RPG and Tactics: Veritech Battloid Dynamic Poses

Greetings All,

If you are a gamer like me then you like your minis/models to have varied poses so that you don't end up with each looking exactly the same. One of the complaints floating around the various user forums is that the Robotech RPG Tactics wave one Veritech models only have two types of legs for the Battloid mode, thus limiting the poses that can be modeled. However with a little adjusting and slight modifications you can modify the legs to inrcrease the pose options.

More to come.....

In order to have a variety amongst a squad of minis/models you need to either have multiple options already provided on the sprue, or the ability to modify the basic pieces to create different poses. Now with the RRT Veritech Guardian sprues you get multiple options for arm/gun positions but there are only two leg options, strait and strait + bent. Without any modifications you can make three basic positions, standing, leaping with the flight stand, and standing with one leg bent back. Now I decided that I only wanted to have my fighters and guardians on flight stands (bought clear acrylic stands) but I wanted to have more poses than three, so I decided to make some modeling modifications.

In order to get the poses I wanted I would have to modify the legs, at the knees. Sounds obvious, but changing models can be a daunting task for those who have not had some practice. Now luckily the mods necessary require only slight modification of the leg knee so should be easy for anybody to follow along with the basic steps I have listed here.

Strait Leg Modification:

1) Seperate the top half of the leg from the bottom. It is easier to do this before you glue the halves together since the plastic is thinner. I used an exact-o blade and cut down along the top of the knee edge, making one cut from each side to make two pieces. It is useful to keep as much of the knee joint bands intact and part of the upper part of the leg. Next I cut a band of the knee ridges (ridge fill betwen the upper and lower leg) off and then glued the halves together.

2) Once the glue dried I cleaned the extra glue of, scraped the surfaces smooth where the two halves come together (an easy method to clean models is to scrape and exact-o blade across the surface, the edge is angled slightly towards myself and slide the blade across away from myself), and cleaned the edges of the top and bottom parts of the leg. Then I glued the top and bottom together.

3) The next step is to fill in the gap on the upper side of the knee. There are several brands of "Green stuff" and similar modeling products on the market, but for such small fills I use GW's liquid green stuff. I use a modeling puddy tool ( has a small round flat spoon on one side and a larger cutting edge on the other) to scoop and place a small amount of green stuff in the gap.

4) Let the green stuff sit for a bit until it dries enough that you can mold it without it sticking to the tool. Using the smaller spoon side of the tool I gently push into the green stuff along the lower edge where the green stuff touchs the plastic and then again along the top edge to form a band. Then I gently push into the middle to form two ridges. Next I blend the narrow edge where the green stuff ridge meets the existing plastic ridge so that they look continuous, this is the most delicate part as the gap is very small, just push and slide back towards the plastic with little force. The final step is to clean off any extra green stuff off the surrounding surfaces. (I also filled in the few gaps between the halves of the legs before I set the leg aside to dry.)

Green stuff is pretty easy to use once you have experimented with it a few times. If you get it into the gap and it doesn't look good or you make a mistake just get the stuff wet and scrape it off (before it dries), start again. If you have never tried to use it before I suggest scooping some up, attach it to something and play with it till you can mold a few simple shapes. The RRT basic box comes with one extra Battloid so you can always experiment with that one before you fix up your first squad.

Here is a more in depth Green stuff modeling effort i made a few years ago:
http://www.captureandcontrol.com/2010/08/tail-of-two-conversions-part-1.html

Now on to my first finished model:

For my first mod I made a standing Battloid with one leg up on a rock.

For my second leg I made the bend a bit greater.

Bent Leg Modification:

If you are not interested in green stuff there is an easy mod you can make on the bent right leg that comes in the box. Cut along the edge of the knee into the ridges, then cut a wedge out, trying to keep a bit of plastic at the back continuous. The bigger the wedge the straiter the leg.

You can then just bend the two halves together and you will get a slightly less bent leg. Put some plastic cement in the joint to finish off the connection.