Photon

Looking forward to this one. I’ve always really liked the Falke. I believe the car used on Kow’s original was a Toyota S800. Not sure if that kit is still in production.* I saw a cool variant some time ago using Shawnee Flying Bananas for the booms. I’d like to give that a try one day. It looked pretty crazy. Nice start, Pete. Will be following along. *it is. Fujimi makes one.

Thanks everybody. I really appreciate it.

Finally got this painted up and weathered. Thanks to everyone who followed along and offered encouragement. I really appreciate it. This was painted with Mission Model acrylics and weathered with oils and enamels. There's a fine line between too much and way too much. Not sure where I landed. In any case, this was really fun to build. Thanks again for tuning in.

Thanks, guys Weathering continues. Here's sneak preview. Hopefully, I'll be done by the weekend. For these, I basecoated with $3 hardware store spray paint, in this case Rustoleum Satin 'Expresso', which is a nice deep brown color, as you might imagine. Hairspray over that, then sprayed white acrylic. Masked with Tamiya tape, then sprayed the red and black. Let the paint dry long enough to clean my airbrush, then started chipping straight away. Again, the streaks are artifacts from the chipping process that I manipulated to look streaky rain marks. The rust is enamel (Light Rust Wash by Ammo/Mig*). I just dabbed it around bolts etc, then pulled it down with a small flat brush ever so lightly dampened with odorless thinners. * amazing product. highly recommended

I’m really loving these! I been seeing a lot of Japanese modelers bashing similar “single pilot/open cockpit” walkers on Twitter lately. You’ve definitely tapped into the zeitgeist. Your diorama/ base is looking great too and really going to put this over the top. Excellent work.

A quick update. After much trepidation, I finally started painting. I have a ways to go, but so far I am encouraged. This is my first attempt at hairspray chipping and first time using Mission Model paint. So far I am loving both. The mission model paint is so much easier to work with than the Vallejo Model Air that I was using earlier. The mottled/distressed finish is just a result of redistributing the paint that was coming off during the chipping process. I love a free lunch. I haven't even started the weathering yet. This is just the base coat. I will be following with the usual oil paint filters and washes. More soon...

Yes, I had read that the Venus suit was made from two of the very kit that I built. It’s really cool. Now that I’ve handled the parts, it’s really obvious where all bits came from.

Thanks. I believe the Ayoshima kits are reissues using the same ‘83 tooling, with Mokoto Kobayashi art on the box. Here’s a link to the Hyper Dorvack document: http://www.zimmerit.moe/hyper-dorvack-document-makoto-kobayashi/ All in all, I would say get one if you find it really cheap (like 8 bucks at the charity shop cheap), But don’t spend any real money on them. For what I paid for this kit, I practically could have bought a Wave 1/20 Kit and had a much more pleasant time putting it together. spread the weird

Thanks, Pete. Always appreciated! Yeah, a cattle prod. I thought making it really long might give him a wizard or sage like look, too. Which is a bit weird, I know. Since you'll be away, here are a couple more photos I just took, as I got a coat of primer on things. We're getting really close to the part where I don't work on it for a month, because I can't decide how I'll paint it...

I was recently invited to participate in a group build over on Instagram. The subject is a series of model kits based on “Special Armored Battalion Dorvack” (an obscure 1983 anime series that ran for a year in Japan). I was completely unaware of the series and not particularly psyched to participate, as it was bit outside my interests and comfort zone. But refusing the invitation seemed impolite and it might be an opportunity to do something a bit different. Plus, in addition to the (boring to me) transformer type robots, the show featured armoured powersuits in the Ma.k vein. So I decided to give it a go. The kits were produced by the Gunze Sangyo company, best known today for their Mr. Hobby line of paints. The show and kits weren’t all that popular, so Gunze brought in manga artist and scratch builder Mokoto Kobayashi to build some customized versions of the kits for a promotional brochure called “Hyper Dorvack Document“ to be distributed to the shops to generate some excitement. Mokoto Kobayashi had then just recently worked with Kow Yokoyama on Hobby Japan’s SF3d series (SF3d would eventually be known as Maschinen Krieger). So here's the kit I was able to get on Ebay. Mine is the blue variant on the right. The kit is extremely basic and ill-fitting. Every part is split down the middle and many don't even have any registration pins to align the parts during assembly. The sheer amount of effort I had to put in patching seam lines definitely sucked a lot of creative energy that would have been better spent elsewhere. That said, I was determined to make the best of it. I wanted to build it in the more gritty, realistic style that Kobayashi used for the Hyper Document, making it more akin to the suits in the MA.k universe. I sculpted in some wrinkles behind the knees to represent a rubber {or leather?) flexure using epoxy putty. I wanted to add some hoses going from the backpack to the legs, so I needed to add some attachment points. Here I used a pony bead (graciously donated by my daughter), a faux pearl 1/2 sphere and some tubing to rough out the shape. Then I blended between them with putty. Similarly for the upper attachments: I decided to use the kits upper arm as the forearm and replace the upper arm all together. My goal was to make the arms much longer, giving it a slightly ape-like aspect. Here's the new upper arm ( a Gundam option part). I used a larger styrene 1/2 pearl as the pivot point and grafted on the kits original shoulder attachment. This was blended in with more putty. The hollow sections on the back of the arms were filled in with scrap styrene and kit parts. I didn't want to have the usual 'gun-hand', so I came up with a sort of 'high voltage discharge staff, cobbled together from some Evergreen tubes and kit parts. More soon. Thanks for any interest.

