The Zoid known as Slash Liger, was a Zoid featured in the old Zoids Webcomic by Tomy back in the early 2000’s. Despite the old Webcomic having become a relic of of the NJR era, with little to no backups of it being saved, many Zoiders of my generation fondly remember the really cool motion and sound comic that featured some really unique Zoids that never made it as model kits. Among those, was the Slash Liger.
Slash Liger had been one those Zoids I had always desired as a kit. As a young teen with access to the internet, I would spend my days online looking up Zoids information, specially all the fascinating tidbits available only to Japan. And when I first saw this thing my mind was blown. It was a Blade Liger. But a Blade Liger with freaking BOOSTER BLADES. How cool is that? And my young mind interpreted its blades as this giant blades. So…GIANT BOOSTER BLADES! HOW AWESOME IS THAT!?
How did this custom come about? It was a combination of things. That desire to keep obtaining Zoids I loved since childhood, mainly ones that didn’t have a kit of their own, and also the desire to keep improving as a customizer.
So, I decided to push forward, run the risk the project could crash and burn because of what at the time I thought would be to dificult. After running some tests on spare Blade Liger parts, I jumped the gun and ordered a cheap BT Blade Liger.
The first test where to see if I could make the head work somehow. The face blades, the more detailed cockpit, make a the head fins closer to the original’s.
After getting the BT Blade Liger and two sets of MSG Swords I thought got close to what I was aiming for, work began!
Then as the weeks went on and I had time to work on it, painting slowly got done and I started giving some of the parts shape utilizing parts from some Gundam kits I either owned or bought for parts.
Slowly the Liger was taking shape! Some pieces would change as the project went on. And since I wanted to make it a bit more unique compared to a normal Blade Liger, I gave it a new chest barrel cannon. And not any chest barrel cannon, but a big chest barrel cannon, cause why not. It already has giant blades! Might as well have a little more fun with it!
Unfortunately tragedy struck, in many senses. I had to leave on a family emergency back home for a week. And ironically it was the same week my apartment complex was getting the windows changed. The people that came to do my apartment weren’t to careful and while moving my stuff around lost some of the Liger’s pieces. When I returned from my trip I was to bummed to continue work on it..so I left it alone for about a month. When I came back to work on it I pretty much had to retool the whole waist. I used parts from Wild Zoids and Lego bits to do this.
I continued further work by finishing the remaining booster and retooling the connection system.
At this point all that was left was paint. Which due to work and other projects to me a bit to finish.
And then after some time, finally it was done! The way I see it, there’s still a lot of improving I can do as a modeler. Slash Liger was a great experience that showed me that with time and effort I can accomplish things I’ve always wanted. And it’s not a perfect kit at all in my eyes, it has it’s faults. To me it’s a great kit that celebrates my childhood, and I’m happy with it for it. It’s a fun project that showed me many new things that’ll allow me to do even better next time.
zoidsuniverse.com 