Darth Model
After the realization that your model kit is just awful and that millions of other people in the world are going to assemble it following servilely the same instructions, be brave, give up your laziness, take in your hands a razor saw and and start doing it.
The first step is to take a white sheet, memorize the technical features of the model you are building, and draw it all again following your vision.
This means that if you want to create a really fearsome war machine, in your drawing you must control perspectives and proportions, in order to give an impression of grandeur and "meaness". Of course a war machine is "mean" if it's fearsome!!! After this step, you will see that the model pictured on the box has been "translated" by your fantasy in something different.
A few infidels say that there's no use for perspective in 3D objects, because it's the observer point of view that creates it.
Blasphemy!
In a 1/1 scale they would be right, but a higher scale means a different point of view for the observer of the model in comparison with the observer of the real object. This means that, as in a drawing you represent a perspective to recreate the observer's point of view, in a model you create a perspective to give it more realism.
If you are making a model of an 18 meters tall brute, you should feel like the poor sod looking up, scared to death of being squished like an ant on a white marble floor.
My idea is to recreate the same perspective conditions to have the same kind of emotional reaction in the observer (post-modern model making!?!).
Take your razor saw and get started.
The razor saw is you first tool.
So now you have just made a comparison between your drawing and the building instructions of your kit and... you really went too far!!!!!
It would be easier to change water in wine than to transform that Bandai kit in what you have imagined!!!
Wait for about a minute, when you'll feel frustration and listlessness. Then, having won your sluggishness and laziness, start to rationalize.
First of all you must realize that it can "go badly", but it will be an experience anyway... moreover, you'll NEVER throw away the broken parts, someday they will be useful!!!!
Now you are ready... some music in your stereo and go!
a) PROJECT YOUR CUTS: every modifications needs some planning, otherwise you'll cut here and there without knowing why. I suggest using to their maximum the edges of the parts, meaning that, if you want to reduce a head, you'll start to file the internal edges. To file a surface with many faces, you should use wet sandpaper, put it down on the table and rub on it the part to file until it's levelled.
When you need to do some cuts, take a pencil, draw on the part the cutting line and then use the razor saw. You can use sandpaper to correct any defect.
b) BEHOLD WHAT YOU HAVE DONE: in fact you model kit is hollow and only after the cutting you'll know what will be visible and what not. It's very common that, when you cut off a skirt to make it mobile, the support for the legs disappears!!!!! In this case, you must recreate it with plasticard and/or putty.
It's in this phase that many people give up.
In theory it's all very simple: cutting, putting the new joints in place and everything is done... but now instead I need to reconstruct, to fill up what's hollow.
If your desire to finish the model is stronger than your wish to give up, hoping for the next High Grade kit, you can go on.
Next: "The plasticard and me!"