captain america Posted July 18, 2009 Author Posted July 18, 2009 Interesting to note that I have strategically hollowed-out some parts of the leg, turning some of the obvious panel lines into hatches, just as I feel they would be on the real deal. There are actulally many detail pieces that I left off, simply because of the fragility of everything, and the fact that there are sooo many parts in the kit that it will be quite a challenge to keep track of. In fact, the Graug will have more parts than the full cockpit Regult, and 3 times as much resin. Joy! Quote
ahiachris Posted July 18, 2009 Posted July 18, 2009 Thanks John for taking some size comparison pics using your hand The thing is really big. Quote
MechTech Posted July 18, 2009 Posted July 18, 2009 John, instead of making an arm from scratch, you should have just used a REAL Darrenger pistol and cast it instead! That's what that thing looks like. Although your barrel diameter looks to be .50 cal Awesome work as always and I wish I was getting one Keep up the GREAT work! - MT Quote
neptunesurvey Posted July 18, 2009 Posted July 18, 2009 Looking great. I can't wait to get this one. Quote
captain america Posted July 18, 2009 Author Posted July 18, 2009 John, instead of making an arm from scratch, you should have just used a REAL Darrenger pistol and cast it instead! That's what that thing looks like. Although your barrel diameter looks to be .50 cal Awesome work as always and I wish I was getting one Keep up the GREAT work! - MT The arm cannons actually look a lot like funky speakers to me... And at that size, the speakers could probably do as much damage as a beam blast. "LISTEN TO MY SONG!!!!!!!" **BAM** Quote
Gabe Q Posted July 19, 2009 Posted July 19, 2009 She's coming along great! Thanks for the update. Quote
cool8or Posted July 19, 2009 Posted July 19, 2009 The Details are great! I want to put my hands in this beast ASAP!! Quote
AJCarrington Posted July 19, 2009 Posted July 19, 2009 For the time being, I've capped the number to 20 until I can verify with a fair degree of certainty that my molds will allow me to make more. To be honest, I hope they do, as the falling US Dollar (or is it the rising Canuck?)might cause the project to fall ever-so-slightly into the red. Oh, while I'm at it, the next update will likely be rather spartan, as I'm gutting the pod and working on the cockpit, which is meticulous and VERY slow going. Just chiming in on the quality of the work so far - simply beautiful. Having just found this group, I realize that I missed my opportunity to get my name in for one, but will be anxiously watching and hoping that you can expand the number for 20. Regards, AJC Quote
Ghadrack Posted July 20, 2009 Posted July 20, 2009 Awesome ....... I'm speechless.... and Drooling. Quote
CoryHolmes Posted July 20, 2009 Posted July 20, 2009 Om nom nom nom. Once again, I wonder how the Hovertanks would turn out with his workmanship... Quote
AcroRay Posted July 21, 2009 Posted July 21, 2009 Kamjin says he's sick of walking, and is really looking forward to his new ride! (...Unfortunately, this particular Kamjin won't be getting one.) Quote
captain america Posted July 22, 2009 Author Posted July 22, 2009 Kamjin says he's sick of walking, and is really looking forward to his new ride! (...Unfortunately, this particular Kamjin won't be getting one.) Yeah, you just don't get any respect as a warmonger when you have to rely on public transit Ray, I absolutely love the colors you chose for the figure! Are these your own recipe, or straight out of the bottle? Quote
AcroRay Posted July 23, 2009 Posted July 23, 2009 (edited) Ray, I absolutely love the colors you chose for the figure! Are these your own recipe, or straight out of the bottle? Thanks! They're based on the box art colors and instruction guide for Imai's old kit. Some are a mix, and other off the shelf. (Hopefully this can be useful for folks building the Kamjin included in the subject of this thread!) The armor's green is indeed a custom mix: Tamiya Color Acrylic XF-5 Flat Green, XF-70 Dark Green 2 & XF-21 Sky to lighten it. It also has a drybrush of the Sky for highlights. The dark soft under armor is a Testors Model Master flat black with dry-brushings of Testors MM black metallic so it looks like an 'alien' material. Same with the feet, but with an added dry brush of Testors MM Aluminum. The joints in the arms & other spots, as well as the hands, are Testors Model Master