same day from the postie as I was mucking about, so after answering the door, added him and Mumm-Ra in there for shits ‘n giggles.

A close up of the master of mirth and mayhem, some little Kremzeek’s and his sharkticon bodyguards. The whole theme/idea was really mischief maker and rascals. Serial pests if you will, which Sharkticons and Trypticon are in the old Sunbow/Marvel Transformers Cartoon.

Later, I moved the whole kit and caboodle onto my bookshelf. The box is still underneath, I didn’t’ have anything good to cover it with, (kind of wanted red royal looking velvet) so I cut up some of those freebie Combiner Wars comics, wrapping the pages around the box front and top. It has Menasor and some Cons on the pics, but mostly it’s just to disguise the silly Jenga box on the shelf.

Later I went back and switched the Sharkticons clear blue sword for a red energon axe, and then gave his buddy a red light sabre, to match the red on the Main Man. I also added more Kremzeeks around his throne, and an RID Takara minicon, along with a Titans Return Grape Ape, and the see through CON symbol on top of the chair.

Overall I’m pretty happy with this silly display which reflects my sense of humor and of course shows off the awesome energon cubes courtesy of Jason Campey, who is just a fantastic guy, and it’s always a pleasure to see him, and of course when I do see him I can’t shut up about toys and rave on like a lunatic.

Zooming out for one final pic, you can see how they all sit under Trypticon, the biggest baddest Dino-Former this side of Cybertron. The below two images I’ve uploaded at a larger resolution, click on them to see them full screen if you are so inclined, there are lots of cool little details to discover.

I themed the display around small size CONS, and things that have sharp teeth claws and jaws, to mirror Trypticon’s feral unpredictable nature. Depending on what angle you look at the display, you can see things hiding in or around Trypticon.

I’m always adding little things. Whenever I look at Trypticon chowing down it brings a smile to my face. He’s dangerous, but also a lovably goofy character voiced by the immortal Brad Garrett better known as Raymond’s Brother on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Well, hope you enjoyed this bit of nonsense. Plenty more articles coming along near completion, and I may do some more random pics and mini-essays about various Transformers toys to go with the longer articles to mix things up.