Night Stalker Mech

[Photon]

Hey guys…it’s been a while since I’ve shared anything here. My big project this year is my entry for the Original Mecha Contest (OMC). It’s an international online competition to build a “robot” model of your own design. The contest runs from Feb thru Oct., so we’re about at the halfway point. I’ll try to get you up-to-date with my progress over the next few posts.

 

I decided to go all in this year, so I pushed the handful of projects already underway to the side to focus solely on this, with the goal being to motivate myself to grow beyond my current skills. 

 

Going in, I had some very hazy ideas…a sort of crustacean-like thing, armoured on top, with an exposed, mechanical underbelly. I also wanted it to have an absurd sci-fi engine in the rear and be posed in a menacing, crouched pose. So starting with that, I began.

 

For the armoured body, I started with a 1:35 Sheridan tank hull. This was cut in half lengthwise and sort of folded on itself. I glued it back together with a styrene sheet spacer, with the half turret hole now serving as a sort of ‘wheel well’ for the rear legs. This also left a large opening fore and aft for the head and engine, respectively.

 

 

 

 

The torso from a 1/6 Star Wars battle droid seemed to make a good pelvis / leg mount, so I made a styrene spacer that would place the leg attachment points at the center of the opening in the hull. This was mounted to a removable sheet of styrene, the idea being that I could keep all the mechanical underbelly bits separate for ease of assembly and painting until the end, so I could avoid a ship-in-a-bottle situation.

 

 

Next, I started to block out the rear engine, using a variety of parts in different scales. The yellow is a 1:144 Gundam part. The green bit is from a 1:72 Soviet rocket launcher and there are also some 1:35 tractor parts. To add some interest to the Gundam part, I bent up some pipes from some small acrylic rod. I also cut a square opening and inset some detail. 

 

 

 

I sketched a some quickie silhouettes and thought that this one best had the vibe that I was going for. I found that working from a silhouette like this is helpful because it points me the right direction but is open ended enough so I can define the details as I go.

 

 

 

At this point, not much is glued in place. I’m using lots of double-sided tape and poster tack to try things out which is good and bad. I don’t have to commit to anything yet, but the model is constantly falling apart when I handle it.

 

That it for today. I’ll post again soon.

Peter

Edited June 9, 2022 by Photon

[Hunter Rose]

Going to seriously enjoy watching this come together! Being a massive District 9 fan when I read the title I thought maybe you would be making the mech from the movie!

[Photon]

Thanks! The title is kind of lame. Maybe something better will occur to me. 
Thanks for following along.

[Pete in Lincs]

I did wonder where you'd got to. Great to see you back.

Cutting  a tank hull in half. Why didn't I think of that? I may well steal the idea at sometime in the future. Thanks.

Love the engine and the rest of the build is looking interesting too.

A name? Something like Mollustein perhaps?

 

[Photon]

Update 2

The feet were made from some Bandai parts. I have some styrene half pearls from the craft store that fit nicely into the hole in the top of the foot, so I’ll have a sort of pseudo ball and socket joint. The ball won’t be captive, so it will have to be glued once I settle on a pose.

 

 

I got a pair of Tamiya 1/12 motorcycle kits and they have some really useful parts. I stripped the chrome using some cleaner from the dollar store. I used the forks and swing arms (?) in combination with some Gundam joints to make the front arms. The length of the forearm will probably be cut back as I fine tune things. I like the spindly look, but they may need some beefing up. The shoulders are 1/100 Gundam parts that fit like they were made for the job. At the moment the front limbs are completely posable, but will likely get glued at the end.

 

The lower legs were made from more SW battle droid parts. I made them wider by sandwiching some styrene between the half’s. Later, these will get dipped in glue and rolled in kit parts, so to speak, to prove they're from the future.

 

 

 

The head was built up from a variety of bits…part of the 1:72 Mörser Karl rail gun, Gundam bits, craft beads, engine parts, a custom styrene piece, and tank and motorcycle bits. I will also be adding some antenna, but will wait until later because I’ll probably break them.

 

 

To attach the head I used a piece of 1 inch styrene rod left over from another project. It was too short and had some chunks removed so I patched in some scrap pieces and blended it on the lathe.

 

 

 

And here are most of the parts so far. 

 

 

Thanks for tuning in. 

Pete

Edited June 11, 2022 by Photon

[Photon]

3 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I did wonder where you'd got to. Great to see you back.

Cutting  a tank hull in half. Why didn't I think of that? I may well steal the idea at sometime in the future. Thanks.

Love the engine and the rest of the build is looking interesting too.

