iron mitten: Creating Autobot Hound

Inspired by the amazing model building at the games Day yesterday, I thought I would have a go at making Hound the Autobot scout. It's all about getting his head and chest right, although I'm creating their Cybertronic forms, so a little variation is okay in my books.

I used some thick plasticard to make his Jeep chest and reapplied the bumper I had cut off earlier. The tow winch etc were tiny bits of card.

Adding to the head is a quite a new idea but it really helps nail the characters. I'm also really impressed with how much detail you can do with a steady hand. The new Gel glue really does make things easier.

Making his hands was great fun and I pushed myself to even to his fingers and thumb. These were tiny lengths of plasticard stuck into place by Super Glue Gel. I'd been using Gorilla glue before and the results had been luck more than skill. However, Super glue Gel is far, far better for this fiddly kind of work. Much less messy too!

I chose the War for Cybertron version of Hound to use as a guide. I even managed to find a suitable shoulder gun for him that doesn't look too far off his actual one.

Maybe I made him a little too chunky by adding bits to his shoulders but hey who cares.

Hopefully when finished he will be obviously Hound to the trained eye, that's all I can hope for.

It's nice to try different things and I was pleased with how his feet turned out. This is an easy trick to do and I'll be certainly using it again for other bots. The added 2mm to his height is not noticeable when in the crowd and I suppose it will help to give them all different character.

UPDATE: A few days have gone by and I've managed to finish the build.

Autobot and Hound. I was going to use a figure like this one to sculpt Hound, but glad I went for the Ratchet model. The latter has better arms and a clearer silhouette.