I seem to be unintentionally filling out my female character ranks lately and just finished these two to continue the trend. I know they aren't everyone's favorite and I don't care. I like these two. Anode is like if Doctor Aphra was a moderately more functional person and was a giant robot on top of that. Lug deserves better and sticks around anyway. I can read that all day. The whole thing started when I found an RiD Windblade on clearance. I couldn't pass it by for $4 and this project was in the back of my head for a while. So we had this: Not bad. If I wanted to do it right, of course, I'd heavily modify a Mindwipe so I could get the full space biplane effect. This would be good enough, though. I could not find a suitable head on Shapeways and anyone capable of making one seemed to be otherwise busy. I looked around and remembered the Age of Extinction Hot Shot I made into a Tracks. I still had his head. You know, this thing (cover your kids' eyes, folks, this is scary!): I saw potential. So I did the obvious thing. I started to sand away the ugly. It took some doing. I had my Anode done soon enough. I suck at recording work in progress, so this is all we have for Anode. Here's a close-up of the final face: It ended up being a little more faceted than I wanted but I'm happy. It only looks lumpy when you look very closely, which I usually won't do. The crest on top of the helmet was formed from plumber's epoxy putty and glued on. But If I have Anode, I need Lug. I knew there was a Shapeways head for Titans Return Rewind but those are expensive. I tried to figure out an alternative since Rewind is a little pricey. However, IronMagnus, a good community member, offered me an extremely reasonable deal on a Rewind that I could not turn down. This is where I hate my lack of work in progress shots because this was actually interesting. I wasn't about to buy one head from Shapeways and I wasn't ready to place a larger order. I still wanted to get the project done. So I made a mold of Titans Return Wheelie's head, stuffed it with plumber's epoxy putty, carved it into shape, then glued a plastic peg to the bottom. Here's the final result in close-up: Again, not bad. The mouth is a little lost on the mold I made. It's definitely hand-made as well, not being perfectly symmetrical. I'm still happy since I have to look really closely for the imperfections. Anyway, there's one other trick. Lug's real alt mode is a backpack computer that Anode wears. So here they are doing that: Full disclosure, I was holding Anode. There is no way she will ever stand with that backpack stuck to her existing backpack. Also, I'm not fully satisfied with how I did Lug's displays. I'll fix up some decals or paint something to make it look better someday. This is good for now. Finally, here they are on my main Lost Light shelf: It's not complete but getting closer. I need to make a Rung but I keep forgetting to do it.
I want to state really quickly that the auto-generated thumbnailing for this forum drives me nuts. I was sure I had that figured out so it would look good in the preview but it's a head off. Literally. Argh. I am not deleting and re-uploading all those pictures to correct that, though.
Might I suggest thinning your paints a bit? It'll help quite a bit with making the paint less blotchy.
What's a Rung? Is it something you eat? Anyway, great custom! Anode was (according to TFWiki) actually based more on TR Mindwipe, but the Windblade mold looks okay, too. I'd like to try something similar, someday...
My paints were thinned. If it's the faces that seem blotchy, that's more because of the rough surfaces. I had to stop sanding before I lost all the details. It could also be due to my very poor camera on my phone. In person, when not looking at them from a few inches away, they look a lot better.
Ok, that's fair. I did a bad job there. I hadn't looked closely enough to tell. I'll revisit that later, cleaning that blue off, masking, and painting it properly. I rushed those details since I didn't have too much time. I'd have held off until I could concentrate on it but I needed to do something different that day and really wanted to finish. Now that I see it, I want to do it right. It'll be at least a few days and probably a couple of weeks before I can get around to it. Thank you for showing those details.
Nice! The world needs more Anodes! I can take or leave Lug as a character but that's a great rendition of her. Would you consider adding a 2nd set of windblade wings for the biplane look? I have a spare pair if you're interestrd
Thank you! I searched the forum and it looks like I might be the first person to post one here. I know I'm not the first person to make an Anode, so it seems weird I can't find more here. I really like the idea of making her a true biplane and considered doing something like that. However, I can't figure out a way to do it without making the robot mode look bad. Maybe with some partsforming but I don't want to go that way. While I'm going to revisit Lug to fix the detail paint, I consider Anode to be finished at this point. I suspect the actual best way to make an would be to start with a Mindwipe and start modifying. Looking at my Mindwipe, a new front torso piece and back wings may be sufficient, along with a faceplate. Actually, the torso may work as is with the right paint applications. Making a propeller that splits into hip armor and finishes the biplane front would be a bonus. I'd love to see that but I don't have the skills or equipment to do it myself.
That's 'aight! I just wanna make sure you do your best when it comes to your customs. It's always great seeing customs from anyone after all.
