Why the Guncannon you ask? Simple. Bandai has never released a SD GM kit!
Torso
Stuck the whole torso on top of a wood working steel file and sanded the bottom down to size.
The white section got to be wafer thin but I felt it ties the whole thing together.
The waist polycap has to slightly filed down and squished into the empty space above now.
Arms
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| New (left) - Original (right) |
Forearms were sawed in half and then glued together to shorten slightly.
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| (couldn't open the modded one, so the original one) |
The original elbow joint was used. Instead of an upper arm I cut a sprue piece off the runner, shaved down one end, and wedged it into the upper part of the elbow opening. I then glued that new piece in place.
As you can see, the elbow still functions, but only at one joint giving it a max 90 degree bend.
As you can see, the elbow still functions, but only at one joint giving it a max 90 degree bend.
Since the shoulder originally had a rod that connected into the upper arm, that had to be cut off and a hole drilled out for the new connection. Since the space was limited within the shoulder peice due to the other polycap that connects to the torso, the rod from the arm had to be shortened and a spare, thin polycap leftover from my HG Sengoku Astray (that kit has a ton of spare parts) had to be shaved down and wedged in to help grip the new connection.
This all allows the arm to still have a 360 degree upper arm rotation.
Finally, a spare set of hands from a RG kit was used for the hands, since the original ones included with the GM Cardigan are super duper tiny and looked weird with the new SD proportions.
Legs
The legs were cut right below the calf, being careful to leave the connection for the rear side's yellow detail piece.
I also wanted to keep the legs iconic diagonal square detail on the very bottom so I cut more off the front half only, just below the knee armor connection, and sanded a notch (as seen on img 1) to make the front surfaces flush.
The calf armor had to be sanded shorter to not overlap the ankle armor.
At this time I was having second thoughts about the length of the legs so I asked the reddit Gunpla community and the majority favored the HG x SD look. I still wasn't 100% on this so I decided to meet in the middle.
The original hip ball joints were too low on the pelvis and I didn't like that so at first I tried to cut them and glue them up higher.... haha NOPE!!!! I RUINED IT!
I guess this is one way to learn how to scratch build.
Using some pla plate and spare polycaps I fashioned myself a new hip joint
This actually helped in more ways that one, as the original ball joint connection was hard to figure out where to secure the socket polycap to the newly shortened leg without lengthening it back out with an upper leg section.
I cut a deep channel for the new hip joint piece to slide tightly up into.
This also let me deepen the channel if I wished to raise the legs up and adjust the proportions.
I drilled out a hole in the upper knee joint and used a cut toothpick as a connection rod.
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| 90 degree knee bend on an SD |
The new joints still keep all range of motion, including a 90 degree knee bend.
Both legs fit snugly into the hip joint and up into the pelvis like new.
With the new joint, the proportions are now perfect!
And with that, the proportion process is complete!
Thanks for reading.
