I've always wanted to tackle the
Kingfisher, and free it from it's ugly hips. The first order of business, though was
actually finding my favorite configuration to build. After much debate, I settled on the 'X' since I happened to have
a few critical parts necessary for the bash, and I enjoy the weapons loadout. Especially, for a Clan zombie...
First step-- lose those hips!
This is the cutting paths I took with the original miniature. In addition to removing both legs, I also cut-off a small
portion of the codpiece area to make it flat, and ready to accept a new hip piece.
These are the cuts I will make to remove the feet from the original legs.
So, I went though many cutting tools before finding a very nice jewelers saw. Take my word for it, all the others are
terrible. Save yourself a lot of trouble, and buy a decent jewelers saw. I can't tell you how much time I would have
saved over the years if I would have started with one. <the one in the back is the one you want, NOT this one>
Alright, so on to the replacement legs. Originally, I was just cutting the legs off and mounting them on a new hip
piece from another miniature. However, I always seem to get distracted while building, and this can sometimes lead
to picking up random parts to test fit. It often doesn't work, but in this case I found a perfect set of legs for this build
that I will go ahead and swap in. I begin cutting the legs from the
Wakazashi into the parts I will need for the
Kingfisher.
I also cut off the right leg from the hip, as there was an extra bit on this side pushing the leg farther out from the hip
than I wanted.
Here you can see some of the work I did to get the left arm. I started with two Warhawk 'H' arms. Then cut the barrel
from one...
I then glued it to the other two. I later went and added a plastic bit behind the tirld laser to make it look like it
belonged. At this point, I also added on the LRM 20 to the RA, and the tip of a plastic Hellbringer's arm to the
CT for the ERPPC>
Rear view, showing the Heavy Laser, and also the right arm. For this, I simply cut off the end of the existing
RA gun, and glued on a spare LRM 20 I had.
Then, I went-on to pin the entire miniature together. I still need to add a bit of brownstuff to some of the gaps
before painting. I think that the
Wakazashi legs were a nice find, though. They make it look more like the original
artwork, and like what I've always imagined a
Kingfisher to represent on the battlefield. I hope that you like it, and
that perhaps I've make this simple enough to copy or inspire your own
Kingfisher conversion. Thanks for looking!
