I've been working on some advanced scratchbuilding tutorials. They will each be posted separately as they take, like, a super long time to create. This type of construction is intended for combiner feet. They are designed to withstand pressure from the weight of multiple figures. I've done two alternator scaled combiner and these feet support the weight easily so you can bet it'll work just as easily with a Classics scale.. ^^Begin by creating a box in box construction. Your inner box needs to fit the leg combiner figure. The outer box NEEDS to be wider and taller than the inner box to allow pivot. Find the center of both boxes and drill a hole at each end. You then bolt the two pieces together. You can adjust the tension of the bolt depending on the weight they are to hold. ^^ Take the part of the leg figure that will be mounted to the feet and set them in a central location. In my own build, I use the ankles of the figure as the pivot point to move forward and back. (The scratch built foot assembly gives it it's side to side motion) ^^ For forward support, I use a heavy sheet of styrene laid on an angle over the robots feet. The angle allows for a wedge so the feet can be pulled back and out of the area. ^^To keep the leg robots feet from slipping out, we need to build a spring loaded piston using styrene tubing and a nice sized spring. ^^ Here's the assembly in place. Be sure to notch out the piston sleeve and put a screw in there to keep the spring from popping out when not in use. To release the figure, just pull back on the screw head and remove the d00d. ^^You can now begin scratchbuilding your foot details and overall design. (This would be built on the inner box, not the outer) In the event you're using grossly off scale figures. You have a few options. You can mount the connection point in a lower area and compensate with your central combiner robot as well as........ ^^......build that particular foot plate to lift the figure higher on that side. The yellow footplate has an equally sized silver "shoe", but the yellow platform is taller. The Jeep is also mounted higher in the foot whereas the Tank is recessed. The yellow foot also needs to be wider so a ball-jointed sideskirt system is constructed. ^^.....and he pops out like so. ^^And this is the articulation you get out of this design. If you plan to enclose your combiner feet into something useful that is transformable itself, read on....... ^^In this example, the basic box-in-box foot construction is glued into a section of a semi trailer. Now you need to fit the complete figure in place and fill in your details around it. If you're building a combiner in the alternators class, I would recommend another support structure be utilized for the forward and back motion. Ball joints can only take so much weight before they pop out, by using a setup as seen here, the weight gets distributed across the whole foot rather than just on the figure. For a classics scale, the support system is not necessary but can add detail. ^^ You can attach this platform to whatever you want or style it anyway you want. In the case of this one, The foot becomes a section of a semi trailer. At this point, it's time to scale up your second leg. It's important to have them close to the same height when combined or one leg will always be walking downhill. Using this way of building feet, you can also offset a difference in height by building a deeper or shallower foot cradle. ^^As you can see, the side to side motion is all in the foot. The forward and back movement is all in the figure. ^^Here it is transformed into its compact form. You can build it any way you like. Your imagination is the limit........oh, and the size of the component it's going into. ^^Always, always test fit. And after you've test fitted everything. Test fit it again. You can go a long way only to have to go back and redo everything.
Looks awesome thank you for this. Takes out a lot of the guess work for those of us on here planning big idea like gestalts. This toutorial is very helpful on so many levels keep up the awesome work if you could do a series as to how to combine all the individual bots would be incredible.
Those Menasor feet/trailer parts are freaking fantastic. I absolutely love this mantra of customizing where the extra parts are utilized and serve more than one purpose. Thank you for posting this innovative construction.
I've got a question....How do you keep the feet from sliding apart? On my Bruticus custom,that was my biggest problem.The weight of the top would force the feet apart.As a qucik fix(it was cheap and on hand)for me,i glued sandpaper to the bottom of the feet.On carpet or rock,it grips really good. I hope you keep going with the combiner tips.I could use a easier method on making strong joints.
hmmm... A tutorial on gestalt feet eh..? Let's have a read *clicks and reads* ...Aha, so that is how you've pulled it off; I must say that this is really informative and will come pretty much in handy once tackling on a Classics combiner in the future I personally hope that the next tutorial is for gestalt (arm/shoulder) connectors or something; but never the less what the next tutorial is, I for one am glad that you are sharing your knowledge with the rest of us Wikkid; you rock (so does your Alternators/Masterpiece Menasor Version 2.0)!
This is an old tutorial I forgot about and have since sold the custom so I won't be able to make any further tutorials on Combiners. Dunno if these pictures will help show how they combined but I'll show em anyway. ^^For the Bruticus project, I used Energon combiner connectors and integrated them into the figures body. Those connectors should work perfectly for deluxe class figures but I don't recommend them on anything bigger. The other end of these connectors just get placed on the "torso" robots shoulders and feet ^^This was my upgrade solution. Using a Unicron shoulder joint (Which is hollow on the inside) I sliced away an opening at one side. The part of Dead End that connects here is the black rectangle that is screwed into place. The arm figure simply slides down onto the shoulder and locks in place. The Unicron ratcheting joint then becomes your articulated shoulder. ^^Stands about as tall as the newer AT AT Walker. There's a couple items that rubberize parts. There's a product that sprays on and is completely transparent called Armour Coat. It's intended to keep stones from chipping vehicles by remaining rubberish. Another option is undercoat. I used it on the Bruticus feet. It too remains rubbery but is textured and black. Be sure to use the paintable kind as there are some out there that are oil based and never fully cure. (And stink.....horribly)