04.28.2006 » Concepts / Intro

I just got a few of these from R10 after seeing Laputa on CN a few weeks back. Excellent movie and great mechanical designs so I had to get a few. Especially since it's not an expensive kit. Build-wise this is going to be mostly OOB. My original plan was to try and make the wings flap. However there's just not enough room withing for me to do what I need to do to make it work. Also, the rear wings attachment point is too far back and the inside wall is too thin an area for any mechanisms.

Paint-wise, I'll be using Alclad 2 Copper for the main color. I might lighten it a bit with some Aluminum or Pale Burnt Metal but we'll see. I'm also debating on painting the wings with a pale clear yellow similar to the movie. I'll also be weathering it to make it look aged and used. Not sure how I'll do this over the bare natural metal finish yet.

So far I've cut out nearly all the parts and pre-built the kit. Everything goes together very nicely with no huge gaps. This would be a good time to point out that this is the reengineered version by Bandai. Their parts-fit is almost always perfect. I've made little modifications to the way parts fit together so that I can slide in the dash and grille after painting everything. The bottom of the craft will be added last (and is one nice large piece) and painted in a matt reddish brown color. The figures are molded pretty nicely and thankfully molded in plastic and not polycap material. WHEW! Below are some pics of my prebuild:

04.30.2006 » Paint and Proportions

While the Flaptter may look like a cool ride, it also looks to be an uncomfortable one. The Flaptter is 1/20 scale and when you add the figures that came with the kit on it looks fine. However, those are figs of children. I took a 1/20 MaK SAFS pilot and added him to the back and that's where the comfort level begins to drop. See pics below. Aside from that I am done with the Flaptter to the point of being ready for primer. The figures still need a little bit of work... more specifically the girl needs some putty and sculpting work around where here headband/hair meets the rest of her head.

Paint-wise I've decided that pure Alclad 2 copper is going to look too bright and orange. This is based on looking at my bottles of Tamiya copper and bronze. The bronze looks like a better color, but Alclad 2 doesn't make bronze. Damn. So I busted out my Tamiya metallics that are similar in color to my Alclads to get a good shade. Below are the results of my tests on the bottom of an applesause cup. All colors below are Tamiya Acrylics and amounts are approximate. Titanium gold is very similar to my Pale Burnt Metal Alclad and Gloss black will be substituted for Alclad 2 Gloss Black in my final mix.

A: Copper 4 parts + Gloss Black 1 part + Titanium Gold 2 parts (best mix)
B: Copper 4 parts + Gloss Black 3 parts + Titanium Gold 2 parts (too dark)
C: Copper 1 part + Titanium Gold 1 part (too light)
D: Copper 3 parts + Titanium Gold 1 part (too bright)
E: Copper 4 parts + Gloss Black 5-7 parts + Titanium Gold 2 parts (way too dark)
F: Titanium Gold Pure
G: Copper Pure
H: Gloss Black (pure) and old white glue

05.03.2006 » Horse Cart

One image in the instructions shows a Flaptter on a horse-drawn cart as pictured in the Laputa Artbook. I decided to try this for my second Flaptter. Oh yeah, I'm building 2 now... both are primed and painting has begun. Anyway, the cart fits a Flaptter snuggly and is made from bamboo skewers, balsa, and popscicle sticks. Also used is misc plastic and option parts. It's held together with 5 minute epoxy. The wheels are made from styrene tube, 2" PVC slices, bamboo skewers, and thin styrene for the metal rims. Here's some pics:

Primed:

05.05.2006 » Painted and a little weathered

After priming the cart with dark gray primer, I drybrushed it first with a sandy-gray, then with white to give a whitewash look. I left the bed of the cart un-whitewashed to simulate that the paint was worn off from years of use. After that dried I gave it a wash of brown. Rust was done with MIG Pigments.

05.06.2006 » Copper!

It turns out that Alclad copper is darker than the Tamiya copper. This is great since I didn't have to mix any other colors into the copper to get the shade I wanted. I sprayed the parts in the Alclad copper first. Then as a weathering step I mixed a bit of steel into the copper and sprayed it as a postshade for a tarnished copper look. I sprayed this mostly around the vents, but also a little around the panel lines. Then I used silver and copper Rub and Buff and blue oil paint to do more tarnished copper around the vents. Pic:

05.10.2006 » Done Painting

Painting is done... at least for the Flaptters... the figures still need painted. Below you can see the pics of the final paint. Next is some minor weathering with MIG Pigments for streaks and such.

05.11.2006 » Done Weathering

Here's some pics of the flaptters with weathering. Various shades of MIG Pigments were used to streak stains onto the surfaces.