Mechabot: A Hero Reforged is an original IP vinyl toy designed by Go Hero. In the realm of designer vinyl toys, most are either made by pretentious twits, hideously ugly, or some combination therein. Mechabot bucks against this model, and is a gorgeous vinyl beast with great articulation and a stellar design. Out of the bag, Mechabot is a bit plain, and after playing with mine for a few days, I figured I could without too much fuss spruce him up a bit and make it look like Mechabot had seen his fair share of battles without being too overwhelming. I used a combination of paint chipping effects and a lot of subtle oil colors on the silver to add surface texture and variation to the armor, and a mix of finishes (gloss, satin, matte) to tie all the details together. This is a just a teaser shot, as I was unhappy with the table reflection the silver picked up in the rest of my photo shoot.
Archive for the ‘Mecha’ Category
Mechabot: A Hero Reforged Vinyl Custom Teaser Leave a comment
Some Vintage Toy Shots Leave a comment
Just a couple shots… Popy Chogokin Space Sheriff Sharivan (red) with re-tightened ankles showing off his moves, and some Takara Magnemo fun with the reissue Jeeg I just got and the extra Baron Karza parts I got in a parts lot.
Yamato 1/60 Destroid Tomahawk Sticker Sheet Scan Leave a comment
Nothing special, just a decent-res scan of the sticker sheet from the Yamato 1/60 Destroid Tomahawk toy. My plan is to eventually make a decal sheet for the toy using these graphics as a starting point.
Bandai HCM Walker Galliar Leave a comment
Combat Mecha Xabungle/Blue Gale Xabungle is one of the early pioneer ‘real robot’ mecha animes. I haven’t actually see the show yet, but there is finally a fansubber out there working through the series, so eventually I will watch it. I have always been enamored with the mecha designs, and the toys thereof, especially the Walker Galliar and the Iron Gear. The Iron Gear is a massive transforming land ship, bristling with battleship features like a bridge and gun turrets, and is a toy on my wish list.
The Walker Galliar is one of the mecha deisgns that has a number of toy releases so it must have been a more important machine than the other side-designs that only ever got model kits. The Galliar consists of an armored futuristic pickup truck and a hovercraft, and the two combine and transform to form a robot. The Galliar is pretty much always depicted with its big goofy bazooka, and often an assault rifle and other random weapon situation depending. The ‘real robot’ nature of Xabungle means that every mecha design in the series is built for utility and function over looks and style. Even the Galliar has small gun turrets mounted on it, just like an armored fighting vehicle.
Bandai’s High Complete Model series is one of the staple 80’s mecha toy design lines, bridging the gap between model kits and toys. HCM models often have die cast metal parts and accessories that come on sprues and must be assembled like model parts. The HCM toys from the original line in the 80s included real robots and super robots, from Gundam to Raydeen, and featured excellent detail and articulation for the time. The HCM line’s spiritual successor in the HCMPro line started back up a few years ago with Gundam figures and are excellent as well.
The HCM Walker Galliar is 1/144 scale and features die cast feet and hip bar. The rest of the toy is plastic, and features fantastic articulation for the time, and only a little less articulation than the modern Soul of Chogokin Walker Galliar, which is about the same size. The little mounted gun turrets come on a separate sprue and must be attached to the figure, and the yellow details in the ankle rounds are stickers. I wanted to add a little detail to the figure, taking cues from the Real Robot Revolution Walker Galliar plamo kit by Bandai, adding some rivets and panel lines on the legs. I didn’t want to have to repaint the whole figure, so I did not worry about part seams and sprue marks on the figure, but just wanted to add detail and weathering to make a pretty figure that could still be played with. Weathering was made from my new favorite mix of Mig pigments, Tamiya weathering pigments, and paint washes. The tough thing was the balance weathering for robot mode and vehicle mode, so there is some overlap in weathering that applies to one mode and not the other, but really that makes sense for a variable machine.
Popy Chogokin GA-05 Great Mazinger Scramble Dash Scratchbuild Leave a comment
Popy is a now-defunct Japanese toy company who basically single-handedly started the die cast robot craze in the 70’s. The initial Chogokin releases were around 5 inch tall action figures almost completely made from metal, with shooting fists and some accessories. GA-05 is Great Mazinger, the successor bot to Mazinger Z, one of the grandaddies of the piloted giant robot genre. One of the defining accessories of Great Mazinger is the Scramble Dash flight pack, which retracts into Great Maz (somehow :P) as opposed to the Jet Scrander on Mazinger Z, which was a separate dock-able module.
