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Drone Sniper resin figure


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Hi folks,

I figured I should stop ogling the Industria Mechanika kits and actually build some of them :) I've been cleaning up the Fichtenfish but I wanted to have a go at the sniper when it appeared since it's big and cool and an antidote to this fiddly 1/144 scale hovercraft I've been building.

I'm a total resin novice, I've used a couple of resin aftermarket parts but that's it, so please point and laugh or suggest things to save me from my own stupidity according to taste :)

I started by soaking the bits in warm soapy water, scrubbed them with an old toothbrush and rinsed them off. They smelled a bit like lacquer thinner in the box, now they don't, so hopefully I got the mould release off?

First impressions are pretty good - with the pour plugs removed you can dry fit the legs, lower and upper body and he'll stand up on his own two feet without the base. Which means the pose really is as natural as it looks - nice :)

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I did some more clean up and put the major bits together with 5 minute epoxy, using the base as a work stand. He's pretty big - would make a good Eva :)

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There was one difficult mould line on the back of the left calf - the right one is fine, the left one had a step which goes right through the socket. I've made some progress on cleaning it but there's still more material to remove/fill. Those hamstrings are cool though.

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I also put the two main gun components together - had to adjust the slides on the sprung part of the stock, and I also broke the lower spring guard which is very delicate, but it was easy to repair. I'll leave the spring out for now since it can just pop in the guard later. The gun is a little bit soft in detail, so I scribed some of the concave angles to sharpen them up a bit, and I've tried to do all the clean-up with a file to get lots of hard edges. There's a mould line running through the ridges on the top of the body which will be a bugger to clean up properly, I suspect it's better to ignore that one, or remove them completely?

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I really like the sight, I haven't messed with that at all apart from paring down the hood over the optics to get a thinner edge.

Oh - there's a long barrel and one of those boxy muzzle brakes, but there's no point fitting that now since I'd only break it :) I suspect I'll replace the resin barrel with metal tube anyway.

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As you can see the gun comes to hand nicely - no issues with fit, both hands grip where/what they should. I think the clip is really a bit close to the torso and hips though, it's not a big issue but since I'm wondering about making the gun a little bit more sci-fi (different muzzle + barrel - maybe suggesting it's somehow a coil gun?) I could remove the clip, or most of it, and have an energy hose from one of the sockets on the drone's back?

So primer and more cleanup next. I also have some big unanswered questions, like how to paint it, and can I light it? For the light, the head is really small so the only options I can think of would be:

a) Drill out the eyes and run optical fibre through to the channel on the back of the head, and have an SMD LED there, or curve the fibre around into the body or a backpack somehow? Like predator dreads :) I really don't want to be hollowing out the body though - too much chance to stuff it up and the surface is too smooth to spoil. I also can't see how to run the wires to the base without drilling out everything which would imply some kind of button cell in a backpack?

B) Have an opaque visor over the eyes, with an LED glow behind it? Same issues with the wires, but it could work.

On the paint front, I'm not sure whether to go metallic (like the Geth) or something more like District 9/Chris Cunningham/Cerberus armour from Mass Effect - lots of hard white plates with orange or red contrast and black/metallic detail underneath. I really like the idea of hard white, but looking at the figure in close-up there's a lot of what looks like moving "musculature" and maybe less plating than I thought.

I'm also not sure how either of these would gel with weathering - I quite like the idea of a clean and shiny robo-soldier in a dusty derelict environment, but that would need a soft touch on the weathering and not give me anywhere to hide with the paint job...

I suspect there's a lot of masking in my future :) Apologies for rambling, hope I can keep some momentum going on this one since it feels like I've been doing military stuff for ages now.

Cheers,

Will

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Hmm...interesting Will - that looks a bit intimidating! Also that's a pretty good website too! Looking forward to see you weave your magic with this one

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that's really quite a cool looking figure. I'm generally not to into figures, but I like this one. It has a certain Star Wars Clone look about it - maybe that's just me though.

Is the bottom of the scope broken or is that how it's moulded? Either way, it certainly looks cool

Got any ideas on what paint scheme your going to drop on it? I was looking at it thinking it would look cool in some kind of artic splinter camo, but I have no idea on what it's supposed to look like..

Look forward to seeing how you go with this. Might even have to pick one up myself. I tried the link, but my AV software is cracking it and refusing to let me on. I think I need to reboot....

MH

edit: OK, so I finally got into the site and there is some sick stuff in there! I love the L'Estafette myself. Might have to buy that.

Edited by Madhatter
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Thanks chaps, it is a bit intimidating to do something all in resin, but there's so much cool stuff out there and the IM kits are generally really nice castings - no warping, no pinholes etc.

