Devil with the Green Eyes
I took the plunge by
first assembling the head, applying glue along the outer edge since I was
planning on destroying the assembly pins to fit the LED. After it was dry and the outer part painted
black, I realized I forgot to paint the green eyepiece black where the eyes
weren't. Doh!! DSH has probably the narrowest eye slit of
any Wing Gundam, so trying to get a damn fine bush in there to paint the
"raccoon mask" is why I ended up later on using a toothpick to clean
it up. Thanks to my stupidity, I was
able to serendipitously discover a way to make cheesy clear beam parts look
cool!
I
used my Dremel tool to grind out the interior of the head. I tried a couple different green LEDs (for a
number of reasons, including life and heat, LEDs are the only practical
solution). The one that worked best was
an odd one I got from a Radio Shack multi-pack. Instead of the usual round lens, this one has a square head that
sheds light equally in all directions.
I couldn’t get the regular shaped LEDs to point directly to the eyes due
to space, so they didn’t illuminate as well even though they were brighter than
the square head LED.
By
the way, did I mention that I started this when the rest of the kit was assembled
and painted? So, I just got myself a
little head, I’m feeling good (did that come out right?), but where the heck do
the wires go? What wires? I had the kit built, so internal batteries
weren’t an option. I planned on running
the wires down through the torso, into the right leg, and out through the right
heel. For wiring I used telephone cord
wires (thinnest, cheapest multi-strand wire you can get). I removed the neck ball joint from the
torso, and drilled completely through the torso with a pin vise, and ran the
wires. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting the 
wires from the torso through the
waist. I considered drilling out the
leg ball joint, but that was simply too much to cut through. I ended up drilling right above the leg ball
joint. I cut a chunk out of the torso
PV cap so the wires could run through the gap in the PV without weakening the
plastic peg or the waist joint.
The
hole I ended up drilling just above the right leg ball joint is completely
obscured by the upper thigh and the hip armor plates. It took a few tries to wrangle the wire completely through the
torso, but when finished the wiring is completely hidden. I continued running the wire through the
leg, drilling into the plastic pegs on the knee block and passing the wire
completely through. The wire exits at
the heel, and when can be pulled back into the leg so it is invisible from the
outside.
Since I started the mod after the kit was done, I had to wing it on the neck. I used Milliput to rebuild the neck area, which effective froze the LED in place. The head essentially rests on top of the LED, and can be popped off. If I do this again, I will build the LED into the head, and try to work in a neck joint that allows some flexibility. Another problem I have had is light leaking where the head has small gaps. By building the LED better into the head, I can tackle this more directly next time.
Gundam
DeathScythe Hell Glow Gallery:
Note: the pictures are all basically the same
except different exposures