CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: BATTLE-DAMAGED HULK (THE INCREDIBLE HULK "SMASH AND CRASH")
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, RUBBER BAND, SCULPEY MODELING COMPOUND, ACRYLIC PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS #68

"God, I hope no one I know sees me dressed like this.  Never be able to show my face at the bar again, ay?"

Preamble:  Thunderpunch, aka Lee Gruber, is the resident strongman of the Neo-Knights.  He possesses the unusual ability to enlarge his feet and fists at will to several times their normal size, effectively turning them into weapons that are capable of smashing Decepticons without Thunderpunch feeling a thing.  He was one of the team members recruited by G. B. Blackrock as part of his new task force to deal with the Decepticon threat to Earth.  Later, after enlisting the aid of Dynamo and Circuit Breaker, this group became known as the Neo-Knights, and played a pivotal role in repelling Unicron's attack on Cybertron as well as the subsequent Decepticon invasion of planet Klo.  Thunderpunch was my third Neo-Knights project.

Construction:  The first thing I had to do was get rid of the torn shirt that the original Hulk figure was wearing.  Whittling away at his body, I managed to removed the shirt successfully.  I also used modeling putty on his chest and back to try to crank down the muscle definition by a couple of notches.  The Hulk also needed a haircut, so I lopped off his bangs and gave Thunderpunch a crew cut by drilling tiny holes into his hair with the tip of my X-Acto blade.  Doing so raised the surrounding plastic slightly, and once I made enough of them, making them close enough together, I create a pretty decent semblance of short hair.

Thunderpunch's feet are his signature weapon, but I wasn't satisfied with the featureless bottoms of this action figure's feet.  With a little effort, I managed to carve out more realistic arches and toes for him, and also filled up the peg holes in his heels with more putty.  Also, the Hulk figure just happened to be designed with a spring-action kick when you press a button on his back (he's supposed to have his legs restrained so he can break out of that contraption).  How appropriate for Thunderpunch!

Building his shoulder pads was kind of tricky.  I wanted them to move with the arms, so I couldn't just build them out of Sculpey, but it was tough finding plastic parts that were the correct shape.  I finally settled on the tip of a plastic hot dog, which proved to be flexible enough but would also retain its shape.  I wanted him to retain a full range of motion in his arms (they are each attached to an axle that allows them to swivel at the shoulder and also pivot up to the side), so I settled on attaching them to the top of the axle with screws.

I built his new arm guards and shin guards out of Sculpey.  I baked each one for about a minute or so before I moved on to the next one; this way they would be cured enough that they would retain their shape if I accidentally touched them, but I could still bake them all at once when I was done.  As for the helmet, I used the cap to a bottle of hand lotion, with a piece carved out for his face.  (Sometimes I feel like the MacGuyver of kitbashing.)  It wouldn't stay on by itself, though, so I drilled little holes in the sides and tied a piece of a rubber band around the bottom to serve as a chin guard.  (In his first appearance, it looks like Dwayne Turner draws him wearing a football helmet, but in subsequent appearances this seems to have changed.)

Since inker Steven Baskerville embellished Thunderpunch's armor to look like metal, I mixed a little bit of silver in with the green paint ot give it more of a metallic sheen.  Since Thunderpunch goes around barefoot, I also painted the bottoms of his feet slightly darker to make it look like they're a little dirty.

Comments:  I'm really glad I fixed the bottoms of his feet, because he looks great when he does his spring-action kick.  Unfortunately, I think I probably baked him a little too long, because he likes to execute his kicking action at the drop of a hat.  He didn't used to.  The little bugger did it to me a couple of times while I was trying to paint him, requiring me to fix a couple of screw-ups.  Also, the ring holding his head in place kept slipping off, so I eventually had to glue his head in place (but the cool helmet makes up for the lack of neck articulation).

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