A name? Something like Mollustein perhaps?

 

Yeah, if I stayed away, it was mostly because I was embarrassed by how many projects I’ve started, but not finished since I was last here.  
I claim no ownership of the split tank hull idea, so feel free to use it however you’d like, no stealing necessary. 
 

Mollustein, huh? I admit it’s better than the dreadful ‘prawn mecha’,  which is all I could think of at the time of posting. 

[voozet]

Great concept and implementation. I really like it although I don't really like prawns 😉 Little paradox.. 

[Photon]

Thanks, Voozet! In the end I suppose it’s more grasshopper-like. But naming stuff is not my strong suit. I probably going to settle on something like Night Stalker Unit or some such. 

[Photon]

Chapter 3

Ok, thanks for following along. Hopefully with this post I can bring everything up-to-date, so apologies if it’s long winded. 

 

The underside of the hull needed some attention. I started by adding some kit parts to the pelvis area. On either side of this I got lucky and found a couple of pieces that would fill in major areas and looked quite bug-like. In the front was a bit that came from one of those Meng cartoon tanks, a Somua S35. (The rest of it is being put to good use on another project. Stay tooned…)

 

 

The piece in the rear is from the Pilgrim Observer Space Station kit (a treasure trove of amazing plastic).  There were a couple gaps on either side that I filled in with some giant exhaust pipes made from tank barrels…it gets weirder and weirder. 

 

 

A gap in the front, behind the ‘neck’, needed something. I made up this array of styrene tubes which I sanded with some paper wrapped around a dowel of the same diameter as the neck. It fit pretty good, but will be a nightmare to paint.

 

 

 

 

For the rear legs, I wanted to have an outer armoured shell and some exposed mechanics on the inside, similar to the hull. The legs were built up from some thick styrene sheets and the inner portion detailed with kit parts. I vacuum-formed the armour pieces over some 3D printed forms. The forms were pretty rough and needed a fair amount of body work. The vacuum formed armour was trimmed and I wrapped the bottom edge with a strand of styrene printer filament to get a beaded detail. This was crudely blended in with some epoxy putty. For the vent louvers, I fit some small styrene shards. This was tedious and difficult, but in the end looked ok. I also added some kit detail to the top as I thought the legs were looking a bit bland.

All this got a thick coat of Tamiya grey putty cut with acetone to give it a heavy cast texture.

 

 

 

 

 

The lower legs got busied up with more kit detail and I made some knee armour, cut from a couple plastic take away spoons. These were also stippled with thinned Tamiya putty.

 

 

 

 

I thought I might like to have a figure with this to show scale and add a bit of story, so I picked up a Tamiya German infantryman. I replaced his head with a 3mm ball from a Bandai kit, so I could try out some different head ideas. He needs a lot more work, but I did make a weapon for him that I’m happy with. A sort of directed energy weapon. I call it Spiny Norman.

 

(can't decide on which head to use. I do like the shoulder pads mad from 1:72 fenders. this gun didn't make the cut)

 

 

 

Spiny Norman

whew, I guess that does it for now. Thanks so much for any interest.

 

Pete

[Hunter Rose]

Great and very detailed work Pete! Very impressive so far, and for me the first head is way better than the second. 

Second one looks a bit too plain and generic Sci fi I think, and the first one has a lot more visual interest and suits the cool spiny Norman better.

[Photon]

Thanks. Yeah, I like the first head as well, I just worry it’s too recognizable, since I just nicked it from a Bandai kit.

[Pete in Lincs]

5 hours ago, Photon said:

since I just nicked it from a Bandai kit.

Bandai kits, just lying around, tsk. They've only got themselves to blame. Plastic shapes to die for!

I like both heads, and spiny Norman too. A sort of Cyborg Hedgehog* Panzerfaust.

The legs look great and remind me that I still need to build the 1/35th walker I intended to build about five years ago!

But, you know how it is with scratchbuilding. Ideas keep popping up, before you know it, something totally different is on the bench.

 

* I don't think you have them over there. Think small Porcupine.

[Photon]

No hedgehogs here, unfortunately. They're really cute.  

Yes, its hard to slow the flow of ideas. Its always a temptation to let some random idea divert us from the project at hand. 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

'He nailed my head to a coffee table'

[Alan R]

22 hours ago, Photon said:

That looks lethal, possibly to the operator as well!!!

 

[Photon]

Was going to mention Chief Inspector Harry "Snapper" Organs, but thought it might be better to steer this boat back on course.

