As you know, I sorta vanished over the month of December to go find some new content. And go do my Magnetised Forgefiend-Maulerfiend Thing. And lo and behold, I finally found the time to start doing the main body of work on this attractive yet repulsive (owch, that's a pun-ishing blow) fellow. I built all the various sub-assemblies back in late autumn when the kit came out, but only now have I managed to put in all the work. Was it worth it? Jump cut.
First off, I'd better remind you all that I'm an amateur, and the following model reflects this, as does my construction process. If I had to score this thing out of 20, it'd go somewhere in the 12-15 range.
Obviously, when setting out to put shiny metal discs on something, you check the internet to see if someone else has already done it. There are loads now, but the only one I could find at the time was this one so I took this design and took about 500 liberties with it, chief one being that I only used 2x4mm magnets as that is the size that I have and I figured it would work anyway. Oh, and I kept forgetting the instructions, for example, this happened:
You're supposed to glue in the hind legs. Silly me. One mistake correction later and I was back on the right track. I also very nearly forgot to shove the cables up its arse, but that wasn't hard to correct.
Here I can be seen following the correct instructions for the heads.
Now, as much as I needed the guide, I felt it did a few things a bit wrong, mainly in regards to the Maulerfiend mode, so I did them differently. One, they glued the hooves to the hind legs, I put the feet there to make a more as-is Mauler with less kibble (which I am assured is a real word) from the Forgefiend. Two, and this is the clincher, they made the forearms of the Mauler float for no apparent reason other than the height the body was put at after the back legs were glued to the base. I disliked this.
Therefore, my magnetisation instead takes a height liberty with the Forgefiend to produce a more stable Mauler. Sort of. My guide put the top of the Forgefiend's neck 7cm above the base, mine is 6cm. That doesn't make it any less snarly, mind.
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| If you look in the background you can see Batman. Plus a drill. And another drill. |
You'll notice the guns don't go all the way into the ball on the arm. I did say I was an amateur. But it works, and it's too late to mess with it now. The hooves, incidentally, come with a bit of blu-tack on the sole for added stability. Anyway, I suppose I'd better prove I can change the guns now.
Here it is with the other ones on. See, it works after all.
Now, you may remember me griping about the floaty arms on the Mauler mode that I didn't want. Well, I took the easy way out of that. I didn't glue the hind legs onto the base, I pinned them instead. This gives me a bit of wiggle room, enough for a height loss that puts the forearms at their standard position, like so:
The right arm knuckles rest naturally on the side of the base, as it would if it didn't transform. Aand cue tentacles:
So in completely botching the original tutorial, I ended up with a nicer Maulerfiend. Go me. Although the gaps in the arms are bigger than I'd like, I'm proud of what I managed to achieve with my third ever magnet project. I didn't even have to double-base this one (damn you Ark).
If you wait until November, I may even paint it! Signing off...