Archive for the ‘Modeling’ Category

Vanship from a Corsair: Part 1

I’m not too big on reality. I get quite enough of it on a daily basis, so I get very few urges to build kits of “real” things. Robots and spaceships are more my domain than, say, planes and autos. The only times I have any desire to make something “real” is when it has some tie to a fictitious universe, like Lupin’s Fiat from The Castle of Cogliostro, or… well I’m sure something will come to me before I publish this.

Editing!

You can see it doesn’t come up very often.

As a result it came as a surprise to everyone, myself included, when I decided I wanted to buy a Revell Corsair kit on my birthday. Part of this desire was born from watching a good YouTube build of a 1/48 Tamiya Corsair; another part was having a 50% off coupon for Michael’s. $8.99 for a 1/48 scale aircraft? Sure.

The post-kit-purchase elation went down several notches when I noticed some differences between the lovely Tamiya version and the [antonym-for-lovely-here] Revell kit. Some of this you can see at a glance; other things didn’t become apparent until doing a dry fit:

- It has raised panel lines
- The engine and the cowl are a single piece:

It's like a troubled one-eyed monster grinning at you.

- Flash and mold lines are everywhere.
- The plastic is Spongy — it feels very soft compared to Bandai, Hasegawa, or Kotobukiya styrene.
- NOTHING fits:

NOTHING.

The first and the last are my biggest issues — it’s a putty nightmare, and rescribing the entire kit for recessed panels is probably not an option when I can pick up the vastly superior Tamiya Corsair for only $20.

But in a way, that’s good. That means I won’t have any compunctions about potentially ruining the kit when I try to make this:

Meh.

into one of these:

Oooh.

I won’t bore you with the details of what a “vanship” is, or how I fell in love with Last Exile. I’m going to bore you with completely different things!

To really make this look like a legitimate vanship, and not just a half-built Corsair*, I’ve got a lot of work ahead.

AND you can get satellite radio for FREE.

This (above) is the antenna/resonator/propulsion thingy. I bent styrene rod around the lid of a large container of Tamiya acrylic, and passed the ends through a closed binder clip to give it some concavity. I connected it to the resonator mount (I am making this up as I go) by drilling holes through the rod and mount, then passing a leftover antenna through all three. These were fixed in place with some plastic cement, and then sanded down to remove the ends of the antenna.

Even fixed in place, the rod has a lot of tension, which makes me nervous. I tried immersing it in hot water and then letting it cool down, but it didn’t seem to have much effect — it’s still springy. Any scratchbuilders out there with suggestions for how I should have done this? I’m thinking if I ever need a shape like this in the future I’m better off using brass wire or the like. This was no fun, and not as accurate as I wanted it to be.

The claudia drive is going to be a combination of styrene strip, pen parts, leftover ordnance from the Corsair, and the front wheels of a Rodimus Prime wrapped in styrene sheet. Do not weep for Rodimus. He had Dutch Elm Disease.

"He lies! Weep for Rodimus!"

I need to fabricate some fairings for the landing gear. Every vanship in memory has the landing gear permanently in the ‘down’ position. The Corsair’s wheels and sparse gear details are perfect for this. I should be able to create the fairings from styrene sheet, seal up the gear doors, and just slide the enclosure on top of what’s left. I need to remember to paint the exposed area of the wheels beforehand.

Something along these lines.

Other, less pleasant things still await. I need to remove the vertical and horizontal stabilizers. The latter is easy: it’s just a patch job over where the part would normally go. The former requires some sawing — the vertical stabilizer is built in to the fuselage. Not too concerned about the cutting, but not thrilled about the repair work. I anticipate scribing some additional details later so I don’t end up with a big, blank slab where the stabilizer used to be.

I also need to make a decision about the cockpit. There’s supposed to be a seat for the navigator as well as the pilot, so if I’m going to embark on that path, I’ll need to fabricate a second chair and a second set of controls. It’s probably easiest to just make a mold of the existing cockpit and make a resin one. That this is the “easy” way terrifies me, since I’ve done neither mold-making nor casting before, but I think it’s still a better option than attempting to scratchbuild a cockpit from styrene sheet (BLEH).

Speaking of which, I also have to remove the canopy (which is also built-in to the fuselage. God, I hate this kit) and make some little windscreens. TOTALLY looking forward to that.

Not pictured: my razor saw induced injuries.

