Zoids and Stuff » pilot

Brass pilot

RCM — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:27:16 +0000

Blast from the past! A guy named Card (from the Zoidfans Yahoo group made this back in 2003. I forgot about it until just recently (March, 2011) when it fell out of a Zoid I was about to sell. It looks almost exactly like a chrome pilot, but it has an actual weight to it. When you drop it, it goes “clink”!

2008-08: De-chromed pilot

RCM — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:25:19 +0000

After seeing these strange pilots in an auction, I wanted to see what was underneath the chrome of my own Robo Strux pilots. Along the way I discovered that a little bit of acetone (nail polish remover) can make a gold pilot silver (pic #1). A lot more plus some scrubbing will strip the chrome off—mostly. There are some tiny bits that won’t come off no matter what. I also think the acetone stained this guy a little.

Underneath this one is the milky semi-opaque plastic of the Ghost Zoids, but I’m not sure if that’s the case for all RS pilots. Plus, I stripped an OJR pilot long ago, and it had pink plastic underneath, so who knows what’s under the various other releases’ chrome pilots.

Multimac/Cosmic Builder bits

RCM — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:39:01 +0000

I think the Cosmic Builder stuff came out in the mid 90s. They “borrowed” some zoid elements, as seen above. The top half of a whitehead cockpit could be found attached to various bits, and they also remodeled the famous pilot. I like him, in a 40s space opera kind of way.

Yujin figures gashapon set

RCM — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:43:16 +0000

Gashapon set from around 2000. If you were as bad at painting the tiny pilots as I was, this set was your only hope. Too bad it’s so flippin’ rare. The only downside: no sitting Van and Fiona figures (but they were in one of the “Battle Collection” mini sets that came out later).

2008-02: Zoids pilot as a Micronaut #2

RCM — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:31:36 +0000

The Gojulas HT I got recently came with another clear figure for me to color. This time I went for the yellow Time Traveler, since I’ve been digging clear yellow a lot lately. This time instead of paint, I used a Sharpie for the yellow, and Gundam markers for the white/silver. The damn white kept absorbing the yellow, though, so this one’s a bit messy.

TWO DOWN, TWO TO GO!

2006-09: Zoids pilot as a Micronaut

RCM — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:27:22 +0000

I took the clear pilot from my holotech Megaraptor and painted him clear orange, to look like a Micronaut Time Traveler figure. I’ve wanted to do this forever, but until recently there were no clear pilots.