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Personal Communication:
From: Lance "Clutch" Steinberg
To: Conrad "Duke" Hauser

"Just a little heads up, Duke; you're going to need a pretty strong stomach if you're going to survive with us out here on the wastes. It's not just your run of the mill vipers and officers they're throwing against us anymore. Mindbender and his goons have been churning out some pretty freaking stuff lately. You know about the V-troops, I'm sure, but have you encountered a Bio-Viper yet? If not, let me enlighten you. They may call it a Bio-Viper, but this isn't like Cobra's other vipers. These things are monsters, Duke, plain and simple. There are rumors that, at one point, they were, somehow, human, but I'd believe that Gung-Ho eats quiche before I'd buy that. Whatever they started life out as, they're about eight to ten meters of absolute terror now. They're hulking beasts, capable of shrugging off bullets and even tank rounds, able to tear through armor with their teeth and claws. They're constantly fed a supply of Venom, a mixture so heavy that it would be lethal to anything else. As you can imagine, they're not exactly high on brain power, so they're driven by either the bravest or stupidest of Serpentor's troops. They usually send the Bio Vipers in first, due to the huge amount of collateral damage they can cause. Now, you probably want some advice on how to deal with one of these hell beasts, should you ever be unfortunate enough to encounter one. First off, no matter how tempting it is, do not, and I repeat, do not, shoot the pilot. At that point, you have a relatively controlled living killing machine that turns into a wild, untamed killing machine. At least with the pilot alive, there's some method to the beast's madness. If you can pick off the Venom canisters attached to its body, that tends to take the wind out of its sails a bit. Don't get me wrong, it'll still tear you in half...it just won't enjoy it as much. I wish I had some magic bullet, Duke, some ultimate weak spot that could topple the monster in one shot, but life just doesn't work that way out here. To kill one of these things, you just have to keep blasting at it until it stops moving, and then pray they don't have a second one."
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And now tons of pics. This wasn't easy to photograph, so I took a bunch of shots:









Parts:
Main Body: POTJ Rancor
Tentacles: War Planets Bone Planet
Seat: Flight Pod
Venom Canisters: MASS Device canisters with hot-glue ooze
Chains: various craft store jewelry chains
Flag: Royal Guard v2

I know some people are going to hate this for all of the reasons that Hasbro's Bio Viper is hated, but I've always had a soft spot for the figure. The hasbro Bio-Viper in the picture is one of the few figures I still have from my childhood collection, and it was given to me for my birthday by my best friend as a kid who died a few years back. I've always wanted to do a Bio-Viper custom, and went through several different ideas before deciding to go huge.

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Ha! Awesome!

An idea that I never would have thought of in a million years and you executed it perfectly

Love the little details like the venom canisters and the way you painted the eyes.

Very cool - and the bio is great as always.

Wish I had the room to try this - but I've already got two Rancors - no space for a third.

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I like it and nice undertaking a massive custom. I do have a couple crits though, the teeth and claws, maybe give them a little more color, like brown and yellow washes to make them look worn and dirty, about the rider, i just don't see something like this beast having one, maybe his keeper. All those tubes, maybe cut them down to just two of them, they seem to many and if ya have anymore of those tentacles, give him two more.

I do like where you went with this, it is cool and awesome, nice work Darko.

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That is quite the custom!

Nice use of the Rancor as a base.

Looking at the original figure I think it does need another set of tentacles and if there was a way to add some red to it.

Maybe make/paint a red area around the shoulder/belly area so it looks like a saddle or protective blanket for the rider?

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Oh I like it. Nice use of those canisters. The coloring is spot on. Its like a cave troll mixed with an elephant from LOTR. I might have cut the tail off just to make it a little bit more different then the Star Wars monster. Not necessary but if he doesn't need a tail for the story or to stand up then I'd hack it off.

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The teeth are plenty dirty, the camera flash just ate most of the detail. They're actually more red and brown and white at this point.

I'm definitely keeping the number of canisters.

The tail is necessary for balance...this thing is actually incredibly hard to stand (the Weather Dominator under his claw there is actually helping balance him) due to the huge amount of weight toward the front of it. Also, I think it's hollow, so cutting off the tail would leave a big, weird, hard to conceal cavity.

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HOLY HELL!

Darko that is top notch work. I absolutely love it!

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You had me at

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thats to cool.

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I love Bio-Viper and Monstro-Viper customs. You just know you're going to get something unexpected.

This is great because it's all about the vision. Looking at a rancor and seeing potential, turning it into a mount, the canisters. Awesome.

I do miss the orange one piece. Any chance you sew together an orange diaper for this bad boy?

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Awesome! Kudos for such a creative approach!

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You might want to sculpt something under some of those canisters. Some, especially the ones on the arms are just hanging there. Some sort of little mechanical implant for it to attach to would certainly improve the realism of it. I really like the idea of this, but I'm a bit iffy about the execution. The thing is, it doesn't look like it should be able to shrug off tank rounds. I know its a lot more intensive, but adding either a sort of organic armored hide like a rhino's or adding actual armor plating to it would really spruce it up and help differentiate it a bit more from the source figure. Oh, and some tusks would really complete the image.