"How hard can it be" I thought. So far, it's quite hard.
The original Black Lotus model has several location where the joints don't seems to stretch as far as I want. So I set off to do so me joint modification.
Mid-Torso
There is a polycap swivel in the upper torso, leading to a connection bar, which leading to a polycap ball joint to be set into a socket in the lower torso. But the armor around the chest restrict all movement. So I add a grey plastic spacer. It allows the joint to flex forward and backward. Still there is no twist action, because the armor situated right between the chest.
Shoulder
There is almost no arm spreading articulation. The joints are almost completely designed for rotation, with little flexibility for spreading the arm at the shoulder. To change this, the side torso pieces are modded, trimming both the peg for the mid torso, and the ball joint for the shoulder off, a shallow cavity is milled out of the side torso piece, then a Hobby Base Ball shape joint is used to replace the original joint (as it turns out the peg diameters are exactly matching to the Hobby Base joint.
Suprisingly this do not add that much to the spread, because the spires on the shoulder would hit the head. Instead it add a lot of flexibility to the "reach for the opposite shoulder" pose.
Hip
The skirt armor is connected to a ball joint above the leg main ball joint, and could swivel up and down. Unfortunately it doesn't move up far enough, so when the upperthigh is rotated forward theball joint socket in the side skirt would hit the upper thigh inside. so the plastic above the ball joint is trimmed. A plastic ring was also added between the hip and lower torso to add more clearance. The edges of the side skirt armor is also trimmed to add more clearance.
The next thing I'm wondering if I should try is replacing some of the foil stickers with plastic gems. It would require quite a lot of filing and trimming tiny clear plastic gem sticker, but it might be worth it if it work.
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