Zoids and Stuff » Plastic Swaps

Abandoned ideas (2003–05)

RCM — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:03:23 +0000

Being abandoned swap ideas, all I have are the crappiest pics imaginable. Actually, 6–14 aren’t totally abandoned. I’m hoping that posting these horrible ancient pictures of awesome swaps will shame me into taking better pictures. Seriously, my phone has a better camera than the one that took these.

1: A Merda with a Seismosaurus gunner seat for a head. I ended up using the gunner seat for the Helcat MK-II custom.

2–3: A very black Geno Breaker. I painted some extra Breaker parts I had, and put them on a Geno Saurer I used to have (I sold it before I got around to taking any pics of it).

4–5: Techno Zoids Kong and Deadly Kong. It wasn’t as cool as I hoped.

6–8: NJR frame plus PK armor plus Techno Zoid’s motor equals a very very red Kong.

9–11: Take the above, and use Yeti armor instead, and you get… Rescue Kong!

12–14: This was my favorite until Karl’s Type. NJR armor plus PK frame equals a very dark Kong. All the different gunmetal shades here are pretty sweet. If I had an OJR MK-II (which had truly black armor), I could combine it with the Schubaltz inner frame (also truly black) and make a “none more black” one that would be impossible to photograph.

Horn Swaps

RCM — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 21:35:07 +0000

So far, all I have here is Dark Horn / Green Horn. I used to put the black parts from an NJR Red Horn on Dark Horn’s armor, but trying to get pictures was impossible. Not enough contrast. This would have also looked a lot better if the Dark Horn parts didn’t have those distinctive stickers.

Gilvader/Gildragon

RCM — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:21:21 +0000

I’ve been wanting to do this swap ever since the dawn of time—aka, when that other guy did it. It needed a bit more contrast, so I kept some of the silver bits instead of doing a full swap.

Iron Kong (Karl’s type)

RCM — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:28:19 +0000

TakaraTomy commemorated the 10th anniversary of the anime by releasing more anime-accurate versions of certain kits. One of them was the Iron Kong of a certain Germanic colonel who likes gatling guns. The upside: a clear green gearbox, and inclusion of the super ultra mega rare CP-A1 (a sprue of connector parts that lets you affix CPs to Zoids they were not meant for). The downside: too flippin’ expensive, and I don’t like how high the gatling mount sits (neither of which will stop me from trying to get one).

Since I’ve had a PK for a while, I thought I’d try to make my own, via the magic of plastic swapping. I also had a spare hacked CP-03 I didn’t feel guilty about hacking up, since it was already in bad shape, so I thought I’d take a stab at a slightly better gun mount (though still pretty half-assed.)

Update from the future: Well, I got one. How did I do?

The Executive

RCM — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:56:51 +0000

Quick and dirty plastic swap: Leoshop Gator plus Zoids2 Tarantulon. This is the luxury SUV of zoids. I posted some pics on the ZoidFans Mailing List, and one Major Kong wrote for me a beautiful writeup, as he does for his own customs.

Hi, big boy. We certainly hope you’re… enjoying… tonight’s presentation of “Silicone Valley: The Swelling” starring Chester Harlton, Tunza Blart and the unforgettable Pindyul S. Bubes, here on the Playzoid Channel. And we’ll be back before the spaghetti can go al dente on you, but first a word from our favorite sponsors, the good people of Jean Splyce Motors:

long shot of bumper to bumper traffic, at a standstill; close-up of harried motorists honking horns and shaking fists. The voiceover says:

Karl Marx was wrong. The masses? Well, we won’t say the masses suck, but they certainly inhale deeply. And what’s the worst thing about the masses? Every one of them can afford a car, and every one of them is IN YOUR WAY. But we here at Jean Splyce Motors have the answer, for the discerning, for the elite, for the truly special: the Dimetrorachnizoid, or, as we like to call it… The Executive.

Tight shot of a handsome, tuxedoed man carefully putting on dark glasses as a Svelte Svedish Sveetie settles down next to him on fine leather seats. As the camera pulls back, a blindingly shiny clamshell cockpit closes over them. Cut to a scene of confusion and chaos as ordinary vehicles are literally catapulted end over end in a rolling wave of flames and smoke, and from behind them, out of the mayhem, stalks the glittering Executive, weapons blazing.

You no longer have to settle for a common conveyance. In fact, you no longer even have to sit in traffic with them. With the Executive, you do indeed own the road.

The comfort and stability of the mid-size Gator-Dimetrodon with the maneuverability and toughness of the Tarantulon. Only the Executive gives you the next generation in SUVs: Spider-based Unlikely Vehicles. The latest weapons technology, and the kind of styling folk won’t soon forget. The glistening chrome finish will pop their eyes, right before one of the eight pointy legs crushes their skull. And you?

Why, you’ll make the opera on time.

Medium shot in front of a concert hall. As traffic burns in the background against the neon lights of downtown, Our Hero tosses the keys to a startled valet who stares upward, stunned, as the Svelte Svedish Sveetie descends from the cockpit to the ground. Cue Wagner’s “Valkyries” and fade to black…

Molga (clear/Guylos)

RCM — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:28:33 +0000

I finally got one of those Guylos Molga limiteds, and the first thing I did was take the glowy bits off the sprues and put them on my clear Molga. This is a swap I’ve wanted to do forever! Maybe I will have to build my spare clear Red Horn, and do a similar swap with it and a Dark Horn.

Gurantula/Tarantulon (plus misc bits)

RCM — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:09:55 +0000

Is there anything blacker than this spider? No, none more black. Well, if I could have popped the transfer ring cockpit’s glass off, I could have used the Z2′s smoke one, but Starrior canopies are usually glued on. Another option (see #5 and #6) is to use a clamshell cockpit (Zillon and Molga Canory have black ones).

Sinker (OJR/NJR)

RCM — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:04:04 +0000

As soon as I got theNJR Sinker (back in 2000), I made these swaps. I think I like the silver one better. Due to slight mold differences, the back vent piece is incredibly difficult to remove, post swap.

Black/Metal/Hebby Rhimos

RCM — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:59:28 +0000

1-4: OER “Red Mutant” stylee!
5-8: Now that’s a BLACK rhimos! The weird burnt metal color of the guns really stands out now.
9-12: Hebby R, with a black undercarriage.
13-16: Black R, with metallic underbits and orange cockpits. This one’s my favorite of the bunch.

Merda/Runna/Hellrunner

RCM — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:55:16 +0000

1-6: An OJR Merda and a RoboStrux Runna can make an all silver runner. The leftovers make a red/blue oddity.
7-12: Throw a Zoids2 Hellrunner in the mix, and you get these two! The blue/black one almost looks like something that could have come out in the NJR (except that they wouldn’t have bothered to make a black head, with all the silver-grey ones laying around). The red cockpit is from an OJR Sinker, btw.