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Old 03-27-2017, 08:50 PM   #1
Echotransformer
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Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Hi Everyone,

This project has been nearly 6 months in development! It took a lot of twists and turns and I must say there was a huge amount of learning for me, so I decided to post a lot of the steps for those who are interested.

If you want to skip right to the final result, jump to the next post.

Before I get into the story, I want to shout out to a few key people:

1. SteamSheild. Steam sheild is THE MAN. I discovered his awesome headsculpts, and when I ran into an issue with the head being too small, he helped scale it up. He was super patient with me, did a fantastic job so huge THANKS! https://www.shapeways.com/shops/steamshield

2. These project pages:
Rotorstorm's Liokaiser: Heavy/Scratch: - Combiner Wars Leokaiser part 4 Leozack

Allew's Jallguar: Minor/Repaint: - CW Jallguar for Platinum Edition Liokaiser

Ultraman Zoffy's Liokaiser: Minor/Repaint: - The More "Liokaiser'ish" Liokaiser WIP

And Kdog's Liokaiser: Minor/Repaint: - liokaiser

I looked at all of them during my project and they were very helpful, thanks for the inspiration guys.

3. For selling me a G2 Air Raid, "Wervenom" of our boards...woo hoo, a big find because Air Raid is sold out, like everywhere!

___________________________


So the minute Hasbro announced Combiner Wars Liokaiser, I HAD to make him a 6 member team...so the question wasn't "IF" but "HOW". I decided that even if I had to use Popsicle sticks and sticky tape, come hell or high water I was going to have a proper CW Liokaiser.

So I set some project goals:

1. 6 member team, all CW deluxe
2. Parts forming is acceptable
3. Posable (if possible)


THE STARTING POINT

So I decided that Air Raid and either Hound or Swindle would make a good Leozack and Jaruga, respectively. But by the time I really decided this it was really hard to find these guys at retail! By luck I ran into a G2 Air Raid auction on Ebay, and a Swindle at Winners.


Here I am on my back deck, figuring out how to mash these guys together...simple enough, right? At this point I was using CW Hound but in the end I used CW Swindle...



THE FRAME

So my theory was that I could build some kind of frame around the figures to join them all together. So I did my usual trick of making something out of Lego to gain a basic understanding of the issues and see if this kind of approach was viable.








This little exercise was quite motivating, but it's amazing how many problems it DIDN'T solve...but more on that in a bit...

My first goal was go get all the geometry into my CAD program so I could at least start to wrap my head around the physical space it could occupy. Once complete, It became clear--not only do I need to locate 6 combiner ports, but I also need to build ratchets for splaying the legs, rotating the legs and even some kind of thigh swivel. Suddenly this project felt a LOT bigger.



Ok, I had done ankle ratchets before, how hard could it be? I decided just to wing it and make a gear-tooth system with the understanding this thing might simply detonate the first time I articulte the legs. What the hell, right?

Something that really helped was fixing in space the ratchets and the CW sockets. This gave me a blank canvas.





One of the big challenges that was slowing me down was figuring out how to slide or clamp Jaruga and Leosack into the frame..I wanted to be sure I could assemble and disassemble him easily. One day I pulled away from the CAD and did a lot sketching, and had a breakthrough when I came up with this sketch.




At this point I decided to make the neck and shoulders separate from the trunk, and shape everything on an angle. In addition, I decived to make the thighs clamp on either side of Jaruga, instead of swivel, making the geometry much simpler.

So, after dozens of hours, I ended up with this nest of parts, ready to order from Shapeways:



I also whipped up some feet and ordered a extra set of articulated hands I had modelled a while ago. I'll admit I rushed this part a bit, plus I was feeling pretty burned out from all the problem solving in virtual space.

Now a tricky part for me was the head, and at one point I was starting to model the head myself. But then I ran into SteamSheild's thread and I WAS SO RELIEVED...I could simply order from his story. This was a HUGE motivator for me to push hard and get the project done because a huge amount of work was reduced.



