| THUNDERPUNCH
PROJECT #21
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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