custom Zoid 18: Hell Hound

(Commando / Shock Trooper)

This is the story of my 18th Zoids custom. Or, "What happened when I discovered sheet styrene."

After decades of reliable service, the Republic found itself with a few lightly-used Koenig Wolves with their original light armament. The Republic wanted to improve their Assault and Offensive capabilities, so they created a prototype that features a pair of hard-hitting heavy cannons, plus an oversize carnivore jaw for close-in work. They also improved speed and maneuverability by upgrading the powerplant, and revised the fore and hind leg armor protection. They call their prototype "Hell Hound".

(constructed in September 2022, with final tweaks in November 2023, now awaiting paint)

Concept

During the summer of 2022 I acquired a few lots of various Zoids parts via eBay, and managed to reconstruct a few Zoids to about 90%. These reconstructions would typically have an obvious and noticeable missing part (or parts), such as a jaw, head, and/or major body armor part.

For this project, I started with a Koenig Wolf that was missing the right ear, chest cross plate, booster mount, and some minor leg armors.

(screen grab from The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey)

My Darthing inspiration came from the Wargs, as featured in the Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit movies. I wanted to create a wolf-like creature with a huge head, massive jaw, and powerful shoulders and chest. I wanted to blend in some reptilian/dinosaur traits as well.

Torso and neck mods

(Stock pieces at the upper half of the picture)

I wanted to change to torso and head, so I:

cut a wire channel to allow a wire to pass from the power unit to the head for a LED light
added a piece from a Gojulas Giga neck in order to mount a Gojulas Giga head
trimmed back the chest to make it more shallow

Gojulas Giga LED light box mounted in Gojulas Giga RH head shell, with wire run to power unit. A piece from HammerHead fills in the gap between the head and neck.

LH piece from a Gojulas Giga neck mounted

Gojulas Giga LH head shell in place, with a piece from HammerHead to fill in the gap between the head and neck. Epoxy secures the parts and helps smooth the transition.

This view shows the mounting pegs from HammerHead

Gojulas Giga head pieces added, with modified HammerHead cockpit added on top

Tail mods

(Stock body shell in the background)

I trimmed back the body shell at the tail and added a pin mount for a removeable tail

The fore part of the tail is from HammerHead. The red pin allows the tail to be removed so the main body shells can be separated to access the power unit. The original Koenig Wolf body shell clamp was glued into the bottom half of the HammerHead tail.

The rear part of the tail (the white section on the RH side of the picture) is modified from Ray Saurer. Epoxy helps to smooth the transition.

Shoulder and hip plate mods

(Stock parts shown on the lower half of the picture)

I cut back the shoulder and hip plates for a cleaner appearance

Foot mods

(Stock parts shown on the LH side of the picture)

I cut back the foot and replaced the toes with some left over from Brastle Tiger

Main guns

I discovered styrene plastic sheets are available on Amazon in a variety of thicknesses. It is easily scored using a sharp hobby knife, and can be trimmed, drilled, or sanded. I use it to build a custom main gun mount.

The main guns are from the Zoids ZW40 Customize Weapon kit. Blox pegs joined by a length of sprue serve as an elevation mount point.

The main gun mount rotates on a round platform, which is created from sheet plastic and a Blox peg

Cheek pegs and bulges removed

(Stock parts shown on the left side of the picture)

I removed the pegs from the cheeks and jaw hinge, and removed the cheek bulges. I fabricated some cheek covers from sheet styrene.

Cheek guns added

After adding the cheek covers, I carefully trimmed down some HammerHead pod guns. I added a bit of sprue in the gun bases to allow the guns to be easily attached or removed. I shaped some sheet styrene to fit around the rear of the guns.

Fore and hind legs trimmed

I cut off the excess volumes on the fore and hind legs, in order to obtain minimal profiles.

Fore and hind leg custom armor

I used sheet styrene to construct new form-fitting shoulder and hip armor. I also removed the excess armor "fins" on the wrist and ankle armor.

Fully assemblrd, prior to paint

The secondary guns above the forelegs are from Shield Liger, fitted to a custom mount that allows for 360 degrees of traverse.

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