The last big part is attaching the whole propulsion assembly. I’ll have to mount the tailwheel somewhere on that as well and somehow manage to keep the whole thing level. The military-grade vanships in Last Exile have this blade-like prow integrated into the propulsion system. I’ll probably do something similar. It’ll help prevent it from looking like the engine is an afterthought.

The rest is just detail work. I’ll probably scribe some hatches and panel lines. I was thinking of adding some ribbing to the side of the ship a la corrugated aluminum, but I may be satisfied without.

I kinda regret picking the Corsair in some ways — the wings and the intakes are very distinctive, so even if I kick ass all over the place, there’s bound to be someone who will look at it and say, “OMG WHAT DID HE DO TO THAT CORSAIR?!”

And then I’ll have to explain that it’s the Revell, and they’ll say, “OKAY. WHEW. NOW THAT WE’RE PAST THAT CAN YOU HELP ME TURN OFF CAPS LOCK?” and by then it’s become a whole thing and my afternoon is wasted.

More later!

_{*which is technically done already.}

When a man loves a primer

At least for me, priming parts is among the biggest pains I have in modeling. Companies that make model paint seem to only sell primer in A) small cans, or B) bottles that could wear baby food containers as sweaters*.

Some of them are still pretty good: the Tamiya primer (canned) is very nice, and the Model Master primer (bottled, for airbrushing) works fine. The bog-standard Testors spray, on the other hand, is just a notch above “ick” on the awesome scale.

Yeah, right about there.

But my main problem isn’t the quality of the primer, it’s just economy: I go through primer really quickly. I don’t want to waste any colors while I’m checking for seams and defects, so that means multiple passes with the primer while I fix things. Multiple passes means lots of primer. Lots of primer means lots of visits to the local hobby shop, and that means I’m probably going to buy a large Coke on the way home. Next thing you know, I’m out $25, not to mention the cost for the primer.

I drink a lot of Coke when I go out.

Anyway, I went around looking for alternatives, and stumbled upon several people advocating Duplicolor sandable primer. It’s cheap: $5 gets you 12oz versus $4 for 3oz of the Testor’s, or $6/6oz for the Tamiya. That alone was enough to get my interest because it frees up a lot of cash for my soda problem. But not only that, it was supposed to be pretty good! Intrigued, and more importantly, out of primer and thirsty, I went down the street and picked up two cans from my local auto parts store.

I took my ready-to-paint parts from my HG Mr.Bushido’s Ahead and gave them a coat. Smooth? Let me tell you.

Smooth as your FACE.

Or possibly even smoother.

I actually did this a week ago (you can see the parts in my post about joint-modification), but I wanted to wait a little while to make sure nothing bad happened, like, say, the parts/my balcony melting. Seems safe for the plastic, though. However:

• I sprayed the coat on very gradually, in light mini-coats, rotating the piece as I went, and I didn’t just go to town with the spray nozzle
• It’s a lacquer-based product, so take that into consideration with any subsequent paints/thinning attempts
• I followed all the instructions on the label
• I only tried it on one type of plastic. No telling what this could do to other materials like rubber joints or ABS

Basically I’m telling you that I treated the spray like it was almost certainly going to destroy my model, and any adventurous souls who are going to use it should do the same.

Having said that, I love it. If I had any complaints (this is not a complaint), I’d say the dark gray is a little dark and, um, gray. In all fairness it is EXACTLY the color of the cap, so the darkness is not a surprise. For parts that are going to be painted light colors, you should use the white, or be prepared to do a lot of coats. It is practically matte black.

Using the Duplicolor did highlight a problem in my setup: the need for a respirator. I used it outside, and took time away from the painting area to breathe fresh air, and I still ended up with a terrible headache and, presumably, dark gray lungs that are as smooth as your FACE. You should not be breathing this stuff.

Couldn’t resist the urge and mostly reassembled Mr Bushido’s Ahead even though I have a few spots that need putty.

"If I remain verrrrry still, no one will notice my missing head thingy..."

I’m going to try decanting the remaining primer this weekend (another first) so I can use it in my cheapie airbrush and waste less to overspray. Updates and possible brain damage to follow, unless I use my respirator, in which case it will just be updates.

^{*Fashion tip: don’t do this.}

Someone, somewhere is a genius

...and ten minutes later, I had produced giant Lego man hands

That picture, above, is a vision of my modeling future, and here’s why:

I’m relatively new to scale modeling, and I’ve really only started doing things “the right way” in the last year or so. I ruined a lovely model in my modeling infancy, and I’ve been gradually getting better over time. It’s a lot of fun. Not quite as fun for the model kits, who are terrified of me.

