Last Modified: 2016-06-17
First Posted: 2010-01-12
Comments: 4
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).
And you know what that means: time to hamhand everything to pieces while trying to disassemble them for “safe” packing. Ha! This year’s victim: a damn Kong.
So those painted shoulder pieces—when you put them on, they stay put on! Ironically, I was being extra careful with this one, since I got a mild stress fracture on the other side trying to pry it apart. After much gentle prying, this one came undone too fast for my hamhands to react, and then…
Interestingly enough, they JUST announced a HMM Karl-Kong. It’s almost glorious enough to make me forget about the horrible experience I had with the first HMM Kong. Almost. If there is some kind of announcement of improving the problems of the first one (like they did with the Geno Saurer variants), I may have to start saving. Until then…
Remember when I built a HMM Berserk Führer? Wasn’t that fun? Yeah, I still don’t have pics or a review up.
So for some reason I decided to revisit one of the most frustrating kits I’ve ever built:
Probably because a certain variant is coming out this summer, and I am powerless to resist those colors. Also, this kit has an extensive inner frame (at the time that was still pretty rare in HMMs… maybe it still is), and the red and “weird tan” colors used will make it look disturbingly like a skinned gorilla if it’s built without any armor. So, you know. Science!
I’m sure my jimmies will get thoroughly rustled by this kit (again), so I have prepared myself.
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.
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). Screw it, just look at Dalong’s pics instead.
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.
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.
