Archive for the ‘Mecha’ Category
When I posted the finished shots of my Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam painted with Monster Kolor, Matt Walker aka Dead Pre$idents asked me if he could display it at the booth he was sharing with Max Toy Co at Winter Wonder Festival in Japan. Monster Kolor paint has been a huge success for Matt, and he is always looking for demonstrations of its use in new and creative ways. My MK on plastic Gundam model fit the bill, and was shipped off to Japan for display at the show. These pics of the booth come courtesy of Kaiju Korner Andy, who has been providing the best English-language coverage of Japanese shows and festivals out there for a couple of years now. Go check out the rest of his extensive WonderFest coverage here. He took a gazillion photos, and there’s more still to be posted.
Here’s a shot of the whole Max Toy Co and Friends booth! My Gundam was in good company. I think it’s giving Max Toy Co’s new micro Kaiju Negora sculpt a bit of a shakedown!
Bandai’s Master Grade RX-78-2 Gundam ver. 2.0 is a heck of a kit. The design is clean and ‘doughy’ in a way that manages to capture the feel of the anime very well. The sharp and clean design made the perfect subject for a Monster Kolor powered airbrushed paint job. I wanted to do something more original than a clean white Gundam, so I followed a scheme similar to the original Clover Gundam toys, which were silver instead of white. Obviously I could not leave it just clean and smooth, because that would be boring, so I proceeded to apply the entire waterslide decal sheet Bandai sells for this kit, making for some interesting contrast against the clean sculpt. Katoki would be proud.
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3A deliveries are the best. The new portable Dropcloth is insane. They managed to replicate the 1/6 bot at half the size perfectly, to a fault. The hands are really too delicate to hold the weapons, so I added a pin to the right palm that hooks into the weapon handles like on Gundam kits.
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Fang of the Sun Dougram is one of my favorite mecha series, and the old toys are fantastic. The 1/144 series manages to strike a great balance of diecast, solid construction, and sharp details into a small size that allows for army building and some nice Real Robot diorama action. Here’s an Earth Federation patrol on maneuvers in the desert.
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NiStuff recently debuted some fantastic PVC minifigures based on his Glyos-inspired 481 Universe, and they have really inspired me to get to work. You can check them out at Ni’s site, and I’ll definitely be posting more about them in the near future, but I was having a little fun tonight and wanted to show off. The first thing I did when I got my set was get out a knife and some rare earth magnets and articulate the shoulders, to great success. Adamen are the ubiquitous worker species of the 481 setting, and I couldn’t help prep my first one as a support crew member for a very mecha-ey Glyos build I recently finished. I have a couple more on the way that will be getting the same treatment so I can paint them all at the same time, and will show more then!
Someone asked if I could post the scans of the vintage Dougram papercraft kits, which were originally posted by Dougram fanatic machinesoldier over on ToyboxDX. He gave me the OK, so here they are.
Obviously these are used without permission, but I don’t think they’ll mind.
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I picked up this metal mini a while back that was clearly more than a little inspired by Machinen Krieger. I reposed it, whipped up a custom scenic base, and added some resin stowage from Verlinden. Painted pretty much from start to finish in one sitting in between steps on larger projects. Everything is acrylics with a brush.
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When not making fun, weird kaiju, Sunguts took the time a few years back to make a vinyls of a pair of the secondary Walk Machine mecha from Xabungle. The ‘work’ mecha in Xabungle were all pretty goofy, so they make for great sofubi. Even the roll-cage frames are vinyl, after having had the inside parts cut out. Something I never realized until I got mine were that they also come with little DIY flesh vinyl pilot busts that you need to trim, and paint if desired. Obviously I painted them. The pilot busts are about a quarter of an inch tall, so I threw a little color on them to make them stand out.
Cris Rose is a UK-based artist that is into analog photography and robots. His resin robots are functional, yet cute. There are back stories to all of his designs. Cris imagines a world where robots are ubiquitous servants, everywhere from industrial labor to childcare. I had a great time painting up a pack of his recent Bits and Bytes mini-sized (1/24 scale) DIY ‘bots, each with their own background. Keep in mind each of these minis is around an inch tall, and check after the fold for pics of each!
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Recently I have been getting back into the Takara ‘SF Land’ lines, Henshin Cyborg, Microman, Diaclone, and, the redheaded stepchild, Blockman. I love the interconnectedness of the 5mm-compatible lines, and how they all exist as sort of different scales of the same world. Henshin Cyborg is all about detailed character toys, Diaclone is about the interaction between little men and their massive transforming war machines, and Microman is sort of the happy medium.
What’s funny is that Blockman, a line of build-able simple robot figures that serve as both building block and robot toy, are secretly also in Diaclone scale. The little chrome pilots that fit into Blockman cockpits are nothing more than non-posable Diaclone drivers. Awesome.
I also got this fantastic resin figure from Sharkfist Design through the Kaiju for Japan sale. This Nurikabe is a wall oni, stalwart stone defender. It is also fantastically sculpted, painted, and features a glow in the dark scar.
Prometheus Rising Studios 