Ninja Ultra Combiner Mech modifications

[Rennova]

So, I got the Ninjago Ninja Ultra Combiner Mech back in the summer of 2022, but it wasn’t until this past fall that I decided to modify the set to try and improve it to the best of my abilities.

Here’s a group shot of all four components the way I have them now:

Here’s what I did to them individually:

Cole’s Drill:

Cole’s drill has altered upper arms and elbow joints to improve volume and articulation as well as the addition of hands. I also gave both halves of the vehicle their own engines. The hands are sadly obvious but are out of the way of the drills, fully articulated, and can hold the katana.

Zane’s Tank:

Zane’s tank is longer to make room for articulated knees and has dual engines and tires behind the treads for stability, in addition to some articulated exhaust pipes and some rubber supports on the feet.

Jay’s Glider:

Jay’s glider now has him lying on his belly to pilot it rather than sitting and has small stabilizer fins, articulated intakes for the main engine, and additional engines on the wings.

Kai’s Mech:

Kai’s Mech has weapon storage and improved shoulders that can fully articulate and move out of the way for the combiner mode.

GATTAI! NINJA~GO!

Kansei! Tatsumaki Dai Shogun!

So yeah, the end result isn’t exactly as stable as I would like. There is still some fine-tuning I need to do. I need to figure out how to keep it standing up straight and how to move the drills out of the way so the wrists can fully articulate if it has the sword in hand. In the meantime, I am happy with what I have.

[Ghid]

Personally not being the biggest fan of the set, I’m not sure what parts I would consider an upgrade over the original, but the multicolored swords are distracting once the model is assembled. And the head now feels uber tiny as it hides behind the impressive collar in blue and gold which now pushes it backwards.

Kai’s mech feels very solid on its own, and I wish the hands folded out of the way on Cole’s vehicle instead of splaying the fingers directly outwards. I don’t have an enough of an opinion on the original forms of Zane and Jay’s vehicles to comment on them specifically, but they generally look like an upgrade.

[Rukah]

Looks nice. There isn’t much, but there are noticable improvements over the original set. Individually, all vehicles look better but the tradeoff is that the combined mech, while cleaner, has odd proportions. Good start though