Man to sell Transformers model for quake relief

A villager in Laokao county, Henan province, plans to sell a model he made of "Optimus Prime", a character in the Transformers movie series, to help people in Ludian who are suffering after a recent magnitude-6.5 earthquake in Yunnan province, Dahe Daily reported on Wednesday.

Yue Erbing, 37, a villager of Guyang, Lankao county, started to build models of character from the Transformers in 2013. His models of "Bumblebee" and "Ironhide" have buyers already but the "Optimus Prime", which is still being made, has not.

Yue, who majored in painting, said he searched for design drawings on the Internet, then made the models himself. The "Optimus Prime" he is making is 10 meters in height and will weigh 9 metric tons, and uses more than 1,600 machine parts welded together, the report said.

"Most of the parts are recycled from the scrap yard," Yue said. "I spent more than 60,000 yuan ($9,737) on making the 'Optimus Prime' within half a year, and it will be completed by September."

Yue said he wants to sell the model and give the proceedings for disaster relief in the quake-hit area of Yunnan.