Some may have noticed that I am a S L O W modeler, with some of my projects taking up to a year and a half to complete. One of the downsides to this is I don't get much practice painting, which I see as my biggest weakness. So when I finish a model and it's time to paint it, its been 1.5 yrs since my last attempt. Not a great way to make incremental improvement. This has been bothering me a bit, so I decided to try and intersperse my bigger projects with quicker, built-over-a-weekend type projects that are more spontaneous and get me trying out some different paint techniques more regularly. So here's the first in what I hope will be a series of quickie scratch builds. For this one, I wanted to do a sort of space probe or satellite in the Ma.K style. I did a couple of sketches and I thought this one had some potential. For the bottom sphere, I used an acrylic Christmas bauble. For the top dome section, I printed it in polystyrene filament on my cheapo 3D printer. This is something I hope to do more of, going forward. I was able to go from my sketch-->to computer-->to holding it in my hand in a matter of hours. My printer isn't great for highly detailed stuff, but it can print styrene so it's perfect for quickly building up structural shapes that can be easily detailed with kit parts. I printed the dome in two sections. Once it was finished, I glued them together and gave it a rough sanding to remove layer lines. I then applied Tamiya putty to give it a heavy cast texture. I know satellites are built as lightweight as possible, so making this one look like it was cast in iron is completely absurd and really appeals to me. To make the transition between the two shapes, I used this plastic part that I've been dying to use for ages. The paper towel dispensers where I work use these plastic inserts inside the cardboard tube ends to secure the towels inside the dispenser. Every time I change the roll, I grab the little insert. I thought it had potential for future model use and as luck would have it, it's made of polystyrene. I still have a bunch left over for future models. I sanded the tines to match the contour of the sphere by wrapping a narrow strip of sandpaper over the sphere and sanding two opposing tines in turn. Then I just rotated it to do the next pair and so on. A styrene tube down the center, is what registers all the parts together. I also adapted this tube to receive a 3mm brass tube to support the model for display. The sphere got the same Tamiya putty texture applied with a piece of sponge. All that was really left to do was add some detail with kit parts.... So this came together quickly over a couple afternoons, which is pretty huge for me. Working fast and carefree without agonizing over every detail was very liberating. I think this will be a fun model to paint and practice chipping and rust techniques on in preparation for painting my Ian McQue flying truck. thanks for looking. Pete

Thanks, Pete. Those are all great ideas. I am planning to add ladders and handles. I was waiting because they are delicate & I am not...I just recently broke the window on the other side. Now both side windows are missing. I guess it just became a hot summer day in flying truck land. I think adding more camera domes is a good idea. I’ll see what I can knock together.