I received this Great Mazinger chogokin in a mixed lot of Transformers toys, so it is likely a Shogun Warriors release, from when Mattel imported a mix of Japanese super robot toys to the US. The paint on the figure is pretty beat up, but the figure is intact and still tight, so I decided to make it my first fixer-up project, along with a number of others that are currently in the mail. I purchased reproduction fists online, but was unable to find a Scramble Dash anywhere, so I decided to just make one. I collected a couple of pictures from auctions online, and made the basic shapes from plasticard, with Green Stuff putty work for the wing tips and engine bodies. After that, it was just a lot of Mr. Surfacer puttying and sanding… and in reality, I probably could have done more sanding and smoothing work. The engine nozzles are Kotobukiya option parts.
VOTOMS Scopedog Turbo Custom Max Factory Figure Leave a comment
Armored Trooper VOTOMS is just about my favorite ‘real robot’ anime ever. The plot has both down to earth grittiness and real world action, and an interesting blend of space opera elements. The main robot in the series is the mass produced ATM-09-ST Scopedog. The Scopedog is the epitome of the walking tank mecha ethos, and is used in some fashion by almost every armed force in the VOTOMS universe. The Scopedog in its basic form is a line-standard machine, and has the capacity to be upgraded with many different mission packs and specific equipment including a parachute, a space maneuverability pack, and extra weapons (LOTS of weapons).
The Scopedog Turbo Custom ATM-09-STTC is the main machine used in the movie The Last Red Shoulder. Without spoiling anything from this fantastic series, the Red Shoulders are an infamous special forces unit what a record of brutality and mercilessness. Main character Chirico Cuvie and his military companions have a score to settle with the Red Shoulders, and use the custom modified Turbo Custom units in their fight. The Turbo Custom is named for its extra maneuverability and upgraded booster package for ground combat. Most AT units in VOTOMS have some form of wheeled propulsion built into their feet, enabeling them to basically skate around in combat, and with its upgrades the Turbo Custom does it better. Each pilot in LRS also equips his machine with extra weapons, including shoulder mounted missile launchers and waste mounted armaments.
Max Factory makes a series of approximately 1/35 PVC highly articulated action figures for VOTOMS. These figures are typically overpriced and not the most durable figures in the world, and the sculpt is far from perfect (the head is faaar too big). I got the Turbo Custom on deep discount and decided to enhance the paint job on it, as in general the figure is still alot of fun. Minor details were painted in, included some hand painted markings, and then I went on to weathering, including chipping and dirt using acrylic paints. I did not go nuts on the figure as I still wanted it to be mostly play with-able after customizing it. Even tho the MF figures are made of PVC and sometimes need a little tweaking out of the box to tighten joints, I still recommend them above the CMS Corps figures, which are made of cheap plastic and nowhere near as durable.
Bandai 1/100 Zaku IIJ MG ver2.0 Leave a comment
The Zaku II from Mobile Suit Gundam and just about every Gundam production thereafter is one of my favorite mecha designs of all time. Fortunately Bandai’s Master Grade 2.0 is one of the most amazing pieces of gunpla I’ve ever worked with. The 2.0 MG combines Perfect Grade detail levels, including a full mechanical skeleton, with an insane focus on articulation, allowing the Zaku to achieve some truly natural looking poses. This rendition of the big one-eye has received some flak for its retro vibe, but I consider it a pretty definitive representation, combining the bulkiness of the original animation with a little extra sleekness and mean-ness and emphasis on functionality.
