This is a kit that I wish I had taken better documentation of. I got this on eBay, and the kit had been partially started. It appears to have been started by a kid with just a tube of the orange model glue that only leads to tears and ugliness. Parts were jammed together weird, parts that were supposed to move were glued in place incorrectly, etc. I can only say that it was okay because I got a good deal on him.
Here he is just after initially painting him. I had done a black pre-shading prior. This is more subtle than the movie version, but I think it looks better in normal lights. The movie Max was usually in dim settings where the contrast had to be more pronounced.

The holes at the front of his hips are meant to be laser cannons. For the longest time, I thought he had guns there from a scene towards the end of the movie. On a later watching on Blu-Ray though, I saw that it was just another set of arms with the guns. I’m not going to change it though. I like the idea of having guns ready even if his blade arms are deployed.

The clear part for his eye was smeared with glue, so I had to make a new one. I used some thin petg sheet with a layer of regular red paint behind it. The paint is thin enough to let light through, but I didn’t want it visible into Max’s empty noggin.
The only light is his eyes, so that was done with a simple LED candle from the dollar store. This is the kind that is just on and not flickering, so it’s a nice self-contained light. I painted the outer clear flame part with Tamiya clear red to make sure it was nice and vibrant.

The arms are held on with rare earth magnets at the shoulder where they rotate. That allows me to rotate them, and remove them for transport since they are so fragile. I had to scratch build a couple of the arms as the originals were too much of a mess. The claw hands also have tiny bearings in them allowing them to spin around. Nothing is motorized, but I can spin them by hand. All of the arm joints are also movable. I need to see if I can make the joints firmer though, as they tend to droop after a bit.

Then I made him a new stand. The one that came with him is the red diamond that is in the first photos after painting. I wanted something more sturdy as Max is a rather heavy boy. I took a piece of wood and epoxied it to a steel bookend I had. I drilled a hole in the wood for the stock wire that came with him and then glued that is place. After I painted it all black, it was a sturdy support that didn’t detract from Max’s sparkling personality.

The original base found new life with the Space Battleship Yamato Egg model I built later.