But I fully recognize that I still suck at scale modeling, so I’ve limited my purchases to pretty cheap kits; I have a couple nicer ones, and they are waiting in the wings till I can bust out the cheapies with ease. And even though they’re simpler builds than some more complicated kits, I try to give them the full treatment–glue, paint, decals, panel line washes…the whole thing.

One thing about “easier” kits, though, is that they’re catering to an audience that is not supposed to give a flying crap about seam lines, unblemished paint jobs, or professional grade awesomeness, so they don’t give a crap (flying or non) either. If you want nice results, you will suffer more on these small kits than on the $75 beauty you special ordered from Hobbylink. The nicer kits are just engineered to hide those seam lines and joints better, generally speaking*.

Take the last two paragraphs and you get me struggling pretty much all the time.

The problems change kit to kit, but a very common one I have is with nested parts; typically joints on mecha kits. There will be an area, like an upper arm, and while you can assemble it and paint it by itself, it’s eventually going to be “nested” in the shoulder armor where it meets the pivot point, and the shoulder itself is another two pieces that meet in the middle around the upper arm. That means you have one of two horrible choices:

1) Assemble it together and try to paint the two parts as a single unit, probably with a horrendous amount of masking/swearing

2) Complete the nested piece 100% (paint and all), then wrap the enclosure around it and carefully mask the nested piece you worked so hard on while you glue, prime, and paint the enclosure

I’ve done both, and they both suck. I’ve searched for alternate methods, and largely ended up feeling like I was the only one with this problem. Then I stumbled upon a build thread on the Plamo site where this was addressed with exactly zero fanfare:

Dear "kite", I'll gladly pull this down if this is against your wishes

So yes, I am the only one with this problem, because everyone else said “hell with that!” and solved it on their own. Has everyone else been doing something like this for a while? Probably. But kite posted a picture of it, so he’s my new hero. This completely changes the way I’ve been approaching mecha builds, and it makes life so much easier.

If it’s not clear, you basically cut out the plastic that completes the loop in the joint so that you can paint the sub-assemblies separately and just “snap” the joints together when you’re done:

You'll need a sharp cutting instrument to take out that much plastic. I used my face.

Assembled thigh on the left. Modified knee on the right.

Inserted! This is NSFW if you're made out of polystyrene.

I tried it on my HG Mr Bushido’s Ahead, and it worked like a charm. One thing: if you’re doing this on a kit with flexible rubber washers in the joints, leave the gap in them a bit smaller than required for the joint axle. It’ll still snap in fine, and you won’t end up with a loose joint (like the first leg I did this on. Insert cough here).

Anyway, major thanks to the excellent modelers on PLAMO (a good site if you like awesome), and extra super squishy thanks to “kite” for posting a pic of something that everyone except me knew how to do.

UPDATE: Turns out this is called a c-joint, or c-joint mod. Of course. Now that I know how to do it, I can’t stop finding information on it everywhere.

^{*Having said that, I’m sure there is a kit out there that will cost you $400, never look good no matter how hard you work on it, and still run off with your wife.}

5 Model Kits I Want That Will Never Exist

I’ve only recently been reintroduced to plastic modeling; before the recent wave of kits that I’ve been working on, it’s been almost 15 years since my last X-acto knife injury or accidental glue euphoria. But despite not actively working on anything in that time, the interest has stayed with me. I’m kinda like a nerd sleeper agent in that way.

The nice thing about coming back to the hobby after so long is that the quality of the kits has really improved across the board. There must have been huge strides in injection molding since 1995 or something*. Anyway, along with the technological advances has come a lot of cool kits, and I’ve been lucky enough to grab up some of my faves. But there are some gaps in my kit lust that can never be filled. My full wish list is longer, but here are the top 5:

#5: UN VTOL Aircraft from NGE

"Fire ze missiles! Uh...again!"

Update: This now exists! Sort of. This is the version from Rebuild, so it’s a little different, but I’m still satisfied. As an aside, I think the older design is actually more believable.

Also as an aside, HOLY @#$% RIVET MUCH?

This cool Osprey-like aircraft appears prominently in the first episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and once again in the Death/Rebirth and End of Evangelion movies. It’s kinda like an upside-down Hind with jets instead of rotors, except that’s not what it looks like at all. I may as well tell you it’s a cross between a Pontiac Aztek and a leprechaun.

