Custom Pulverizer Build

Welcome to this behind-the-scenes look at kitbashing the Pulverizer ‘Mech for the CSO Diorama at GenCon Indy 2008. I will start off by saying it was an honour and privilege to be entrusted with the task of bringing an as yet unknown ‘Mech design to life. Thanks go out to Ray and David (along with the other PTB, and Brent Evans) for making it possible.

Now on to the real fun. The first task was figuring out what I had on-hand that I could build this from. One of Ray’s first comments regarding it was “I looked at it, and I can’t see any immediate connections, so it may be a bitch.” Hmm. That’s not good. The details just don’t match any existing pieces, and even the general shapes don’t do it justice. I considered the Nightstar for the torso, but didn’t have one available to cut up, and figured it would be on the small side. Instead, I went with the Cicada. Okay, so it’s not a conventional choice. I thought the shape of the torso and the position of the legs suited what would need to be done for the Pulverizer. In addition to the torso and legs of the Cicada, I grabbed a spare Marauder II hip section, along with the arms and LRM rack from a Thunderbolt.

Some cutting had to be done, hacking off the arms from the Cicada, the LGR mount from the T-Bolt’s right arm, and reposing the left. All in all, the basics came together reasonably well and I had a basic structure to build on.

The rest, while simple in theory, is the meat of the bash: bulking up the existing parts and crafting the Pulverizer’s overall shape. This was done by layering Greenstuff onto the skeleton of the cannibalized ‘Mechs.

The fine tuning and detail work also comes in stages. Some bits, like the gearing at the elbows are best done when the Greenstuff is soft. Others, like the panels on the legs are a combination of pressing the lines in while it’s soft (without deforming the edges), then going back after sanding down the surface to create more even sides. The knee caps show a slightly different approach: building the part oversized while soft, then cutting it back and refining the shape once the Greenstuff has cured.

Once things were finally to the point of near-completion, each part was pinned in place and final fills were done to make sure there were no gaps in the joints.

All that was left was painting. Wobblie white was chosen, giving the finished bash a simple scheme, complimenting the unique physical structure of the piece.