After the glue had set completely, I took the assembly and dry-fit it to the body, then marked where it sat on the surface. Then I set it aside and marked the lines where I would cut it out for the cockpit tub. After carefully slicing out the cavity for the tub, I used some spare cardstock to make a template for one side, then the other side, then temporarily glued those in place in order to measure and cut a piece for the back wall. After cutting out the back wall, I removed the side pieces from the cavity and glued them to the back, and finally I glued all this to spare card and cut it out, leaving a cockpit tub that would fit precisely in the hole. It was then time to detail. Since the seat was the most important detail in the cockpit, it would be the first thing I'd make. Rather than coming up with my own design, which would have been rather boring I'm sure, I decided to see if there were any interesting Battletech designs that I could use. Sure enough, I found a cockpit diagram which contained a really cool seat design, and so I decided to copy it for my 'mech. I determined a good size for the seat, which turned out to be around 1:72 scale, then from here I drew a tiny template for the seat back. I carefully cut out the seat, then the black areas on the drawing, and then glued these parts to more card and cut them out. This made the black parts sunken in. After that, I took some of that strip I'd made for the headlights and glued the seat pieces to it, then bent them in the shape of a chair and glued some parts under them for the bits that would allow it to slide, recline and rock. I then cut out parts for the armrests and glued them till they were the proper thickness, then cut out the joystick and throttle and glued them in place. There were also a couple of weird box things on the sides of the seat, so I made some and glued them in place. Then it was time to focus on the tub. I started with the back wall and made some boxy shapes for it, but I also made the cable that hooks up to the neurohelmet. Then I decided the sides needed something to tie them together, so I made a long strip and then glued a thinner strip inside it to make ribs. I cut pieces off it and glued them to the walls of the tub, then trimmed them and added some random bits between them. After that, I checked the fit of both parts in the cockpit to make sure the seat wasn't too tall. Then I built the main console by laminating several pieces of cardstock and carving out V-grooves in it to make it look like three individual groups of instruments. After gluing this to a piece of card with a tongue coming off it, I stuck a bunch of random squares to the instrument groups and moved on to the back wall. I had to measure where this fell on the model, and when that was determined I penciled it in on the canopy and then cut out a bit of cardstock for it. This got some random stuff glued on it as well. Finally, I added more details to the canopy, including some of those ribbing details I'd made for the tub in order to tie the whole cockpit together, like The Dude's rug. I also took this time to put in two pieces of Q-tip shaft for the rounded details inside the cutouts on the back end of the cockpit. I also glued the cockpit tub into the cavity so the paint would blend it in. The hatch details I'd cut from the canopy were pretty plainly visible, so I just decided to roll with it and add a handle to it as well as some plating to detail it. After all the details were added, I painted them black, then drybrushed successively lighter shades of gray until I was happy with it. I also picked out certain details in red to give the cockpit some contrast, as well as painted the consoles gloss black to suggest screens. I then glued the chair into the cockpit tub and the console and back wall into the canopy. After gluing the front panels of the canopy together, I then glued it in place on the model.