Alright. I finally got some bench time squeezed in on this guy. First up are the twin loudspeaker horns on the top. I 3D printed them in styrene. They looked really deformed and needed a ton of sanding and filling. They still look a bit catawampus, but I figure if I paint enough rust on them, everything will be okay (modelers mantra). The're glued to a rack made from some kit parts. I'm thinking of adding a couple of revolving beacons on either side. The front end of the craft was looking pretty barren. I thought it needed a bit of sci-fi tech to smarten it up. This is supposed to be some kind of infra red camera (I guess?). It came together fairly quickly from an assortment of kit parts. A bit of white primer to make sure everything's cohesive. The lens is from a bag of polystyrene half domes sold as fake pearls. A bag of 500 in 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, & 12mm sizes was only $4. They glue readily with Tamiya cement. Expect to see them encrusting everything I build, moving forward. Some more bolt heads (Meng brand) were glued on the lower side. These things are really tiny. I typically lose two for every one that I manage to get attached. Next up is the front stabilizer. Sheet styrene, more Meng bolt heads, and some kit parts. I had wanted this to be removable (like the other stabilizers) for easier painting. However, due to the weird angles and the fragility of the parts, it wound up being easier to build it in place (ie. it's glued on). Some really dubious mechanics going on there...don’t look too close. So we are getting near the homestretch. I think I have what I need to paint and weather this as planned. At least I hope I do, as all the local shops are closed indefinitely. Thanks for checking in. I hope everyone is well and braving these rather surreal times.

Sad news. I just read that legendary model maker Bill Pearson has passed away. Bill worked on ‘Alien’, ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘Outland’, 'Lost In Space', 'Battlefield Earth', 'Thunderbirds The Movie', 'Alien Vs Predator', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', 'Casino Royale', 'Moon', 'Gravity', 'Prometheus', and many Sci-Fi TV shows like Dr.Who, Tenko, Blake's 7, Horizon, Squadron, Shackleton, Red Dwarf Series' 4, 8 9, 10 & 11, and Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct. Here's an interview with Bill about working on Alien and Flash Gordon:

I was always told that you couldn’t make a silk purse of a sows ear, but you’ve proved them wrong. Great work.

Just about done... Some small details to add, maybe another weathering pass and then bodge together some kind of display case. I'm pleased with how it came together. My only regret is allowing a few problems along the way grind me to a halt. Here's the original Ron Cobb drawing: Thanks for your patience and continued interest. I feel bad the build was so protracted. I have a couple model ideas I'm dying to get stared on. Watch this space... Peter

Excellent! I love it.

Yes, my hand is feeling much better. Thanks! I’ve not worked on this since my last post except to start to plan out the paint job. Shameful. I have been working on the Nostromo Airlock a bit and should have a update soon. But truthfully the main reason is, some kits I had ordered from Japan for a future project finally arrived and I admit that I’ve been mucking around with them instead of focusing on all the outstanding stuff piled everywhere. ADHD is for real, man. My projects seem to start out with an explosion of enthusiasm that gradually tapers off the closer I get to finishing, then it’s all I can do to keep from getting caught up in a new project. Thanks for the friendly prod. I’m going downstairs right now and putting the new kits in a closet....

Ok...it's been a while. Sorry 'bout that. I haven't been at the bench as often as I'd like. I’ve developed a bit of tendonitis in my hand from work and haven’t been able to put the hours in. The top round radar shroud (?) was made from two Tamiya Flakvierling 38 fenders glued together and a styrene disc to fill the hole in the center. It sits in the recess where a hatch was meant to go. I added a rolled steel texture to the lower half of the ship using Tamiya putty thinned with a bit of acetone. I also scribed some flame cut marks into the edges of the styrene and scribed a groove that I hope to add some weld beads to. My hope is it will help to give a rough hewn look and up the McQue factor a bit. You can also see that I drilled some small holes below where the cab will be for some ladder rungs. I'm still undecided if they'll make the cut. Here you can see I've added more details to the lower hull. The electrical lines are solid-core wires meant for electronics bread-boarding. They're stuck down with superglue and a small bits of aluminum tape. Next up are the two front stabilizers on the bottom of the ship. This was one of those magic scratch building moments, where I agonized for weeks time about how I was going to make these and then today I pulled some parts from 4 different kits and they all fit perfectly. These came together in a few minutes. (I probably should fill those ejector pin marks...) Here they are in place: that's all for now. Thanks for looking in.

Great work, Pete. The spoons were a great idea. Curious to see how the drop tank looks. I still am anxious to try the MaK style myself, but first I’ve got a few things to finish. I often look to Japanese sci-fi modelers for inspiration and the technique of glueing lots of disparate bits together and then blending with putty is really cool and effective. yeah, 70s/80’s sci-fi paperback covers rule. I really dig Chris Foss. Also check out John Berkey and Peter Elson. While their names may not be immediately familiar, the paintings will be. Very Awesome.

This just arrived today...

Got mine today.

Thanks for the kind words. -Peter