Zodiac Contractor - Nush-Ucha

Zodiac Contractor – a council of inter-dimensional entities assembled by the cosmic great maker during the infancy of the universe to keep an eye on the well being of their assigned galaxies both in corporeal & trans-dimensional level. Each galaxy has approximately 12 entities taking on caretaking roles, divided in 4 quadrants with 3 assigned in each one. All through the eternal cosmic historical records, only a few in the corporeal plain have the knowledge of their existence.
The entities prefer to quietly oversee events from behind the scene. Events such as observing one culture evolves into higher plain of existence or preventing certain intergalactic conflicts from spinning out of control that would potentially devastated vast region of space are almost like a routine. While occasionally they have to be alert on threats from beyond their galaxies or from their former colleagues who have gone rogue.

The origin of Zodiac Contractors remains shrouded in mystery, only hints of legends were being passed down from generation to generation of alien cultures. Different cultures have vast different interpretation of the Contractors. Some would claim that they are the guardian spirit of their star system; while other vowed they are the reincarnations of their fallen folk icons. No matter which way the mythology was being interpreted, one common element precedes everything else is that most cultures believe the Contractors, or cosmic godlike creatures to many of them, would come to the aid one way or another when their civilizations are in their most desperate time, be that from self-annulations or interplanetary natural disasters.

Nush-Ucha, the contractor assigned to this part of the galaxy; has been keeping a sharp eye on this insignificant planetoid known as Earth located at an isolated yellow main sequence star system for the past millennia. Earth had reached many crossroads in the last thousand years, each time Ucha chose not to interfere because of strict non-interacting policy towards corporeal cultures imposed by the council. However this time he might need to because Earth once again is standing at a key crossroad, a crossroad that would either means an end to the planet due to over exploiting of planet’s resources or thrust Earth and her inhabitants to a new era of awakening and eventually taking rightful place in the galactic community. Earth has a pivotal role in the stability of this region of space. Its untimely end not only will affect the entire region, but the shockwave has the potential of spreading far beyond the Galactic Federation could handle. Several corporeal and non-corporeal alien species from the Federation already have vessels stationed within the solar system, and deployed surface reconnaissance teams on Earth to prepare for the event. While Ucha has much confidence on the Federation’s ability to tackle with the crisis, his instinct has prompted him to stay on guard as he has received words that factions hostile to the Federation are prepare to interrupt or even sabotage the transition.

Nush-Ucha while appears to have possessed God-like power to many corporeal beings, he's not entirely immune from injuries. The wound under the armpit was caused during a fierce engagement near the galactic core's massive black hole clusters with Nemek, his one time friend/colleague turned renegade contractor. He chose to leave the scar instead of completely have it healed because he want to constantly reminds himself how painfully it was to be betrayed by someone he trusted dearly. Nemek has declared himself sided with the same hostile factions that attempt to sabotage Earth's transition. Ucha and Nemek both can sense their presence in the same time-continuum, and they both know they will duel each other again very soon.

In the nutshell

Fig 1

•Basically the centaur was cobbled up with left over discarded parts and other everyday items. The only piece that was practically new out of the box is the DID horse. When it first started, I was kinda scratching head on how to remove the skin. It was a beautiful piece, and I didn't want to ruin it. Turned out it was a rather straight forward process; just slowly peeled off all the glued-on skin pieces one by one at the seams. The head and rest of the riding gear on the other hand, were saved for future project. (Fig 1).

Fig 2

•After the surface was cleaned and patched up from top to bottom with both regular and waterproof sandpapers, I applied first couple layers of Kryon gray primer. After some further touch-ups, primed and let it dried for a few hours. At this point I was still on the parts gathering stage, and exploring a more viable way to have the BBI G3.5 torso securely merged with the headless horse. More on this later. Trust me, you gotta love everyday home hardware products. (Fig 2)

Fig 3

•Here comes the G3.5 torso. It was one of many broken G3.5 among the parts bin. Its condition was so bad that I almost wanted to discard it, but I saved it after all hoping one day it'll be resurrected one way or another. It has a broken left arm, two legs already sawed off, practically an useless pile of plastic. I intended to use the chest armour piece from BBI CYCOM Ninja as his chest piece. In order for it to rest on the chest, I dremeed out most of the molded chest but retained the all the shoulder joint functions. (Fig 3)

Fig 4

•This was actually took place before applying the primer as shown in Fig 2 above. Another test fit with the waist armour guard from Sea International 3 Kingdoms boxsets. It's a cool piece on its own but it never fitted well from the beginning. Eventually the idea was dropped as I continued to spin the idea. Next step was to glue the chest piece onto the carved out chest area. (Fig 4)