flat black, but with some drybrush layers of Tamiya Dark Grey XF-25 and Field Blue XF-50. The hands also got dry brushings of Testors MM Aluminum and Pactra A54 Gunmetal, and another black wash. The light grey armor segments are Tamiya Sky Grey XF-19, with a Testors MM Aluminum dry brushing. The upper arm and upper leg armor are a black base coat with Tamiya XF-50 field blue, a wash of the Tamiya Dark Grey XF-25, and some dry brushing of the Tamiya Sky Grey XF-19 for highlights. His face is a Testors "Acryl 1319 Light Purple" (I bought on clearance at a local hobby shop because I think it was discoutinued) lightened with some flat white, and his hair is Testors 1162 Flat Blue, both in the little traditional square glass jars. His rifle is the usual dark grey and black base coat with gunmetal metallic highlights, but it also has a coat of partially separated/unmixed Testors Model Master 2750 Plum Crazy (which I think was a custom metallic "Boyd" color for model cars) to give it something reminiscent of the purple color the plastic kit's gun had, but more realistic. Everything got a coat of the Mr Resin Surface primer you suggested, which I got from HLJ. What little filling needed to be done was accomplished with Tamiya standard grey putty, and Tamiya 2-part epoxy putty (to rebuild a finger tip and fill a chunk I accidentally took out of the back rim of his helmet). I don't have an airbrush (or at least, one that works), so its all hand-painting & drybrushing, and additional spot washes and coats where needed. I wish the paint on the face had come out a bit better. Here are some other views! And with the helmeted head, connected with the magnetic joint I added: I haven't tried tinting and adding the face panel, though. Not yet, anyway... John, your kit was beautifully done and a breeze to assemble & clean. I think the only problems I had was that the last joint of his trigger had disappeared (might have been my fault) and I noticed that his right & left hands were different. The left has the armor plate on the back of the hand and heavier finger elements & textures (really sweet work!), and the right is a more simplistic unarmored glove - maybe from your earlier Zentran ? I'm happy to have one of your great kits, at a price range I could afford - its like having a piece of art! Equally cool is that this is something you'd expect to see at WanFes in Japan, but comes from a dedicated North American Macross fan. I hope you see fit to do some more 1/72 Zentraedi figures. They're something this hobby subject certainly needs, but which no one else seems to have had the will or vision to endeavor. Edited July 23, 2009 by AcroRay Quote
captain america Posted August 3, 2009 Author Posted August 3, 2009 Hi everyone. Guess what? I'm not done yet I'm getting there, though. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel... Or is it the headlight of an oncoming train? Regardless, the devil's hands have not been idle and in fact, I was pulling extra hours to get the project to a more comfortable level of completion. This will be a mini-update until my projected completion of the masters, which I should have done by the 7th of this month. Right off the bat, I can say with complete confidence that this has probably been my most elaborate project since my 1/8 Indycars, and certainly the crown-jewel of my Macloss 1/72 line. So what have I been up to, you ask? Molding. Lots of molding. This is one of those rare projects where I felt compelled to start molding before all the masters were complete, simply because of the very high number of molds needed. This also gives me a much-needed break in the routine, and I am now able to concentrate on the cockpit details with my mind at ease. If you look at the first pic, you'll see a part that is being prepped for molding; one of many in a very long process that requires much attention to detail and concentration. As you can see, I begin by attaching the vents and gates to the part with some hot glue: I almost never attach the sprues/gates permanently, as their easy removal is a critical aspect of demolding that greatly facilitates the latter. This particular part (the main engine housing) is also one of many that requires what I call double-filling, due to it having cavities on opposing sides. As such, I must begin by using a small amount of mold rubber to fill one cavity, allow it to harden sufficiently, and then affix the part to the mold base and