I’ve wanted to try this on my Holotech Spinosapper’s saws forever, but was afraid of messing up. Then I found a backup. I think I did ok, even though it doesn’t look so hot up close. At least the effect was as cool looking as I had hoped. To add some contrast to the Hammer Rock, I borrowed part of a red clamshell cockpit.
TakaraTomy commemorated the 10th anniversary of the anime by releasing more anime-accurate versions of Ban/Van’s Shield Liger, and this hella sweet Kong belonging to Schwarz/Schubaltz.
Making my own swap was not enough, once I saw the clear green motor and black inner frame. I also finally found a semi-good deal on ebay (although everytime someone buys one, the NEXT one he lists costs $10 more to ship). MORE TO COME!
Dear Hasbro: Worst Name Ever. The Fuzors line got a limited version called Ray Kong, which is a bit better, yes? I think he looks like a football player, which has made him grow on me. Consider these pics the “BEFORE” set, because I want to mod the shoulder gun things to look like the spikes shown on the box. I think some wider shoulders would help too, but I haven’t figured that out yet.
For the longest time I wondered if this limited version’s grey matched the weird grey of NJR Hammer Rock. It didn’t help that there were no good pictures anywhere. Well, now I know! The answer: close, but NO. This grey is very neutral, with no weird lavender cast to it.
My favorite CP of the bunch, because boosters are nearly always cool. And, as a bonus, you get a “Wolverine” claw! The only bummer is that it comes with white caps, so it helps to have some spare red ones handy.
Sure the box SAYS it can be used on Hammer Rock, but it doesn’t look all that great. Moving on…
You absolutely have to do some kind of detailing on this set, or it looks bleh. Anyway, this is the “drop him in the middle of a battlefield and run” CP. “All-Direction” is right.
Another YJ bargain. It’s missing the original rockets, and there was shoulder repair done, but otherwise it’s lookin’ good. Since he’s missing the rockets, I thought I’d see how many other weapons could fit. Turns out a lot of weapons fit, and some even look good!
When I was taking pics of all the possible weapon variations, I also took a few that took advantage of Hammer Rock’s “serving tray”. Somehow I forgot to post most of them, though. The tiny food in pics 1–4 came from a co-worker, and pic 5’s is from one of my mom’s Re-Ment sets.
This was a reissue that brought much joy, since the OER Zore and OJR Hammer Rock have always been hard to come by. These are almost the Zore colors, except that the grey bits here actually have a faint tint to them, and the caps and canopy are different. I decided to go buck wild with the panel lining and detailing on this one. I also made a “head light”, like the larger Kongs all have, using a piece of a spare canopy.
Deadly Kong is a retooling of the ever popular Iron Kong. The face doesn’t say “deadly” to me, so much as it says “friendly”. In the anime, that stupid bandage conceals some nasty weaponry. In real life, the weaponry was sold separately, several months after DK’s release.
For the longest time, people have wanted an HMM Kong. Especially me! But now that it’s out, and I have built it, I’m kind of disappointed, because it did not overcome the worst qualities of HMM kits—the fragility*. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but this one’s going to require serious amounts of glue just to keep it from shedding armor and fingers every time you look at it.
Pics still to come, if it can survive being photographed (don’t expect any exciting poses; I don’t have the patience).
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.)
I’ve had Iron Kong PK since 2001, but I’ve always had the armors swapped (to make all Grey Kong and all Red Kong). Fall 2005 was the first time I’d done the “stock” configuration. I always thought the armor was pink, but it clearly isn’t. Last spring (2007) I finally got around to stickering and detailing. It took so long, because I was nervous and didn’t want to mess up one of my rarest zoids.
1-5: Here’s a close approximation of the Schubaltz Kong’s colors. The upper arm should be dark, but it’s molded in one piece with the shoulder. The hands aren’t quite right either, but it’s close enough, eh? Sorry, no gatling just yet.
6-10: Here is a very red kong. You can also make a very black kong with the remaining bits, but such a beast would be impossible to photograph.
11-14: Using some parts from the LB Gojulas MK-II, I made an approximation of the non limited Kong MK-II.
It’s a super poseable mini-me of the OJR Iron Kong! I don’t know why I did it, but the last pic is a dancing Kong gif.
BEST LB EVER! Modeled after the ultra rare limited version of the OJR MK-II. A fraction of the size and an even bigger fraction of the cost! The armor on this one manages to be both pearly and metallic. Also, the standard build calls for a red eyepiece, and everything else clear green, which always seemed odd to me. Thankfully, they included an entire sprue of clear pieces in each color, so you can mix and match.
Reissued by Wave, and nearly identical to the OJR, but much much cheaper (at least when it first came out). This one is near impossible to shoot, as you can tell. I’ll try to get the lighting up action sometime soon. Watch out for sunlight, as this one likes to turn yellow (GRRR).
MIB (for now), but having this guy means I can make a custom out of my incomplete OJR one! The “Present” is Figure Set #1 (Terrestrial Soldiers).
This poor guy’s been in contruction limbo for years. When I first got it (back in 2003), I used the white armor for a plastic swap but didn’t touch the other parts, so it’s never been built stock until very recently. Unfortunately I also gave the armor a terrible panel lining job, which has taken an eternity to undo (Model Master brand dried paint solvent and a ton of q-tips and toothpicks eventually did the trick).
Now that I’ve finally gotten around to building this guy, I noticed a weird thing with the piece that controls head movement—it was too tall! The right shoulder armor also had a molding change that made it impossible to fully mount the rocket launcher without some hefty trimming, but all is now well.
This pack, ZP-B, came with Deadly Kong’s wrist claws (the “Scissor Arm”), as well as some blades for Lanstag called—LULZ—Twinkle Breakers. Since I don’t have a Lanstag, I thought I’d make Deadly Kong even deadlier.
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