I have never in my life seen a turtle that is charcoal grey and day-glo orange. I haven’t seen one that is bright green either, but that seemed like a more turtle-appropriate color, so that’s what I went with. The amusing thing is that when I first saw images of the HOI, I quickly slapped together something to see how it would look in green, not realizing that I had the torso base built incorrectly. And yet, after seeing the official design for a few weeks, I ended up going back to my “flawed” reconstruction as a base. I made a few other tweaks here and there, like moving the front feet forward, giving it a head with eyes, and filling in the entire underbelly, but the new torso design prevents the back legs from looking double-wide like they do on the official design. Of course, my modified version also prevents all four legs from moving at all, but that’s a price I was more than willing to pay in order to make it look a little better. The tail is still able to wag up and down, though.

And last night I was suddenly inspired with the idea that a HAU swapped in for the PAKARI would result in a high, round shape to the shell, much like the Ploughshare Tortoise , which is the specific look I always envision when I think the word “tortoise”. I also swapped out the pieces used for the feet to give it a more flat-footed look. I really wish I had even a single brown hip-joint, which would have allowed me to do the entire body in black and brown, but I’ve yet to see one, so I had to use tan pieces for a large chunk of the lower torso, just to prevent the tan hip-joint from looking completely out of place.