Beyond the color, I wasn’t immediately sure what needed to be changed with the HUSI, so I took a good long look at the original design and tried to figure out what didn’t look like it belonged. A couple things immediately jumped out at me.

The feet are all wrong for a desert. Claws are no good for running in the sand, so they had to go. In their place I swapped in some big paddle-shaped toes that would really get good traction on a sand dune (though I wish the 1×2 flat liftarm was available in dark-grey). To further enhance the look of the legs, I flipped the hip-joints horizontal and bulked up around them so they’d appear more powerful.

Also, the neck was straight as a board, and a real ostrich has a flexible snake-like neck, so I replaced the original one with a pair of #3 couplers. I thought the beak looked more appropriate for a hummingbird, so I gave it one that’s shorter and wider.

The gear sticking way out of the back was also a bit unsightly, and since I usually prefer form over function, I replaced it with a #4 plus-rod and a pair of half-bushings to keep it in place. Finally, ostriches do actually have wings, though they really only use them for balancing purposes. The #5/6 TECHNIC® fairings are a bit long and not as wide as they should be for the body size, but they’re the closest thing in my parts bin. I tried using a different mounting for my DIKAPI wing rig, but it looked too awkward, so I got rid of the #1 angle-connectors and reattached the wings in their place.

It’s a lot harder to work the gear system with only a half-bushing to turn, but it is still possible.

While the wings won’t open as far as they will with my modified DIKAPI, they open far enough to look useful for balancing while running.

And that’s very important if they’re going to be ridden in the HUSI 500!