The Energon Pub

[zero-kaiser]

Evenin' all!

Hope you all had a great new years eve, I know I sure did

Anyway..

For quite some time now Ive been toying with the idea of kitbashing my Energon Hot Shot to become Nightbeat. Up until this christmas, I lacked the tools and bits that I needed to do said modifications

My plan for my new Nightbeat involved quite abit of work and I was aiming for certain criteria with my mod..

-

- better neck/head mount -

One of the first things that annoyed me to no end about the Energon Hot Shot mold, was his neck/head mount.. I understood why it was needed.. but it frustrated me all the same.. at this point Ive cut the arm holding the head to the backpack and retooled it to be mounted on the torso instead.

- better leg articulation -

Another part of the mold that frustrated me dispite me understanding why it was needed.. part of my mod will involve quite a tricky bit of cutting and re-positioning to give Nightbeat articulation at the hip, perhaps ball jointed, we'll see.

- better hands -

Energon Hot Shot's hands always seemed abit small and, well.. boring.. lol

As it stands he's now sporting a pair of hands that I claimed from a Gundam model kit.

- detailed head -

Needless to say that if im going to take Energon Hot Shot and make him Nightbeat, the head is going to need to some work.. so far Ive taken Hot Shots head and with quite abit of trimming, sanding, adding bits of plastic here and there and a whole lot of swearing Ive got something Im quite happy with, all it needs now is some paint.

-

ill post some pictures tomorrow of where im up to so far.. the legs will have to wait until tuesday when I can pick up a model saw from Games Workshop.. but Ill be sure to keep this updated

-UPDATE-

As promised heres some pics of my progress so far..

Ill provide links aswell incase too much of the image gets cut off..



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2860.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2864.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2866.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2871.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2872.jpg

Sorry if the head shots are abit blurry, I went through every setting on that camera and those were the clearest ones.. Ive basically finished the head this morning, so Ill update later with some (hopefully) clearer photos

-UPDATE... again-

Just a quick one folks.. the heads finished, just a shame that once again the pictures arent that good.. I have to say though im quite impressed with it.

Had to take the engine block out of the backpack so that the head had enough room to get under the vehicle mode hood/bonnet.

Next update will more than likely be Tuesday or Wednesday, once ive got a model saw and can start on his legs.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2879.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2881.jpg

enjoy!

[Technically weird]

It's not a Headmaster? You should try to make it one. I would buy it.

[zero-kaiser]

It's not a Headmaster? You should try to make it one. I would buy it.

Further down the line I would love to try my hand at doing a proper Headmaster... but seeing as this is only my second custom and my first extensive mod, I dont wanna make things too difficult for myself

[zero-kaiser]

Evenin' folks!

Just a quick update on my progress so far with Nightbeat.

I finally managed to get a hold of a model saw today.. (thanks to my fiancee who got me one for my birthday yesterday )

So, I've made quite abit of progress with Nightbeats legs.. heres some pictures.. again, I'll provide links incase too much of it gets cut off.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2956.jpg

Here you can see I have sawn off the upper half of the thigh and glued it back into place after turning it 90 degrees.. where as originally the hole for the hip mount face forward. The grey and red parts in the hole are a ball and socket joint salvaged from a 1/100 scale Wing Gundam kit's ankle assembly. I had to dremel the hole out a little to fit the socket.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2960.jpg

Slightly sharper view of the socket work.. the red piece is the ball joint.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2963.jpg

Energon Hot Shots 'knee' joints (if you could call them that considering where they were) were pretty stiff.. so I took a scalpel to the edges that made up the inner knee and smoothed them down. This gives the joint a much smoother motion as apposed to clicking into place.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2967.jpg

Heres one of the more fiddly parts of my mod.. the waist.. Ive sawn off the rods that originally held the legs on.. as well as the middle and front panels. After that I drilled a small groove out and fitted another ball socket.

Since taking this photo I've sawn off the back panel as well, in order to allow the legs a wider range of motion. Unfortunatley the batteries in my camera have died, so you'll just have to use your imagination for now



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2971.jpg

This picture just shows the part that will eventually become the crotch/hip mounts. The angle its tilted at just shows how far over it can go using the ball joint I fitted.

Tomorrow I should be finishing off the gluing and sanding parts, finishing the neck mount in the top of the torso.. and then painting! I aim to have it done within a week or so.. but we'll see.

Let me know what you all think of this so far

[Grimpoo]

Sanding is for noobs good stuff though. I can't wait to see the final product.

[Asepticon]

Oh WOW! I tell ya, I don't usually like WIP threads but there is sme really good stuff happening here. I likes!

[zero-kaiser]

Heh.. shucks Asepticon, thanks

Heres another bunch of pictures showing my progress.. I got quite carried away last night and didnt get to sleep till gone 4am!

Most of these show the almost completed ball joint waist, hips and new knee joints in action..



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2974.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2976.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2977.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2979.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2981.jpg

This last one is just a little gun I threw together for Nightbeat using a MSIA Gundam Sandrock's machine gun, and the handle from MSIA Wing Gundam Zero's twin buster rifle.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/ ... CF2982.jpg

Only problem is at the moment that the new waist means the legs are all of 2mm too wide to go back into vehicle mode.. :\ I might try and work around it somehow.. but in all honesty he'll probably stay in robot mode most of the time anyway

One thing Im curious for some input on.. the waist.. does it need anything? maybe panels at the tops of the thigh like skirt armour?.. Im not too sure..

[Asepticon]

Wow. So where'd you get those hands

[zero-kaiser]

Wow. So where'd you get those hands

The hands are from the same 1/100 scale Wing Gundam model kit that I got the hip joints from

[bellyboy]

nice work


looking forward for the end result

[zero-kaiser]

Thanks bellyboy I'll be sure to keep this thread updated as I make progress.