Zoids and Stuff » primate

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.

2009: Anime 10th Edition-02 Iron Kong

RCM — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:12:54 +0000

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).

HMM-015 Iron Kong

RCM — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:52:56 +0000

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).~~ Screw it, just look at Dalong’s pics instead.

*For a kit this size, it’s as fragile and fiddly as the Molga or Command Wolf (two of the worst in this regard). Kotobukiya has shown they CAN build sturdy kits—look at Saber Tiger and Gun Sniper! That makes it even more disappointing that the Kong is so weak.

Before I got it in my mitts I told myself that if this kit was as fiddly as I feared, that I was going to quit HMMs. The level of detail is incredible, and the kits are beautiful, but they’re just too expensive and I’m too clumsy for this to be a good deal.

CP-24 Flexible Booster Unit (Limited)

RCM — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:50:12 +0000

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.

EMZ-26 Hammer Rock (with tiny food)

RCM — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:22:31 +0000

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 the one in pic 5 is from one of my mom’s Re-Ment sets.

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?

EZ-015 Iron Kong

RCM — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:53:47 +0000

Every collection needs an Iron Kong or 10.

Vol. 09 Hammer Rock

RCM — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:12:05 +0000

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).

Yuji Kaida #03 Iron Kong Yeti

RCM — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:39:15 +0000

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.

In related news: Check out Andy Whiteley’s amazing 3D animation of a Gore (in Yeti colors)!

In other related news: I wanted to do some pics like this, but ~~the sun went away and most of the snow is melting. Slush Kong might not be as cool~~ IT’S SUMMER.

2008-05: Um, Hammer Sapper?

RCM — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:43:48 +0000

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.