Front
view
Side view
Original kit
Well, I had two extra SD kits laying around, that I really wanted to do something with, so I finally decided to kitbash them into an SD Galvatron and Optimus, Galvatron got worked on first.....
This whole conversion was completed in less than a day, and having the day off, gave me the time I needed. At first I was going to go for a straight SD Galvatron, but I decided to leave the kits samurai influence in, since I thought it would give it a nice twist.
I started with the head, carving the Gundam's face to more resemble Galv's: cutting down the chin, flattening the face, and adding the little nose. For the helmet, I modified a "hair" piece from the back of his head, and attached it to the area where the red crest used to be, and used a "fin" from one of the Gundam's weapons for the vertical fin on Galv's head.
Body
I started by cutting off the lower section of the Gundam's
chest/waist panel (I only needed the top half), and filed down
the red intakes. Noticed that the body was too deep for the
cannon mode, I cut off about 3mm from the rear, and added a
plastic pieces back in to cover the hole. Using the other weapon
"fin" (the same as the one used on the head), I made
Galv's back fin, and attached via peg in hole. I also cut the
front skirt armor to better match Galv's.
Arms
Nothing was done to the actual arms, except adding an attachment
block to the right arm for his cannon. I made the cannon from a
spare SD Zeta Plus (Gundam) arm cannon, fitted with a peg for
transformation. The treads were constructed from parts of the
backpack and sword weapons. They attach to a small hole in the
rear of the arms. Arm assembly separated can be seen here. The sword was built from some pieces form
one of the weapons.
Legs
I rounded out the corners of the top of the feet, and added pegs
to the rear of the feet for transformation.
Painting
The gray and purple were both custom mixes, the same ones I
used for my regular Galvatron. The gold shoulders and vertical
head fin are clear yellow over gold, the eyes are the kit
stickers painted metallic red, and the cannon is Eva-00 orange.
The 'Con symbol is a simplified version and is hand painted, and
finally, the lines (including the face detail and mouth) are done
with a Gundam Marker for panel lines.
Transformation: Remove head, plug cannon in its place; rotate arms forward, slide tread post into hands; remove feet and replace using rear peg; and turn back fin around.
Cannon
mode side view
top view
Pretty convincing for an SD I must say, although the cannon seems
a bit small, oh well. It actually stands very well on the treads,
despite its back heavy appearance. I am quite proud of it in this
mode, requiring no extra pieces to transform (unlike some SD
Gundams), and besides the head, there are no pieces left over as
well (again another SD Gundam problem).
