By Loran
Well now, this project has been proving to be a bit more complex than I figured. Well, actually, just as complex as I figured. After finishing up the head and waist parts, I figured it was time to dive right into the part needing the most plastic removal-the cannon. Let’s just say I should’ve been a bit more prepared for that. Because of how messy that proved to be, I’m thinking of not using this for BAKUC, and trying something else, which I’ll show at the end of this entry. So for now, this GM Cannon’s going to be yet another piece of kitbash experience, because I doubt this’ll be the last one I do…
It was now time to take the “track” from the Cannon off and mount it to the HGUC GM’s body. With the crotch part removed already, I didn’t have as much plastic to cut through on the Cannon’s torso, thankfully. Surprisingly enough, after all of this was cut off, a sizable chunk of the torso was left, which was good because I needed an extra source of plastic plates.
After removing the part from the body of the GM Cannon (which wasn’t all the hard, mostly thanks to how thin the plastic is on these kits), I tried to match it up with the body of the GM. The width wasn’t off by too much, thankfully. After that came the incredibly messy and almost horrifying process of removing about a quarter of the plastic from the body of the HGUC kit. It was a preeetty terrifying sight, let me tell ya, and I didn’t take any pictures, with good reason.
After all that was done, I cut down the track from the cannon and mounted it to the HGUC’s torso, using the assistance of some parts from the back of the torso and some extra plastic. This would prove to be mistake #1, because I cut too much plastic off the cannon track, and should have cut some more off the back torso piece from the HGUC kit…
After this, I made sure to put the rest of the head together to make sure I won’t have any issues with it being too close to the cannon.
This picture was taken after a LOT of additional work was done-first, it turned out that I couldn’t fit the cannon in the way the torso was put together-there was too much plastic inside the GM’s torso, so I had to open it up AGAIN and clear that out, and the cannon itself needed a lot of trimming done on the mount. Because of this, all of the putty holding the additional armor into place got cracked, so I would have to do that all over again. Well, you learn from your mistakes. I’ll make sure to avoid all this with the next GM Cannon I do…
After letting this thing rest for about a week, I picked it up again, re-applied almost all the putty, and sanded it as smooth as possible. It looks much better now, and with the ammo clip in place the cannon doesn’t droop forward as easily. There are some indents in the putty; thankfully those will be covered by the shoulder armor.
With the torso all done, for the most part, I can move onto the last piece of kitbashing: the legs. Hopefully that won’t be as complex as the torso, but of course, these things like to be deceiving… After that, I’ll just take care of the arms, the gun, and pick a color scheme. I’m thinking White Dingoes…
Also, as for my alternative project, I’m thinking of doing something neat with these two kits… hmmm~
