custom Zoid: TriBrachios

(Fire Support / Forward Command)

This is the story of my ninth Zoids custom. (completed September 2005)

After my eighth custom Zoid (the RayZilla ) in April of 2005 I took a break from darthing for a while. However in August 2005 I won an eBay auction that consisted of five battery operated Zoids. I had always wanted to do a three-headed custom based on a Liger chassis, and suddenly here was my chance. Armed with spare Brachio Zilla head and neck assemblies (and perhaps inspired by old Godzilla movies), I began...

Foot Modifications

The first step (pun intended) was to modify the feet. I used the leftover rear portion of Liger Zero feet from my Postosuchus project and combined then with Blox feet. First I tried Buster Eagle feet but they were too big. Then I used Demons Head and FlyScissors which fit much better. A trial run shows walking performance unchanged.

Neck Modifications

Next came the major part of the project: the neck(s). First I cut the Liger Zero neck off, matching the reverse slope of the front chest. Then I made some minor trims to the two lower Brachio Zilla neck mounts to fit them together as close as possible.

This picture shows the third head in the process of being mounted. Here you can see how I added a paper clip in order to optain neck movement of the upper head when TriBrachios is walking. Also notice that I used the sawed-off Liger neck halves as foundations for the two lower necks.

This pic shows trial assembly of the modified feet, Liger Zero armor, and all three heads.

Tail

Here is a picture showing a Brachio Zilla tail being mointed to the Liger body shell. Only a little widening of the existing opening was required. Each Brachio Zilla tail half was glued into the corresponding Liger body shell half.

Weapons

This picture shows the Liger backpack being modified. I decided to mount the backpack in reverse. The backpack was drilled and a length of sprue was added as a gun mount. Guns from CP-04 were modified, drilled, and mounted sideways as the main guns. A plastic sleeve was glued inside each gun to function as a pivot point. Command Wolf exhaust pipes are modified and added on top of each main gun. Rocket pods from Mad Thunder were added to shortened Liger fold-out stabilizers. The Liger boosters and their covers were modified in order to obtain a slightly lower profile. The middle cutout in the Liger backpack was filled in and a Brachio Zilla gun mount was glued on top. The standard Liger belly gun was retained. Finally the Liger leg armor was trimmed slightly to help clear the new rocket pods.

Test Assembly

This picture shows TriBrachios fully assembled prior to painting. The missile pods are shown retracted here.

Paint and Final Assembly

Since the legs were not being painted, none of their pivot points needed to be masked off. On the other hand, since I wanted to retain the original black on the body shells, rather extensive masking was required there. I used a general purpose satin green spray paint. One probem was that the spray paint did not cover the white paint on the Liger body shells very well, but fortunately most of these blemishes are hidden behind the legs. I used various Republic stickers and blackened the gun bores. TriBrachios walks similar to a regular Liger Zero, and the top head moves a bit as it walks.

Rear left quarter shot. Note boosters and tail integration into body.

Frontal shot. Missile pods extended, 10 gun bores looking right at 'cha.

walk video on YouTube

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