But description-defying aside, it’s got a great, believable design while still appearing firmly entrenched in science fiction.

Why it won’t ever exist: The Evangelion series is pretty long in the tooth now by anime standards (it’s even been rebooted), with many different types of merchandise, and I’m not sure there’s any demand for a kit of a 3rd or 4th tier support aircraft that appears on screen for 45 seconds, especially if no one has made one by now. But please, Bandai or Hasegawa, prove me wrong.

#4 El Dorado Ultimate (Gun X Sword)

Also available: the Elbows of Minor Irritation

I may have mentioned it before, but I love Gun X Sword. I think it’s a great little show, and I have hardly any nitpicks with it. It’s got a nice blend of drama, comedy, and action, and the animation quality is very consistent across the episodes. Also, it has giant robots in it, and they call them “armors”, which is very cool.

The El Dorado is an homage to both super-sentai and super robot shows, and it’s quite adorable. And, uh, all tough and crap! Boobs! Explosions! Yeah. Manliness.

Anyway, I really dig the chunkiness of the contours. Not in small part because I had several Godaikin robots growing up, and the El Dorado is reminiscent of the Dancougar and GoLion/Voltron designs. My love for mecha started with the 1970s robot-design aesthetic, and I’ve never let it get too far out of my system.

Why it won’t ever exist: There isn’t a lot of merchandise for this show for some reason, save a couple statues of Carmen 99 and a fairly expensive Dann toy. I’m guessing it just isn’t as popular as some other series. If they haven’t made a kit of Dann, the main armor in the show (they haven’t), they’re not going to make a kit of the El Dorado. Frowny face.

#3 G.Kaiser/Kikaioh (Tech Romancer)

Hitting you so hard you see Japanese syllabary

I only got into Tech Romancer 10 years after it came out on the Dreamcast, but it is awesome. Turns out it’s one of my favorite titles on a system with a fantastic game library. Even if it was absolute crap, however, it is stuffed to the brim with awesome robot designs. This part is not a surprise: the mechanical designs were handled by Studio Nue, the same people responsible for the entire Macross series, and employer of Shoji Kawamori.

Also not  a surprise: my favorite is the one that looks like a super robot from the 70s.

I know this list is specifically about plastic model kits, but this is the one item in the list that I would want even if it was a completed figure. Having G.Kaiser appear in the Soul of Chogokin line of toys by Bandai would totally satisfy me. You can see more shots of the Soul of Chogokin toy line here at CollectionDX.

To be fair, there may be a kit related to this mecha, but I’m not sure if it actually exists, and, frankly, it sucks. This may warrant a list of the Top 5 Model Kits I Want to See Remade Because the Available One is Total Crap. But I digress.

Why it won’t ever exist: Well, outside of the little loophole above, it’s a design from an out-of-print game that didn’t spawn any sequels on a discontinued system, and I’m just not sure who else is clamoring for this to be realized in sweet, sweet plastic.

#2 Any Mecha from Gunbuster 2/Diebuster

My wife says, "Die, buster!" just before she attacks, though I'm not sure it's the same thing.

There does exist a Revoltech figure of Dix Neuf, my favorite mecha from this series, but that doesn’t count, no matter how cool it is. And though I would like to see someone make a nice injection kit of Dix Neuf, I am actually okay with ANY mecha from this series being produced in plastic form.

As an aside, if you haven’t watched this show, you need to pick it up. It’s even on Netflix if you’re not willing to commit to a full purchase. The animation is fantastic, and the overall production design is jaw-dropping.

Oh, and the story is enjoyable too, but pshh…story. Look at the robots!

Why it won’t ever exist: There is no good reason why not. Maybe I’ll actually luck out on this one.

#1 The ship from Galaga

pew pew

I don’t think it even has a name. I think it’s called “the ship from Galaga“. This little sprite is probably my favorite spaceship design in the universe. I don’t have anything else to say, really. I like it, and I want it.

Recently, another favorite spaceship of mine from an old game was realized in plastic, the Silpheed, so this may not be as far-fetched as I seem to think it is.

Why it won’t ever exist: I think the main problem is that it’s two-dimensional, and it’s probably 20 pixels wide. Any sculptor trying to tackle this would have to take some major liberties just to get it thicker than a cookie. And, of course, there is the constant threat that someone will eat it before you get to that point. Either way, it’s probably not gonna happen.

Great. And now not only do I lament not being able to get these kits, but I also want a cookie.