The nice thing is that it's nearly all built now, so it's just an exercise in painting. I've been going through the District 9 book and I'm really tempted by the look of their weapons and suits, Mass Effect book next.

edit: OK, so I finally got into the site and there is some sick stuff in there! I love the L'Estafette myself. Might have to buy that.

The ones that drew me in are the kits of Ian McQue's airships - so cool. There's also this fabulous figure coming soon:

http://industriamechanika.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=42

but he looks rather tricky!

Will

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The ones that drew me in are the kits of Ian McQue's airships - so cool.

Agreed Will - looks ace!

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Lookin' good there Will, it looks like his body was styled off a folded Ordnance Survey map with all those layers to his armour suit! Impressive size, you should be able to do serious justice to this piece.

Colin

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I have to admit that I've been drooling over some of the stuff on their website for a while now. I've been tempted to order a couple of goodies over the last few months, but so far I've resisted the urges.

I'll keep an interested eye on your build though. ;)

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Thanks for the interest folks, I primed things to see how I was going, then cleaned up some more seams (smaller ones) that I hadn't spotted, and did a little filling around joints. I'd not been too careful cleaning up the ends of the pins I think, and when primed it looked like a little CA to close the gaps would be a good thing. Then more primer:

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I think the surface texture might preclude my gloss white plans - I think what I'll do is use liquid surface primer on the chestplate and head and get those really smooth, and have everything else non-gloss. Still not sure about this - I found one of the original renders and it does look cool a bit battered :) I've also been going through the D9 art book looking for ideas.

(The surface texture may come from the way the masters are created (3D printed) - it looks cool in close-up, it's just not F1 car smooth...)

I know this is a little off topic, but if you like Ian McQues stuff, have a look at this - it's unreal!:

That's terrific, I really like the deep green ship in the concept art and this really captures it. Thanks for the link :)

Will

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Yes it would :evil: I also went back and watched Tetra Vaal, and I'm now watching D9 :)

I notice that the white in D9 is at most an eggshell, and often closer to matt white. Which might make my life much easier. Same in Tetra Vaal, although I assume that was because it's easy to get good image-based lighting results with diffuse surfaces since you don't need to capture such complex light probes? Certainly back when it was made it'd have helped.

In the meantime I've been doing some work on the gun. I've filled the slide thing (the bit where the bolt is) partly because it was very slightly wonky and I didn't manage to straighten it, but mostly because an energy gun shouldn't have a slide :) It also gives a nice flat surface for some decals or other paintwork. I've nearly got it smooth/flat although it's messed up the plate which wraps around the back of the main body, I might need to build that up again.

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I've also removed the clip (no bullets now) and replaced it with a ball joint from Bandai's builder's parts, on which I can clip the little D9-style cylindrical energy cell/thingy, also made from Bandai bits. It fouls the pelvis, or it would if the ball joint didn't let me move it out of the way :)

I was considering shortening the barrel or maybe even leaving it off, but popping the kit barrel in place the whole figure does look a lot more balanced. I need to find some 2.5mm tube, I only have sizes up to 2mm, or some 1/8" brass tube which is a bit too big.

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I'm enjoying this, it's much less fussy (in terms of "accuracy") than the military stuff although I enjoy that too. Bit it's been ages since I was able to dig out a load of bits and see which ones I liked the look of.

W

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Totally agree about the Legion resemblance - maybe I should drill a massive hole in the chest??

I found where I'd put my brass tube (it was in the Yamato box) so I was able to make a barrel today from some K&S tube which is just shy of 2.5mm OD. I opted to add a bit of interest with a sort of barrel support/rail thing after looking at some pictures of the AS-50 rifle. The white plastic which mounts the rail is actually a kit part - one of the more fragile resin bits was taped to a big square of styrene :)

I also managed to break the kit bipod, and since I was interested in having an open one (nice angles) I built new legs with brass wire, steel tube and some universal joints from a LAV for the feet. I used the kit elbows and pinned everything together to get it solid.

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Instead of a muzzle brake I've added a silencer made from a bit of random Tamiya acrylic tube. It was too big so I wrapped the end of the barrel in Tamiya tape - truly the VAZ of the modelling world - and filled the gap with thick CA. I was thinking about a more futuristic "end effector" but ultimately decided against it - small changes are probably better than big ones.

Once I'd got this far I went and looked at some more reference and the bipod had to go - the junction was a bit clunky (I didn't choose a good spare part for the middle between the elbows) and the legs are too long. I made a new one using bent steel tube slipped into a sleeve at the top, and found a great little pivot clip part to make the middle. Some cable insulation helps to disguise the fact that the elbows can't be folded. Plus I found some spikes for the feet:

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Lastly I had to make a new trigger guard since I broke the nice resin one - I don't think clumsy people like me should be allowed to play with nice things :( At least it'll protect the resin trigger!

