Kodiak Conversion WIP

Beginning the major conversion work on my Kodiak.  The chassis is from the Heavy Jack kit.  My idea is to shave off his top armor shell and add in a Heavy Boiler-- so I guess it's sort of a Hot Rod/Open Top look.  Still have to dremel more of the plastic away but had to stop because battery died.  So I'll move on to other things.

While I wait, I'll work on his other hand.  I'm taking the closed fist that used to be holding the axe and making a true open first with claws open.  I finished his left hand earlier.  So I just have to sand down some of the plastic and then pin the fingers in place.

The hard part will be adding in his Kodiak armor plates to his arm.  I have some plasticard for that and I heard that you can boil it to make it soft then shape it.  Hope it works.  Once I get the shape I can add some putty to it and create the other details.

So to do list:

-sculpt Kodiak head from Juggernaut head
-make arm plates with spikes
-add spike panel to shoulders
-add rivets to shoulderpad
-add rivets and spikes to knees
-create heavy boiler
-make tow cable

That's the major things that I have to do and I'll update this post as I progress.

7:11

Finished his right open fist and the Heavy Boiler.

  I looked around the apartment for something cylindrical and decided on using an empty Krazy Glue container, the one that holds the little tube.  Used my pliers to shape it so it fits on the Kodiak and then took a bit from a model train smoke stack (recently took a trip to Arnie's Trains in Westminster = awesome).  The smoke stack part is the dark grey piece.  Cool part is it has a hole in it so I put a small watch part through it and it fit!!  Heavy Boiler!

I really like how it's shaping up.  I had envisioned this months ago when I first started the conversion.  Next I'm going to add some thin brass panels around the boiler and then add rivets.  Then around the edge of the boiler on the armor I might play with the idea of having some kind of border-- hard to explain but I need to give the feeling like the Heavy Boiler is coming out of the main chassis; so the border piece will hide it's connection to give off that illusion.  Then guitar string tubes, etc for detail.

I also finished his right arm and it got mangled in the process of opening the fist but painted I'm sure it will look cool rusted :P

1:00 a.m.