Pimp My Zoids

Now comes the real deal.
I was able to confirm the outlook using the relatively inexpensive colored regular issue part. Now I have to work on the transparent counterpart...

Only after I make a closer inspection of the part did I release something unexpected in a normal build...

The mold lines on the internal side.... they are visible as the whole piece is see thru...And they are in hard-to-reach corners....I sand them down initially but in the end I just use my micro chisel to scratch them off...Next headache....after I cut off the unwanted part, white stress marks appeared due to the tension....

Again, sand and scratch with chisel...or finger nail~ Another approach is to cut them with a little buffer so that it can be removed with a less tension tool like a chisel or penknife.

As the part selection is so limited, every single bit counts... I decide to get this photo etch saw to make the collateral damage to a minimum.

And lastly, being transparent means that regular putty cant be used to seal up gap/holes... I brought a pack of clear putty but upon hearing poor review abt it, I decided not to risk it... So in the end I used clear silicon which is much cheaper...
Beware tho, try not to handle them using your bare hand. Wear a latex glove or something. If any of those sticky thingy get onto you, try acetone (regular nail polish remover)

Next are the tentacles... After I line up the glass beads, I still find them too blocky and it doesnt match the fluid idea that I have. So I decided to use clear heat shrink tubing to encase them so that they look like a single piece. Now come my blunder... in order to effectively shrink them, my hot hair blower cant really do it without short-circuiting the whole neighborhood power grid. So I used hot water...And it works nicely... but the side effect was if water happen to seep in.... the cheapo $2 wire will rust... no wonder I saw those expensive wire in the bead shop... those must be rust-resistant...

And finally, the paint job....
so... how do you color something that's supposed to be transparent...
Well, you dont... hmmm, then again, you can :D

When you cant see into the future, apply it now.

Try to have at least half of the part submerge into the solution. Keep the movement to a minimum to avoid stirring up too much bubbles... Rotate it around for the future to flood out the trapped bubbles.

See the different? Not only it make it bling like glass, it helps to fill up little scratches. Hehee, so technically I did paint my custom and the color scheme is just that. Transparent.

But its really a dust magnet... so keep it dust free... The new packaging is now called the Pledge with Future shine. This set me back $22SGD... but being a cheapo, I pour back whatever I used.... and now i notice there are now some particle inside the bottle...

And this is it....
Relatively lesser effort than my previous custom but was able to achieve the effect that I wanted :) If I can turn back time and redo this, I will add less tentacle and keep within the silhouette. I find the tentacle positioned too far in-front thus making the main body look short and lost the appearance of a buoyancy ballast compartment look. Overall it was great fun and the end result was worth the cost :)

In the end I spent another $30 buck to get a LED stripe that can change 7 colors to make my display look like those jellyfish tube in the aquarium :D