Fig 5

•Now the fun part and nasty part, filling up the horse's hollow interior and the space between chest cavity and chest armour piece. I've been wanting to use the expandable insulating foam sealant with custom projects. This is a great chance to test it out. I used the normal density one on the horse. High density one would be great because it would make the whole setup a lot more heavier and thus more stable. Sadly it was sold out in my local big box hardware outlets. I filled up the interior half way, let it expanded and dried over, then inserted the G3.5 body in a kneeling position. Continue to fill the space and gaps in between the body and the interior until  the foam reached the opening. Wiped out excess and let it dried overnight. Before I applied the same treatment to the chest, I refine the chest cavity contour with Aves Apoxie before filling the
gaps with the foam. Dremeled and sanded the areas once they were thoroughly dried and hardened.(Fig 5)

Fig 6

•Early stage of reinforcing. The chest armour piece was already glued onto the body. While the body itself was being tightly wrapped around in the hollow interior by the insulating foam, I started to build up more reinforcing material behind the back with a scrap piece cut from the horse's neck and custom junk parts as base and continued the buildup from there with apoxie. (Fig 6)

Fig 7

•Once the first player of apoxie clay was hardened, I spray on more insulating form to fill up any space in between the new waist armour piece and the back of the body. Again, sanded and refined once the foam was hardened overnight. The head was also taking shape as well, most of the parts were already glued onto the Hot Toys True type head. (Fig 7)

Fig 8

• One of the everyday items that were insignificant in appearance, but essential to the completion of the project: Dollarama hair clips, inexpensive and easily available. I modded a pair onto the waist armour piece as part of a fang extension. Rest of the clips were modded into part of the armoured vertebra structures. (Fig 8)

Fig 9

•Half way through the refining process. Still have a long way to go, but the basic look was slowly taking shape. I bored out the chest armour piece's left opening, filled the interior with insulating foam and eventually would have a marble inserted in it. At the end there would be two more metal spheres inserted into the chest. (Fig 9)

Fig 10

•Early stage of the head remodelling. The forehead piece was plugged out from a McFarlane Master Chief Hayabusa helmet. Rest of the oarts are modded from junk parts and Sea International 3 Kingdoms helmet. Face platings were cut from tin foil party platters. (Fig 10)

Fig 11

•A more refined version of the helmet. I made the new face platings from styrene sheet and completely covered the tin foil pieces as I didn't like how they turned out. (Fig 11)

Fig 12

•Rear view of the helmet, Modded a new lower neck opening for metal parts. The green fire crest opening at the back of the helmet was also refined, but It's not the final version just yet (Fig 12)

Fig 13

•One of the most tricky part in the project was to apply metal skin onto the horse. I traced and cut pieces from tin foil party platters. Again inexpensive items, and easily available. It's time consuming because the glue used in the piecing process needed significant time(At least four hours; overnight preferably) to cure. So after one small patch was glued in place, it needed a whole night to cure in order to safely glue other pieces next to it. Probably the whole process took nearly three weeks to complete. Original plan was just to have this tin foil skin ,but again it didn't look right at all. So I continued to up-armoured with more tin foil pieces and salad bowl. Yep you heard me right, salad bowl indeed. More on this in Fig 15.(Fig 13)

Fig 14

•I'm about 3/4 into the project. Most of the key parts already painted and glued. Both metal spheres were already glued in place. THe only opening on the chest now was for the marble. Before this happened, the interior was lined with tin foil piece so that it could reflect light better. I also added decorated jewelleries around the waist armour for a more exotic look. (Fig 14)

Fig 15

•There we are, the great salad bowl. :) I've every intention of not using it as raw material coz the initial result wasn't very impressive and I was busy cutting tin foil right and left thinking they looked so damn cool.
Boy, glad I was so wrong. The tin foil experiment ended up not what I envisioned or should we say veer off target? So as a last resort, I traced & cut up the bowl, then glued the pieces along side with tin foil pieces, and the combination was surprisingly refreshing. At least I felt rather comfortable looking at it, which is an important benchmark for me to move forward. (Fig 15)

Fig 16

•Here it is, the lime green pieces glued side by side with tin foils. Of course he won't be running around like that. The whole centaur would be primed again, and sprayed painted with a base coat of Valspar Metalizer.  Then touch up and refine details here & there to finish it off. (Fig 16)