| KRANG (BUBBLE
WALKER)
PROJECT #460
"Always one step ahead of me, aren't you,
Krang?" Preamble: The character of Krang was loosely based on characters from the original TMNT Mirage comic book known as the Utroms—pink, squishy aliens who wore mechanical humanoid exo-suits. Krang was depicted as a Dimension X war criminal whose body was confiscated before he was banished to Earth, and who later had a new body constructed for him by Shredder. Krang's robot body would have been much too large for Playmates Toys to sell as a standard action figure (it towered over Shredder by several feet in height), so in 1988 they made some concessions and created a miniature robotic walker machine for him instead. Krang's bubble walker eventually made its appearance in the cartoon show, ostensibly to advertise the existing toy. Rather than being painted the traditional Playmates Toys blue-and-purple colors of the Foot Clan, though, the animated bubble walker was entirely steel grey in color. It also had an alternate design in which Krang's twin tentacles protruded from special ports in the front of the walker, rather than hanging out from either side, as was the case with the toy. As you might have guessed, I thought it would be fun to build a bubble walker that more closely matched the cartoon version. Construction: The cartoon version of the bubble walker was obviously inspired by the toy's design to some degree, though they changed the colors and altered its design a little. The biggest difference is that in the show, the bubble completely encapsulated Krang (I imagine it's a temperature-controlled environment that probably keeps him nice and wet and squishy), but it has two apertures for his tentacles that still allow him to manipulate his environment. To achieve this design with the toy, I had to carve out the bottom of the walker accessory to enable Krang to sit lower and then cut holes through the front of the walker. (Clearly, he would need new tentacles that would actually face forward, but I knew I'd be addressing that later.) Other changes I made were to rebuild the legs of the walker, using some of the existing plastic but also incorporating paper clips and sewing pins to build the metal support rods. I also added some new cables to the sides of the walker (tracking down something suitable was the most frustrating part of the project; I ended up using the tubes from the TMNT Fast Forward Jammerhead toy that I'd bought for another project). I also completly rebuilt the back of the walker, which ended up being the most involved and elaborate part of the project, using a variety of leftover plastic parts to create the necessary details. This really was two separate projects in one, since I not only had to do some work on the walker, but on Krang himself. I toyed with the idea of doing a completely new sculpt, but in the end I figured I could probably get away with using the original toy if I made some substantial changes. I whittled away at the veins on the surface and did some work on the cranial ridges on the top to make them more distinct and prominent. I also carved out his mouth, removing his teeth so I could reattach them after I was done, and added a tongue. (Had to cut him in half so I could paint the inside of his mouth!) I also did some work on his eyes, which I've always felt were cat-like and spaced too far apart from each other. I replaced the original eyes with round beads, sticking them closer together and putting the original eyebrows back on, which I think really goes a long way towards improving his appearance. The most important change, though, was to remove the tentacles from either side so I could attach new ones to the front, allowing them to protrude through the front of the walker. (I wanted to preserve the original ones and reuse them, but they just weren't long enough—they had to poke out to a significant degree through the holes in the walker, after all. I did use pieces of them as those dangly things underneath Krang's mouth, though.) What I did instead was cut off the tentacles from a plastic octopus and used those, grafting them onto his body. I also built another accessory, the little wheeled platform that Krang rolled around on in the five-part pilot episode. He never used it again after "Shredded & Splintered," but I'm sure there are times when both his bubble walker and android body are in the shop for repairs, so he needs an emergency back-up means of locomotion, right? Painting the toy was simple enough since his bubble walker is pretty much all one color in the TV show. Thick coats of paint obscure the fine details of a project, which I normally try to avoid, but in this instance I did it deliberately, since it helped to smooth out the surface of Krang's skin and make him look less chiseled and more slick and slimy. The tricky part was getting the paint inside the hinges of the robotic legs, since I didn't want any of the original blue or purple plastic showing through. (Painting moving parts is so problematic. Enamel paints work a little better since they aren't as likely to scrape off, but this is still one toy that's not going to see a lot of playtime from this point onward.) Comments: It's worth mentioning that Playmates Toys did release a toy of Krang's Android Body in 1990, which was significantly larger than the other characters (it was the same price point as some of the vehicles). Later in 1994, they finally did produce a traditional action figure version, with a tiny little Krang figurine in the stomach. Neither of these was really to scale with the rest of the action figures, though. (I guess we can conclude that he regularly utilizes his size-changing molecular amplification unit.) Once I finished this project, I was also able to digitially manipulate the colors to create the six Krang clones who appear in the episode "Invasion of the Krangazoids." |
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This Page Created: 9/10/2010
Last Updated: 11/26/2010
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My ganglion is stuck in some chewing gum!