Last year I was able get “a grail” – a toy I only dreamed about having as a child – Transformers’ Optimus Prime!

As an only child I was fortunate to be able to accumulate quite a collection of Transformers from pocket money purchases and birthday or Christmas gifts, but never had any of the biggest, best figures, especially the Autobot boss – Optimus Prime – one of the coolest 80s toys!

A couple of my friends had an Optimus Prime, but he was really expensive back then (never mind how ASTRONOMICALLY expensive a G1 Optimus Prime would be today…), and these kids also had Castle Grayskulls, Supertramp trampolines, Para pools and two storey houses (these were the signs of “wealth” to me as a kid..), so owning an Optimus Prime remained merely a dream.

That is until I saw a newer version of the robot truck appear on Trademe last year.

The fact it was just the tractor unit and not the original truck AND trailer pair was actually advantageous, as displaying just the robot would be far easier than the transformed truck and, rather big when expanded, trailer base.

I came across a glass and mirror case in K Mart (intended for candles, apparently), which worked even better for my plans when inverted.

I borrowed my father-in-law’s saw-bench to cut out a base for the case to fit on.

I used my extensive stash of model parts – wheels, bombs, fuel drop tanks, missiles etc. to make an appropriately mechanical / combative diorama base.

Then I spray painted it all black to give it a neutral / desolate poat-batfle / outer-space feel.

I drilled holes in the painted MDF and zip-tied Optimus’ feet to the base, to ensure he wouldn’t topple over in the display case.

Finally, I added the first ever Transformer I got as a child – a yellow Cliffjumper – to give Optimus some company, and adhered a large Transformers/Autobot sticker to the top of the case to complete the display.

The completed diorama looks great and will be a terrific display piece!