Goldorak to Grendizer Custom

[samazinga]

So I bought this Goldorak a while back and always intended to snag the standard Bourno repro parts to make him more like his more symmetrical Popy cousin. After staring at him for months and months and just being super dissatisfied with the base toy I figured it was time to take things into my own hands and give my first Jumbo custom a shot! I still have yet to get the repro parts from Bourno but I'm getting closer and closer to being satisfied with what I have as far as a base goes. Also, sorry if the photos are gigantic I have no clue how to resize the darn things and attaching photos here gives me an awful headache!



So to start, here's the toy as I got it. It came with the Mattel missile-launching fist (although it appears to be badly cracked and held together with electrical tape), the Mattel right fist minus the Screw Punch cuff, no Harkens, no missiles, no wheels. Basically a shell of a Goldorak, but I got him for a decent price so I cant complain.




I know Bourno has made it possible to have a Popy-correct left fist, as well as a beautiful 3D chestpiece, but as far as I know nobody has tried to give one of these guys a waist like those on the Popy Grendizer, nor has anyone tried to convert the feet either. So I went to work, using my new favorite material, Milliput. I started by freehanding a template for the waist 'Panties', using images off Google as well as pictures from Tom.
I put a thick line of Milliput all around the toy, then smoothed and sanded it so that the raised panties blended back into the original waist piece as well as the 3D codpiece.

I'm gonna go ahead and end the post here, I worry about the images not coming out!

[samazinga]

Once I was satisfied with the overall shape and smoothness I went ahead and threw some red paint on it as a test to see how smooth it really was. I figured that the high gloss paint would reveal any imperfections or rough patches in the sanding and man did it ever. I repeated this process a couple times and eventually I called it a day.



To really get the clean lines and overall shape of the codpiece I actually carved about 50% of the material I had put down and overall I'm pleased with the end result. If I was a better craftsman I could have put the raised center of the codpiece but it was just too much trouble for me. Here it is after a nice couple coats of paint.




I know there are still imperfections and the paint is a little crazy where the red meets the black, but this is my first attempt at something of this scale so I figure I didn't do too terribly.

Back shot for posterity-

[samazinga]

I expected this project to be completely opposite in difficulty. I expected the waistband and codpiece to be really hard to do, and the feet to be a breeze. In reality, the waist took me maybe three days total and I've been working on the feet for the better part of three weeks. I understand now why nobody has done this before (at least as far as I can tell), it really REALLY sucks.

I used the old Hair-dryer-then-cold-water trick to flatten out the tops of the super rounded feet. I'm not so sure about the results, but without butchering the feet that's the best I could do. I pulled some wheels and trucks off my Daughter's Gaiking (Shh, she hasn't noticed yet) Then came the side roundness that separated the Popy from the Mattel. I started with some Crayola brand clay, not realizing that when it had finished setting up it would still be incredibly soft. Softer than a pencil eraser soft, and really prone to tearing. I can't think of a single useful application for this stuff, unless you need to really fill some space. I tried to salvage as much of it as I could but a good bit of it just flat out tore off as I was working on it.


These are the legs with just the Crayola clay on them.




Note how out-of-proportion the red fin parts are. I had somehow gotten a completely wrong mental image of how they looked on a Grendizer. That was round one.

Round two started when I was trying to sand down one side of a leg and the whole right side of the clay just tore clean off. I did cut slots in the side of the foot for the clay to grab onto but it just didn't do the trick. I ended up pulling all the clay off one foot as well as the fins off both feet. I re-sculpted the one foot and both fins with Milliput.


This is the current state of my Grendizer custom. I still need to clean up the paint on the fins and possibly try to rig up a five missile rack, but I think it's miles and miles from where I started.



Give me your feedback! I know the feet need to be smoothed out in a bad way, but I have grown tired of trying to mess with them. The rock-hard Milliput on top of the embarrassingly soft clay makes it really hard to carve and smooth so this is where I am.

Thanks for looking, and I'll be posting updates when I get more done.

[Mr. Ginrai]

Man this is looking good for your first try! Remember you can always fine tune the sculpted areas later as you get more comfortable with what you are doing. Will keep watching to see how it goes.

[samazinga]

Thanks man! I think if I get too stir crazy I might just pull the remaining clay off and just go full Milliput on it, really spend some time with a couple sheets of sandpaper. Depends on if I can keep myself busy in other endeavors. I at least would like to fix the very front part where it's apparent that I added more material.