
Zhang Wei, a retired soldier from Qingdao city, China’s Shandong Province, is a huge fan of Transformers. The 38-year-old has been collecting Transformers models of varying sizes since 2002. And when he got married, his wife joined him with great enthusiasm. Today, the couple’s home is filled with a massive collection of 380 models worth a whopping US $32,000.
Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, Red Spider, Metroplex and pretty much every other transformer feature in Zhang’s collection, neatly arranged on special shelves fitted on to his living room walls. His favorite pastime is to dismantle each model and assemble it again.It was definitely not a piece of cake, but Cake Boss star, Buddy Valastro, managed to create an incredibly realistic cake shaped like the Chevrolet Camaro-shifting Autobot, Bumblebee.
With Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon scheduled for a July 1st release, the people at General Motors though this was a good pretext to gain some exposure for their gorgeous Chevrolet Camaro, so they asked Buddy Valastro to create a detailed cake shaped both as a yellow Camaro and as Transformers star, Bumblebee. Many asked if he could deliver something impressive enough, but when the rolled in at the 2011 New York Auto Show, no one had any more doubts.
The event was featured on TLC’s Cake Boss, in an episode that aired June 20, and viewers got to see one of the biggest, most incredible-cakes ever made. The Camaro-Bumblebee cake weighed 1,500 pounds, and was made of yellow sponge cake, Rice Crispy Treats, buttercream frosting, and yellow and black frosting for the Transformers figure. The unique cake had moving wings, lights and pyrotechnics.
Many of you probably know him as “The Transformers Guy from American Idol”, but Drew Beaumier is actually a young inventor who managed to create a fully functional Transformers outfit.
25-year-old Beaumier, from California, has always been a huge Transformers fan, but although the idea of building a geeky Transformers costume hit him a few years back, it wasn’t until he saw the advertisement for a good condition Power Wheels car that he actually began working on it. Using only a box of tools, glue and spare parts from WallMart, Drew took apart the second hand toy car and attached the parts to a sports body suit. It took him eight weeks of working in his garage to finish the masterpiece, but it was well worth the time.
With wheels attached to both his hands and legs, the geeky inventor can crouch into a car and roll down the street, or stand up and pose as a real-life Transformer. Not bad for a guy who not so long ago was struggling for money and doing lousy bar jobs. Now Drew makes a lot more entertaining tourists in Hollywood and taking photos with other Transformers fans. His ingenious suit has also helped him win a big cash prize on Halloween, for the last three years, which actually helped pay it off.
All geeks love Transformers, but Yang Junlin of Huizhou, China, took his passion for the franchise to a whole other level when he opened the “Legend of Iron” factory and began producing his own robots.
Remebre that uber-cool Megatron Tank we featured a few weeks back? That was one of Yang Junlin’s iron masterpieces, but I had no idea he had created hundreds of other incredible metal sculptures. In 2006, after retiring from the army, Yang went to a concert where various steel sculptures were placed on display. Some of them were simple human figures created from twisted metal wire, but they made such an impression on him, that he decided to try and make his own steel works.
A year later, Yang Junlin opened his own factory, Legend of Iron, and hired over 10 workers to help him realize his dream of building cool robot sculptures. They use all kinds of scrap metal, from old car parts to simple sheets of steel andcreate some of the most amazing looking Transformers replicas I’ve ever seen. Although he admits his work is quite time-consuming, Yang has built over 1,000 iron sculptures since he opened Legend of Iron, five years ago, and isn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.
Check out more photos of the geek eye-candy Legend of Iron creates, after the break:
A Chinese Transformers fan who goes by the name of “Steel Legend” has designed and built an incredible real-life replica of Megatron in tank form.
Now this is something you definitely don’t see everyday. I’ve seen quite a number of Autobot replicas (most of them built in China) but this is the first impressive Decepticon model I’ve ever seen. Steel Legend and his friends really went all out on building this baby and the result is nothing short of mind blowing. According to the short description posted on Chinese portal Zcool, the Megatron Tank is 4.5 meters long, 3.2 meters wide, 2.5 meters high and weighs a staggering 5 tonnes.
No clues on what Steel Legend plans to do with this spectacular Transformers model, but if he decides to sell it, I’m sure there are many fans out there who would pay top dollar to get their hands on it.