Knee Armor, Continued

As you might remember, in WIP #2 I’ve started reworking knee armor, as I hated the original crown shape. Initially I went with a rather spiky design, reaching much higher than original piece.

Once I finished both legs, I realized I didn’t really like the result. Those big spiky knees looked like something from a fantasy game with bad art direction. I filed them down to smaller, flatter shape.

For now, inspired by Freedom 2.0, I decided to add some forward-facing thrusters on the lower knees. Decided on using big, rectangular ones from MS Thruster 01 Builder Parts set, as they contrast nicely with a smooth, curved armor.

I’m not sure why I decided to cut out part of the knees where they’d sit, rather than simply filing it flat. I think I just wanted to try the technique, as is the case with most of the mods on this kit.

It allowed me to angle them downwards some more though, so that’s a plus. I used AB putty to blend them with the armor. While at it, I also drilled small holes in each thruster frame, so I could easily remove inner part for painting later.

More Leg Mods

Once knee armor was done, I felt it was time to spice up the back of the legs by adding some verniers from 1/100 MS Vernier 01 Builder Parts.

I decided I’ll try to use those yo-yo shaped parts – that way I could snap them in place just like the original piece.

First, I needed to glue both halves of the base, as there were no pegs holding it together. Next up I cut off the yo-yo and reshaped the base using some leftover styrene pieces and AB putty. I needed to make it more rectangular to actually have the verniers pointing down.

With that done, only thing left to do was adding a ball joint for the vernier to snap on. Rather than gluing on entire joint, I cut off the round base and drilled a hole for the peg to sit in. Otherwise verniers would end up too far out, making them look weird. Downside of this solution – shorter peg somewhat limits the articulation.

I got around the issue by cutting off a fair bit of it, creating some cool armor separation in the process.

There was still a matter of exposed seam line on the back of the leg though – something that was originally covered by back armor. Since I kept both halves of the thigh separable, even after the extension, I couldn’t just remove the seam using glue/putty.

So rather than remove the seam, I decided to add detail, just like I did with the head. I glued a strip of styrene on one half of the thigh and cut it to match the shape. Added some vents from the MS Thruster 01 set for extra detail.

Rebalancing

Balance of the original kit was somewhat alright, but with all the extra plastic and putty I added to it (not to mention the sword), I felt I needed to lower its centre of gravity.

To do this, I used a product I found while browsing some online RC store – Liquid Gravity. It’s like tiny metal ball bearings that easily fill various cavities. Quite heavy too. Apparently they’re not made of lead though.

I poured some into the heels, toes and the frame piece that connects them. Used CA glue to cement the stuff in place.

There is definitely a noticeable difference. With all the extra weight in the feet, Barbatos Lupus seems much more stable on the desk.

I closed up the bottoms of the claws with 0.5mm pla-plate. While at it, I did some minor reshaping with AB putty, making them a bit more round. Also extended claws on one foot for some asymmetry.

Figured I’ll leave some surface imperfections in – it goes well with the suit and should help weathering stage a bit.

Shoulders

I really like the Tekkadan logo cutouts on the shoulders. It’s a great detail, which, sadly, has no place in my custom Barbatos Lupus.

Filling up the gaps turned out to be rather easy, though slightly tedious. I started out by applying excessive amount of epoxy putty, just to make sure it’d get into all corners. Once dry, I scraped and sanded off the excess. Afterwards – a couple rounds of basic / dissolved putty, sanding and priming, until the surface was smooth.

Filled shoulders looked great in black primer. Still, inspired by N.Maker’s GBWC 2017 entry, I tried to cut a new design into them. Didn’t really like the results I was getting and in the end settled for having both shoulder armors filled smooth. They’ll make a good surface for some decals later on.

Even though it’s hardly visible, it kept bothering me. Figured the feeling it’s not gonna go away, so I might as well do it right. I added a thin strip of transparent 0.2mm styrene over it. Just like other ones, it’s only glued on one side, allowing the piece to be disassembled.

After cutting, I noticed all the pieces will need serious reshaping to fit a rod the skirts could rotate on.

I have since learned there are some products which allow for polyethylene and other rubbery plastics to be glued using basic CA glue. There are very few shops that sell those where I live, but I’ll definitely try to score some next time I order supplies.

Next up, I did some initial reshaping on skirt armor. I got rid of the uneven leftover plastic from the cutting and left plenty of space around the rotation point. At this point I figured I can just rebuild the sides once I have a working prototype.

Final piece of the puzzle was the center section. I cleaned up both parts and slightly extended the frame part for a better fit. Then I drilled a hole across it to house the rod skirts would rotate on.

As you can see, center armor has huge gaps on the sides that needs to be hidden – we’ll get to it soon.

Once the above mods were completed though, I’ve had all I needed to test it. It worked pretty well, so I could move ahead and focus on refining the armor parts.

First off, I created a template from masking tape. With it, I cut out two identical pieces of 1mm styrene and glued them on at a slight offset. I had to do some minor filing to make sure they fit the frame piece. I also drilled through them to create an opening for rotation rod. Later on, I repeated the process, adding another layer of 1mm pla-plate on each side.

Next up, I reworked skirt armor pieces. It was a pretty lengthy process, and sadly, I didn’t take many pictures of it.

I rebuilt the sides on both using 1mm styrene sheet and white putty. Like the center armor, I gave them a slight step by adding slightly smaller layer of 1mm plastic on the outside. Later on I filled up the panel lines on the top part of the skirt armor. Rectangular-ish shape scribed there didn’t really work for my vision.

I also enhanced the existing armor separation using 0.8mm Madworks chisel.

There’s still some refinement to do, mainly on the frame parts, but I’m very happy with how this mod turned out, especially the articulation.

Yep, I broke them again.
At this point I figured it’ll probably be easier to build new set from scratch, rather than fix original ones again. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do either. One of my August orders came with 3 free sets of HG Customize Campaign option parts.

One of them included bits you see in the picture – almost tailor-made to work as a replacement. They only needed minimal modding – adding a mounting peg and some 3mm plastic pipe on each side for extension.

Starting on the upper parts, I added a magnets on each side, under the Ahab reactor. Each inner piece was fitted with a tiny screw, creating a simple yet flexible “joint”.

Next up, lower part. I cut the wider pipe to size and drilled through it, so it could slide onto the pegs I added at the base of the spine. It worked great, but the plastic peg proved to be too weak to handle a moving part like this. One of the sides broke off, so I replaced the whole thing with a piece of brass pipe.

To close off the bottoms, I recasted some round detail parts using Oyumaru and epoxy putty. They were a little too big, so I had to sand them down to match the pipe.

I always wondered why do I keep a bunch of those little electric engines. Now I have my answer.

Fit is a little bit loose, but primer and couple layers of paint should make it spot on.