I placed the order and parts arrived. Here's the Lego frame vs. the assembled Shapeways frame. I am shocked to say it actually worked with only a minor bit of sanding here and there.



The feet, on the other hand, were an unmitigated disaster. Although i had used a reference image of Liokaiser, in practice they ended up looking WAY too much like Grandpa Simpson's slipper...and it didn't take long before I started figuring out how to improve the shape.






More to the point, when I started putting everything together...well let's just say I was NOT happy. Not in the least. It looked...well...terrible. The head was WAY too small, the feet looked terrible, the hands were way too small, the thighs were wobbly...It was starting to look like things weren't going to come together. But I decided that I could probably modify this stuff with styrene, and even though I hand't fabricated parts in a while I could probably get into the swing of things, so I started cutting and shaping my way to a better look.



I also took an older, failed set of hands from a prvious project, and grafted CW thumbs onto them for a beefier look.



I also needed to fabricate reinforcements and pins into the thighs to tighten the ratchets. I used brass for the pins.

And even the waist needed help...although initially I was going to sculpt in styrene, I ended up modifying some old Shapeways parts instead, and figuring out a way to attach them to the thighs.



In the meantime, I also needed to start Painting Leosack and Jaruga. Here are my color references and my disassembled G2 Air Raid. Oh many, is it ever hard painting over such a nice figure!



I did paint the Swindle and Air Raid heads, but I was SO glad I had the SteamSheild heads on the way. You can see they just weren't the right look!




Lastly, I put everything together for a digital mockup PRIOR to painting. I tried a few different approaches and here's where I landed.



Finally, the Shapeways parts went in for a cleaning, ready to be painted.



In the meantime, Steamsheild and I were going back and forth on the head design. I had a rough plasticine mockup to size the head. Steamsheild was most helpful and patient!



So that's about it...after that, I simply completed the painting and putting the whole thing together. Please enjoy the completed pics next post.

The end result turned out pretty good...I do find the head a bit too big, which is my fault...I saw how small the head was then I thought "that needs to be WAY bigger" and I went overboard. But you know what, the original G1 toy head was pretty big too! Oh well, live and learn.

Also, I'm still not 100% happy with the hands or feet, but that's ok...no project is ever perfect. At this point I'm glad it's done...and it was really rewarding to get to the finish line.

Overall, it was a huge learning project for me. Here are some key learning moments for me:

1. Ratchets are very hard to engineer
2. Fixing 6 bots in space isn't easy, even with CAD and Lego!
3. Proportions on a 6-bot combiner are tricky, especialy when you have to work around the limitations of all members
4. Persistence is key
5. Working with styrene is theraputic!

Thanks everyone for checking it out.

All the best,

Echo

Last edited by Echotransformer; 02-14-2018 at 09:57 PM.
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Old 03-27-2017, 08:51 PM   #2
Echotransformer
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Here are the results!


















Last edited by Echotransformer; 03-27-2017 at 08:53 PM.
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Old 03-27-2017, 08:56 PM   #3
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

And Combined Mode:

























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Old 03-27-2017, 09:46 PM   #4
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Very Impressive !!!!!
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Old 03-27-2017, 11:06 PM   #5
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Wow that turning out really well, great job!
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Old 03-27-2017, 11:12 PM   #6
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

that's dope dude
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Old 03-27-2017, 11:30 PM   #7
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Très cool.
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Old 03-27-2017, 11:58 PM   #8
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

THIS IS SO DETAILED - GREAT JOB AND LEOKAISER LOOKS GREAT.
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Old 03-28-2017, 12:08 AM   #9
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

Most impressive!
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Old 03-28-2017, 07:05 AM   #10
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Re: Combiner Wars Liokaiser

I'm pretty amazed by the ingenuity of this and how much better it looks than the official. He seems poseable and stable too. It looks fantas5ic, bit of a parts former or not. This really, really should be showcased.
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