From the get-go I knew this was going to be a fairly heavily weathered model, as I really wanted to focus on the walking-tank aspect of this ground combat machine. However, after watching the first episode of MSG MSIgloo 2, I think my weathering is pretty take! I built the kit Out Of the Box with a few exceptions… the shoulder spikes were replaced with Adler’s Nest turned metal parts, as was the camera mono-eye fixture and the machine gun barrel. Form there I went to painting… the internals were all over brushed with a dark dark-grey, and then from there I only really focused on parts that would be visible once all the armor was attached… one of the biggest ‘problems’ I have with gunpla kits with full interiors is that I always go overboard working on the interior, which is never visible, and often messes up the fit of some of the parts when attaching the armor and whatnot. On all the visible areas (mostly around the joints) I added dry brushing, oil work, and fully painted piston parts. I also fully painted the cockpit and pilot, but I don’t have enough of a light setup to effectively photograph in there…
The external parts were base coated with acrylics shot through my GW spray gun… the light green was a custom mix, and the darker khaki color was a stock P3 paint (the Privateer Press Paints line features FANTASTIC drab army-type colors). The black bits were hand painted, and the two sets of green parts received something new for me… I used the spray gun on its finest nozzle setting to over spray some highlights to the parts. There’s not alot of highlight showing up once the kit is fully weathered, but it definitely added to the affect, and really, a single technique like that shouldn’t be readily picked out from a finished model. All of the parts then received a coat of Future through my spray gun, and I assembled the bulk of the armor on the skeleton. Next step was decals… lots of decals. I bought the Bandai water slide decal sheet for this kit (kind of a racket selling real decals separately, but they’re only four or five dollars a sheet, and phenomenal quality). I aimed for a marking set similar to the ‘Real Type’ Zaku design used by Bandai, including the striping, which all had to be done from individual line decals and trimmed to shape. All of the decals received a tough of decal softening solution to snuggle them all the way down to the gloss surface, and a coat of future brush painted on to smooth out the edges of the carrier film. I added the graffiti, which I had been planning to do from the start… I figure this guy’s been on Earth for a while now, and the Federation has probably started to rally its forces, so the Sieg Zeon would be like a rallying call for the Zekes. Once all the decals were set, the whole model recieved a matte varnish coat so I could start weathering. I did some initial dry brushing to weather the decals a bit and pick out the edges of some details. I added some surface discoloration filters using oil colors blended into the surface, and added rust streaking and panel lining in a similar manned (obviously less blended in). A bit of battle damage was carved into the model using an X-Acto blade, and I painted in this damage with dark grey and metal colors, and then added rust streaking to some of the wounds to make them look like older battle scars. Form there the model received some more matte varnish, and the dust and dirt on the legs and feet, done with some weathering pigments for the mud and tan Valeijo acrylics for the dust, done in a number of very thin washes. The accessories were finished (the Zaku also has a Heat Hawk close combat weapon, and a big bazooka which I did not bother to photograph, and optional leg-mounted missile launchers which I didn’t assemble.) I’m really satisfied with how this guy came out, and am thinking about adding some similar weathering to my big 1/35 Jumbo Grade Zaku to help it fit in with my 35th scale tank kits.
Macross Destroid Tomahawk 1/72 5 comments
The Tomahawk is one of the non-variable Destroid mecha from the original Super Dimensional Fortress: Macross. The Destroids are the second-string machines in the show after the variable VF-1 Valkyries, and are often shown on defense and meat-shield duties (or so it seems)!
This is a 1/72 scale garage kit of the Tomahawk. Out of the box this kit was meant to be static once assembled, but I did some hacking and slashing and gnashing of teeth and made it articulated with polycap and ball-type joint option sets and leftovers from Gundam models. The designer of the kit was astonished at how far I took his creation.
I finished the Tomahawk more recently than the Gundam MkII, after spending some time doing historical models (pics to follow)! I spend a great deal of effort trying to translate techniques from armor modeling to sci-fi and mecha, and this is one of my earlier successes. Paints are mainly Tamiya acrylics, with oil work and pigments added for effect. The WIP shots show some of what I did to improve the kit, and the little tank in some of the finished shots is an in-scale Tiger I.
Yamato 1/48 GBP Custom Leave a comment
The GBP is a heavy armor set for the VF-1 Valkyrie from the original SDF:Macross. It’s used by Hikaru in his VF-1J in the anime, and grants the pilot a massive boost in protection and firepower at the cost of variability, altho it can be quick-ejected if needed.
Yamato is the premier maker of modern Macross toys. The 1/48 scale VF-1 was a marvel of toy design, able to achieve perfect variability without the ugly swing bar of the venerable Bandai/Takatoku 1/55 VF-1. The 1/48 VF-1 has been superseded by the new 1/60 VF-1 ver2, to coincide with the common 1/60 scale of all new Yamato releases. The VF-1J was my first 1/48, specifically in anticipation of a GBP set. When the GBP finally did come out, I purchased custom water slide decals for it and the VF-1J and did my first real toy custom, complete with panel lines, weathering, and the decals. I’ve learned alot since this custom, but it still holds up okay since the toy is so awesome.
Hasegawa Macross YF-19 Leave a comment
The YF-19 is one of the two experimental Variable Fighters from Macross Plus, entered in competition with the YF-21 for the right to be the new standard VF. The YF-19 is piloted by Isamu Dyson, a hotheaded and reckless test pilot.
Hasegawa makes some of the finest molded aircraft models on the market… I found the 19 to be almost too finely molded. This kit sat half assembled for ages in my stash before I finally mustered myself and finished it around the same time I did the PG GP-01FB. I did the base with a premade wooden base that I varnished, and made the Mac+ marking from a glossy printed image. I found that Hase’s decals react poorly to decal setting solutions, and had to repair alot of the black markings with paint. I assembled the kit as the two-seat version from the end of the anime, and weathered it accordingly, if a bit heavy. The only problem is that when I applied the canopy is crazed over a bit… the moral of the story is to never use superglue to apply clear plastic parts.
Prometheus Rising Studios 