|
About The Kit »
This is the Round Buckler from the
anime 'The Mars Daybreak'. I've never seen it,
but I really liked the mechanical designs I've
seen from it. The kit was mostly build OOB with
only a few modifications.
I cut new lenses for shoulders and
'toes' from clear sheet plastic. 'Dots' in the
lenses were made to mimic what was molded into
the kit underneath. The parts of the kit that
these new lenses cover had seams that were hard
to reach and so I just didn't bother. The new
lens covers them up and makes them look better
than before.
I also made new joint covers for
the shoulder and hip joints from Magic Sculpt.
The kit supplied ones were rubber and aside from
being unpaintable, dodn't really cover much of
anything. Adding these new covers made the kit
fix-posed which is just fine. It's a model, not
a toy.
Lastly, I added to the back of the
head to cover the unsightly neck joint. The addition
was merely an angled piece of tube cut in half
and also at a 45 degree angle.
I really liked the original colors
so I stuck to them for the most part except for
the gun and the purple parts. The purple parts
I airbrushed to match the shark in a tiger-striped
pattern. The effect turned out to look more shell-like
which was not planned, but a welcome effect as
it accentuates the undersea feel.
Overall I have mixed feelings about
this kit. There was a lot of masking to do which
was quite a pain. I spent more time masking than
painting. The seams fit together very well, however
some seams were near impossible to reach making
for a challenging build. I would not build another
of these, nor would I recommend it to a beginner.
About The Base »
Since this is an underwater robot,
I wanted to do an underwater setting for the base.
The coralish rocks are just bits of gravel I cleaned
out of my driveway while making repairs. The sand
is a layer of Bondo which was given the dune texture
while still uncured. The rocks were smooshed into
that and smoothed into the sand with Apoxy Sculpt.
I primed it all in dark gray and drybrushed the
rocks with lighter grays, pinks, buff, and white.
For the sand I brushed on a layer of Future Floor
Acrylic, then sifted on some ballast cement which
has a coarse texture. I immediately turned it
upside down and shook/tapped off the excess. What
stayed behind was left to dry, then airbrshed
with a sand color. The sea creatures and plants
I made from Magic Sculpt.
|
