Next were the main cannons. Here are the parts that come in the kit.
Am I going to use them? HECK NO! Look how undetailed they are. Instead, I decided to use mostly parts from the pencils I'd pulled apart for the ankle springs.
I first decided that the tan tip pieces had interesting areas on the backs that if trimmed would look great around the gun tips. After trimming those, I cut a bit of the gray tubing and glued that into the tan bit after sanding it down some for better fit. Then I took the brass parts and sanded them on their backs for better glue adhesion, then I superglued those to the inside of the assembly using superglue gel. After that, I began sanding down the barrel of the pencil so that the eraser can would fit on it, then I glued one of the tip assemblies to the inside of it, and then finally superglued the eraser can around it and trimmed it off. I also added a raised section in the back by rolling and gluing strips of 90 lb cardstock around them. I then spray-painted them black, and then drybrushed some enamel silver on them to make them look like metal.
I decided that while these parts looked good, they needed something equally cool to attach to. So I set to work making mounts for them. First I made a sketch of what I wanted to build, then I measured to see how much sideways and vertical room I had to work with. Then I sketched out a part that would fit. Once I did that, I used my ruler to draw a refined version which I then cut out and used to make a duplicate. After that, I started laminating several layers to them. When that proved to be taking forever, I opted to glue them to two layers of chipboard and then trim them. I then glued the cannons to them. Then I started making the extra details on the bottom of the parts which would make them look like they were "mounted" to the 'mech. I first cut a rectangle of card, then I glued on small triangular "gussets", and then finally some bolts. They would be round, but as they are not going to be seen all that clearly, I opted to just cut small squares and glue those in place. These assemblies I painted black, then drybrushed silver, as well as a little brown to give it some color variation.
After those assemblies were finished, it was time for the final paint job. I masked off the windows on the body, then I started painting it. First red all over, then I painted on the black markings, trying to stick with the original paint scheme as much as possible since, well, I liked it. Then I painted the yellow on the armor panels. Finally I started weathering, first starting with the corners using light gray, then the brown that represented rusting. I then painted on some white markings as well as caution markings in front of the cannons. I also used a fine-tip Sharpie to draw on some random hash marks. No reason, I just thought they added an extra layer of detail. Then I glued in the cannons.