finish the pouring of the rubber.Roughly half of the parts I've molded so far required this technique, and then needed to be duplicated for the opposite side, which more than doubles my regular molding time. Pic 2: here are the molds I have so far, and as you can see, there are a lot---and I'm not done yet!! I estimate that the whole Graug will have 18-20 molds in total, and what I have so far required about 10-12kg of rubber. In addition, some of the parts (lower legs, cannons, etc) required me to custom-fabricate mold boxes from plexiglass, so that's another job that devours time. Pic 3: here are some preliminary test-shot pieces, which I'm happy to say, came out beautifully! Pic 4: the leg molds were the ones that worried me the most because of their size, the fact that they required a vertical molding, and lots of resin, but I'm happy that the extra time I invested to get them molded properly bore fruit. Notice the massive sprues at the bottom of the leg on the right. Pic 5: this is the left upper-thigh, one of the dozen or so components that will be cast in high-strength polymer. This particular part will also require acrylic inserts during the molding process. I made a backup copy of it because the molds were a bit touchy to make. That's about all I have to show for now. I will try to go a little bit deeper into the molding process for the next update, and hopefully by then I'll be showing-off the completed masters as well. Wish me luck Quote
Ignacio Ocamica Posted August 3, 2009 Posted August 3, 2009 Amazing!!!!!! I hope you'll be able to offer more kits than the 20 planned Quote
baxojayz Posted August 3, 2009 Posted August 3, 2009 AMAZING WORK! Can someone give me a "hell YES"? Quote
neptunesurvey Posted August 3, 2009 Posted August 3, 2009 AMAZING WORK! Can someone give me a "hell YES"? HELL YES! And I like the big guns too. Quote
AJCarrington Posted August 3, 2009 Posted August 3, 2009 Amazing!!!!!! I hope you'll be able to offer more kits than the 20 planned QFT AJC Quote
CoryHolmes Posted August 4, 2009 Posted August 4, 2009 Anyway we could convince you to give us a more in-depth tour of your casting process? Mold-making, mixing, molding the parts themselves? Quote
jadefalconguard Posted August 4, 2009 Posted August 4, 2009 I'm baffled. Amazing work once again cap' ! Quote
big F Posted August 5, 2009 Posted August 5, 2009 Always a pleasure to see an update on any of Jon's work Quote
captain america Posted August 12, 2009 Author Posted August 12, 2009 Ahoy kids! As you may or may not know, our beloved musical is nearing the final curtain, but the obese Meltran hasn't sung... Yet As such, I offer the last few photos of the masters before I commit them to rubber. More precisely, the cockpit: the nerve centre of the whole kit. As always, there are a few parts not attached (like Quamzin's blast shield) but the bulk of it is there. I've elected to show a few "half enclosed" pics, so that Quamzin can be seen more clearly. Surprisingly, the cockpit doesn't look as tight as I thought it would in pictures... But between you and me, there isn't a chance in frack that Quamzin could ingress & egress the cockpit without hacking-off a few of his limbs Also, as it was requested earlier, I will make the final build report on the molding process, or at least, a semi-detailed overview of it, which should be done by next week. In the meantime, please enjoy the pics! Quote
Kylwell Posted August 12, 2009 Posted August 12, 2009 Talk about having the cockpit built around you...that's tight baby. Quote
Ghadrack Posted August 13, 2009 Posted August 13, 2009 INSANE MASTERPIECE!!!! The details on this inside and out look amazing. It's great to see the stages of your work, I think it gives me a great deal more appreciation for each kit. Quote
DarrinG Posted August 13, 2009 Posted August 13, 2009 "I hate to lose a fight!" - I can just see him beating the dash. Amazing - never thought I would see something like that. Almost beyond words . . . Quote
MechTech Posted August 13, 2009 Posted August 13, 2009 Absolutely positively awesome work Capn'!!!! I wish I were getting one! Where was the sound system supposed to fit again? No 12" subwoofers going into that baby - headphones only! Thanks for keeping us posted. - MT Quote
derex3592 Posted August 13, 2009 Posted August 13, 2009 Man, that is SO gonna be the COOLEST thing I've ever seen! Way to GO! Quote
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