^{*And now I have a topic for my next blog entry: The Top 10 Least Interesting Things I’ve Ever Said.}

First attempts at scribing

I started building the Hasegawa Egg Plane F-16 that I referenced in this post.

I’m not an aircraft or military buff, but I’m a big fan of the F-16 design-wise; I might even want to build a 1/72 or a 1/48 scale one of these days just because it’s so cool-looking. I even played through 95% of Ace Combat 6 with it just because I didn’t want to fly an uglier, superior plane (I’m looking at you, F-22 Raptor).

I’m also a big fan of Galaga and cute things. Why did I tell you this last part, you may ask? Because my plan is to mildly mod this egg plane into a cutesy version of the ship from Galaga.

Anyway, major assembly and seam-fixing is done. One little thing about the egg planes: not a lot of surface detail. It’s a beautiful kit, especially for the price (fits together great), but it lacks panel lines. And I loves me some panel lines. It’s platonic.

After reading a bunch of posts on the subject, I decided to try and add panel lines to the model.

^{See that? Yeah. I made it.}

It’s actually not as hard as I was expecting, though my technique needs a lot of work. I have limited supplies and no templates, so I just basically attacked the thing with an X-acto knife and some modeling tape, and you can too.

At the time I decided to document this, I’d already completed the nose cone (more of a “rescribe” after seam-filling), a large bay on one side, and one access panel. I’m going to cover what I did to add the second access panel, but you can apply the same technique to any shape, including long straight lines.

First, I cut out a panel shape from my Tamiya masking tape and placed it on the body of the kit (this was the second of two identical pieces I cut before I began the first panel)

^{The tape in place. You can see another, larger panel I’d already scribed on this side. Not pictured: my shame at not having a brand-name X-acto knife.}

Once the tape was in place, I ran the back of the X-acto lightly across the edge of the tape. You have to do this with practically zero additional pressure, or your knife will skip, stray, or push your tape into an unrecognizable mess. I ran it across each side somewhere between 10-20 times. Again, apply no additional pressure: you’ll feel nothing for the first 4-5 strokes of the knife, then suddenly you’ll feel it “catch”. At that point it’s pretty easy to keep the knife from straying from the groove. Repeat the same method on each side of the tape, and then peel the tape off. You should see a faint etching of the shape on the model.

If I was really clever, I would’ve taken a photo of that step. Instead, you get this:

^{Above: Authenticity}

With the tape out of the way, I continued to scribe the lines with the back of my off-brand X-acto knife. Probably another 20 strokes per line or so. This inadvertently raises the edges of the cut, giving the surface of the plastic an uneven texture. With the panel lines being fairly deep at this point, it was safe to sand off the relief. This will also eliminate small scratches and deviations*. I used a 400-grit sanding stick at this stage, then went over it again with 600 or 800-grit to eliminate the larger scratches.

^{Small particles of plastic dust will fill your painstakingly etched lines. This is normal. The feelings of despair are also normal.}

That done, I used a modeling-dedicated toothbrush and some gentle scraping with the X-acto to remove the plastic dust from the newly scribed lines, and voila!

^{Above: What voila looks like}

I actually went back at it with the sandpaper to remove more scratches, but when I was done, I had two symmetrical(ish) access panels on the nose of my Egg Plane:

^{Factory-esque results. Depending on the crappiness of your factory.}

I did the same thing to deal with the raised lines on the wings, just sans-tape. The raised ridge in the original mold was enough to guide the knife.

Lack of failure by this time emboldened me enough to do the flaps as well.

^{Pictured: A surprising lack of sucking}

And that’s about it. I’m debating adding more actual panel lines as opposed to the hatches. I can already see how this can go terribly awry if you let yourself go crazy with the scribing, though, so I may quit while I’m ahead.

If you do try this out — particularly if you’re like me and have only a knife and some tape to guide you — go slow and press lightly. Hell, don’t press at all. I got fewer scratches and better results when I took a gentler approach. The instructions I read encouraged a light touch, too, but seriously, this cannot be overemphasized.

These posts and blogs were indispensable in giving me the courage to try this, so check them out for more detailed explanations and actual instructions:

http://nelman.blogspot.com/2008/09/poor-mans-gunpla-scribing-panel-lines.html
http://www.swannysmodels.com/Scribing.html
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/rescribingda_1.htm

_{*To be clear, I mean deviations from your intended panel line. Your fetish for large-butted Asian librarians will remain intact. Mine did, anyway.}