 

Spent the morning making hands. Here it is in Dead Bug Pose. Things are still too flippy-floppy to stand on their own. Hopefully glue will save the day.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by Photon

[Photon]

I added some to details to the arms, which were built up from some 1/12 Tamiya motorcycle parts and Bandai elbow joints. I used styrene tubing to add a little bulk since the forearms were a bit too thin. I will add some more greebles and attachment points for some dangly hoses. For the hands, I started with some SW Battle Droid fingers and made the thumbs and palm from some styrene. The back of the hand is another motorcycle bit.

 

 

I also worked a bit on the engine area. Its starting to approach the levels of absurdity that I was hoping for. A pair of droopy hoses will connect from the light blue pieces and attach to the white tubes on either side. I'll use some ribbed window screen spline for this. It has a small hole down the center that will accept a thin wire to help it hold the pose.

 

 

 

I expect that I'll continue to add smaller details here and there to the engine. There's a hole on the side of the bottom finned motorcycle motor that will need to be dealt with. 

 

Here's a look at the overall model. I'm getting close to spraying some primer, but first there are a bunch a little details and small fixes to add. I also have some ambitious ideas for a base.

 

 

Weekend is here so another update may drop soon. Thanks again for any interest.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Photon
Spelling

[Hunter Rose]

That's really starting to take shape! The legs are very impressive 

[Photon]

Well, its been a while. I've been working on this fairly steadily, but forgot to keep this up to date.

 

I had several plastic failures in places where I had used some Bandai sprue as rod. The sprue had a diameter of 3mm, so if was a good fit for the application, but over time it just crumbled and fell apart. Unfortunately it was at the connection points of the hip joints, lower legs, and arms. Here's a photo showing the strange porous texture of the sprue at the failure points. 

 

 

So the repair involved drilling out the sprue and replacing it with some brass rod, and in the case of the hips, aluminum wire, so I could pose the model. Then I used a high tensile strength epoxy made for plastic, to reinforce the hip joints.

 

It stands again.....

 

 

I also added some more detail to the top of the hull, including some pipes bent up from styrene rod.

 

 

The head also got some minor final details added. I don't remember what they were, but trust me, they're there.

 

 

At this point I decided it was time to start painting. I sprayed everything with some grey Tamiya primer from a spray can.

 

 

 

 

I then sprayed black over the whole model. Over this I sprayed a swampy, khaki/green mix in a mottled pattern, allowing the opacity to vary which yielded some nice subtle color variation.

 

 

Chips were painted in acrylic with a fine brush and a pin wash was added to help punch some of the details.

 

 

 

 

I decided I wanted to change the scale of the model from 1/16 to 1/35, so the figure had to go.

 

I also decided to build a display base. This was meant to be a stylized industrial setting, but not a diorama. I blocked the shape out with some insulation foam from the hardware store and gave it a coat of plaster to simulate a concrete texture.

 

 

 

I also built an air duct that would run down the side and under the floor. This was made from plastic card and some 3D printed elbows.

 

 

 

 

Finally, I made a weird machine to put under the floor on the opposite side. A sort of pump? 
 

 

I hope to run some additional pipes from this that will be suspended under the floor, somehow. I've also begun building some hangers for the duct work. Because both the foam base and duct are slightly out of square in various ways, this has proven to be a chore.

 

 

The floor was made from foam board sandwiched between 2 thick sheets of plastic card. Some lines were scribed and the whole thing was painted a mottled blue grey over a black under coat. I also added a floor grate that will hopefully line up with the termination of the duct under the floor.

 

The concrete and floor will now need some weathering. I'll also probably stencil some lines or graphics on the floor. Hopefully I can install the duct okay. Things are slightly wonky. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Photon

[voozet]

It looks phenomenal. The rescaling decision was good in my opinion. The pose in which the mecha stands suggests a subjection to man, and the difference in size only intensifies this impression and adds drama to the whole scene

[Photon]

Thanks, Voozet!

I hope to finish this soon. I will post progress here.

Pete

[Hunter Rose]

Wow, that's a heck of an update!

Really like the mottled colour of the mech, and the base and details for it are amazing, love the ducting! 

[Photon]

Thank you. I’ve been working hard…sorry not to update sooner.

 

[Pete in Lincs]

31 minutes ago, Photon said:

sorry not to update sooner.

It was well worth the wait. I think the word I'm looking for is, superb. Great parts choices and paint. The base is coming along well too.

Does it need (to carry on the Prawn analogy) antennae? Guitar wire with a bead on the end?

[Photon]

Thanks, Pete. I think I’m done gluing stuff to it for now. I’ve got to get that base sorted.