The replacement is filed down from brass wire to get a square (ish) section. One of these days I'm doing to have to get a vice for this sort of thing...

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I wiped down the metal bits with lacquer thinner and then primed everything. It's not immaculate (escaped glue) but you get the idea:

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I think I'm going to give up on the lighting, I can't see a way to do it well without covering up robot details which I really like. So it's painting next if I can figure out how to approach it. Not sure whether to brush paint or airbrush, or a combination of the two.

Will

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I actually prefer your gun to the kit one - it looks so much more menacing! Nice work on that! Very inventive

The more I watch this, the more I am tempted to buy it, but knowing me, I wouldn't be able to pull off modifying that rifle nearly as neatly as that.

The legs are a nice, authentic touch too.

Looking forward to seeing this with some paint on it.

It's a slight shame that the body and head are a single piece (or at least that's how it looks) because I keep thinking how cool it would be to stick some fiber optics into the eyes and have them shine blue.

yes, I know - I really need to get out more... lol

MH

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Thanks for the comments, I bet you'd do a great job looking at your uber-close-up detail work.

The head is separate, but it's small so I'm not sure how you'd light it. I guess if I'd hollowed out the upper body from below I could've drilled down into the cavity from above? I can't see a good way to run the wiring down to the feet though. There's some musing about lighting in my original post but it's near the bottom. Any tips or suggestions?

W

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That's good to know (about the head). As for hiding the cables, well, you could scratch up some kind of small back pack style external extremity to house the battery in. You could disguise the power cables as external wiring or hydrological cables maybe?

But that might take away from the sleek styling of the figure.

I take it then that each leg part is also separate, which is good, because you could drill straight through the middle of each section and thread the wires up though to the head, completely hiding the wires. You could use wire wrapping cable (uber thin but conducts electricity extremely well), so the hole wouldn't need to be that big - therefore, not compromising on structural integrity.

As for space in the head, you could use a blue SMD LED to save on space and make a really small light box (say, 2.5 mm square - depending on the diameter of the fiber optic cable you use).

That's what I would look at doing anyway

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WOW! Now that is some crazy looking figure! Where did you find that? - Hi Will, just went back and reread the earlier post. :whistle:

This guy does some amazing pieces! The work you have done so far is great.

Cheers,

Edited by Screech
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OMG - I am such a retard sometimes. I just re-read your first post and I have given you the same suggestions as you had mentioned, so I'm not much help there really - sorry.

However, IMO, the drilling out with a thin bit would be the easiest way to completely hide the wires without holowing out the structure, but if it's already assembled, then that won't be an option.

I'll muse over it, but I am sure you will think of something before me.

Best regards

MH

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I don't reckon you need lights......Snipers with lights on 'em wouldn't last very long. :nerd:

A chameleon camo scheme would be cool.....Maybe you could extend the groundwork paintjob up onto the figure itself, perhaps blending into some really shiny Alclad? :shrug:

Just a thought, all the best

Andy S.

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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Yeah but robots with glowy eyes are scientifically proven to be 50% cooler than those without. FACT.

:devil:

I looked up some button cell sizes/voltages and I have a couple of ideas for a slimline backpack or similar slung over one shoulder which would maybe work. I was thinking that some stowage or webbing would be a good addition, so it all sort of fits. If it was slung over the left shoulder the wires could enter there through a tiny hole under/behind the shoulder strap and come out into a cavity drilled down from the neck.

I like the chameleon paint idea, would look ace standing against a wall, like Robert Downey Jr. in the second of the new Holmes movies. Not sure my skills are up to it though!

Will

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whilst they are not the same subject matter, maybe some of these may help you with a design idea:

http://www.plamocon.com/uploads/gallery/album_27558/gallery_506_7095_1333602053_27162.1bd26eb8-fc67-11df-bf83-8dac771e52ff-o.jpg

http://therockingcomedyshow.com/images/ghostbusters-proton-backpack.jpg

http://www.outdoorgearclub.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/c7c1bd956198338783e88dca21f72f91/A/S/AS2690_1.jpg

I added the ghost busters Proton pack because I've always thought it looked pretty cool in it's own right, but also because it shows you how you can blend functioning wires into a design of sorts.

Anyway, hope it's of some help.

MH

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Thanks for those. The last one is the kind of thing - I don't want something which covers up the back detail which leaves the first two out. But I think it'll be smaller and have a hard, scuffed surface - think either a slim cylinder or rectangle, either as a bum bag or slung over one shoulder like that last one.

I'll see if I can find some small cells and a blue LED.

Will

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I can give you a pre-wired, 2mm bright white SMD LED. All you need to do is dip it into clear blue paint and then you have a blue one. You could even dip it into both blue and green to give you an aqua blue like I did with my Venator. Works really well

PM me your address and I'll mail you one in the morning

MH

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