Building a Graboid. Warning, this description will be a long one.
First off, if you search in the forum for "Graboid" you will see how long ago this project started and what ideas I originally had for it. The idea to make a Graboid started in April, was made in early May, middle of May I had it painted and was done, but how would I unveil it? I didn't want to just post the pictures and say: here's my Graboid custom. No, I had to build up to it, put some surprise in it. So thus, the Foot Clan Vacation was born. Other than the last picture of the comic, all pictures were done by June 24. But you don't care about my procrastination. On to the build (I should have wrote it all down, I've forgotten some of what sets were used):
The primary set used was the Destiny Fallen Walker, which I realized would work great for my graboid, thanks to a review from @charliebucket. Once I had that set, I could start my build... only problem was, I knew not where to start. This wasn't like building a car or a house, I had to really brainstorm and think outside the box for this one. I initially thought I would start with the upper part of the head, or beak if you will, but nothing worked. Then I had it! Start with what I knew I was going to use: the lower 3 mandible jaw parts. The middle one is a piece that comes in many sets (Terminator spider tank, Halo Cyclops sets, and Destiny Fallen Walker) I used the darkest one. Then the hand pieces from the Halo Cyclops. I needed to have some way for the jaw pieces to flare out when open and come inward when closed, so I attached them on sloped pieces, with the slope to the inside (pic 3 shows that). Early on I knew I would use many arm pieces for the tongues, but what I didn't realize was that, other than using a torso, I could not attach them to anything! Enter: my broken TMNT torso (I'll have a pic in the next post that shows it placed inside the mouth), with the neck broken, it would fit inside. Most of the arms come from the Samauri Leo set, since I have a lot of those. The brown ones are from some halo figures.
Once I had the lower part of the head, the rest just came together. I now knew the beak would have to consist of many smaller black or dark gray sloped pieces. With some trial and error, eventually I had it sized down as much as possible, I had to have the mouth large enough to hold a full figure and still close the mouth... and get the tongues to fit in too!
I knew I wanted the Graboid to have full articulation, not just lower moving jaws (the top part does move some, maybe 3/16 of an inch), so I took the ball and socket joints from the Krang's Rampage TMNT set. The Graboid needed to be able to rear its head up, so one joint was needed just back of the head. (I would love to recreate the scene where one breaks into Burt's rec room).
For the body of the Graboid, I wanted a section large enough to hold either a few people, or 3 shriekers if I ever made any (if I did it would have to start with a Mouser that would be painted brown and given a short tail somehow). The top of this middle section is built with hinge pieces, flared out to fit perfectly over the bottom, it worked better than I could ever imagine. I might take it apart and post some pictures of the inside at a later time if anyone is interested. To make it more stable I also added a couple column pieces inside. Upon completion, I added black circular oner pieces to act as the black spikes that the Graboids use to move through the dirt.
After this was two very short sections covered by the bronze colored armor pieces from the Fallen Walker. I did need a few additional bronze pieces which I got from the TMNT Nickelodeon booster pack. Like I said before I might take another post worth of pics to show more if what I did (in addition to a post with the tongues painted).
Overall the Graboid is almost 7 mega bloks foot soldiers long, technically I think it should have been 5 or 6, but I guess that just means this is an extra big one!
I'm sure I forgot something, but as always if you have any questions feel free to ask. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
-- AiasOileus
First off, if you search in the forum for "Graboid" you will see how long ago this project started and what ideas I originally had for it. The idea to make a Graboid started in April, was made in early May, middle of May I had it painted and was done, but how would I unveil it? I didn't want to just post the pictures and say: here's my Graboid custom. No, I had to build up to it, put some surprise in it. So thus, the Foot Clan Vacation was born. Other than the last picture of the comic, all pictures were done by June 24. But you don't care about my procrastination. On to the build (I should have wrote it all down, I've forgotten some of what sets were used):
The primary set used was the Destiny Fallen Walker, which I realized would work great for my graboid, thanks to a review from @charliebucket. Once I had that set, I could start my build... only problem was, I knew not where to start. This wasn't like building a car or a house, I had to really brainstorm and think outside the box for this one. I initially thought I would start with the upper part of the head, or beak if you will, but nothing worked. Then I had it! Start with what I knew I was going to use: the lower 3 mandible jaw parts. The middle one is a piece that comes in many sets (Terminator spider tank, Halo Cyclops sets, and Destiny Fallen Walker) I used the darkest one. Then the hand pieces from the Halo Cyclops. I needed to have some way for the jaw pieces to flare out when open and come inward when closed, so I attached them on sloped pieces, with the slope to the inside (pic 3 shows that). Early on I knew I would use many arm pieces for the tongues, but what I didn't realize was that, other than using a torso, I could not attach them to anything! Enter: my broken TMNT torso (I'll have a pic in the next post that shows it placed inside the mouth), with the neck broken, it would fit inside. Most of the arms come from the Samauri Leo set, since I have a lot of those. The brown ones are from some halo figures.
Once I had the lower part of the head, the rest just came together. I now knew the beak would have to consist of many smaller black or dark gray sloped pieces. With some trial and error, eventually I had it sized down as much as possible, I had to have the mouth large enough to hold a full figure and still close the mouth... and get the tongues to fit in too!
I knew I wanted the Graboid to have full articulation, not just lower moving jaws (the top part does move some, maybe 3/16 of an inch), so I took the ball and socket joints from the Krang's Rampage TMNT set. The Graboid needed to be able to rear its head up, so one joint was needed just back of the head. (I would love to recreate the scene where one breaks into Burt's rec room).
For the body of the Graboid, I wanted a section large enough to hold either a few people, or 3 shriekers if I ever made any (if I did it would have to start with a Mouser that would be painted brown and given a short tail somehow). The top of this middle section is built with hinge pieces, flared out to fit perfectly over the bottom, it worked better than I could ever imagine. I might take it apart and post some pictures of the inside at a later time if anyone is interested. To make it more stable I also added a couple column pieces inside. Upon completion, I added black circular oner pieces to act as the black spikes that the Graboids use to move through the dirt.
After this was two very short sections covered by the bronze colored armor pieces from the Fallen Walker. I did need a few additional bronze pieces which I got from the TMNT Nickelodeon booster pack. Like I said before I might take another post worth of pics to show more if what I did (in addition to a post with the tongues painted).
Overall the Graboid is almost 7 mega bloks foot soldiers long, technically I think it should have been 5 or 6, but I guess that just means this is an extra big one!
I'm sure I forgot something, but as always if you have any questions feel free to ask. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
-- AiasOileus