Archive for the ‘Models’ Category

Mortar Headd Engage

Tuesday, March 17th, 2015

I received this model kit for Christmas from my brother:

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I’d always been a fan of the design of the mecha in this series, but this was the first time I would build a kit. It’s made by a company called Wave, who I’ve never made a kit from before. I planned to do the best I could, since I wanted to get it looking as much like the photo on the packaging as possible.

Here’s the contents of the box:

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Two things stood out: firstly it had water-applied decals (yikes!) and secondly this was not a snap-together kit. The latter was unusual, since the kits I’ve made by Bandai or Kotobukiya are snap-together and have been for many years. I had thought that kits that needed gluing were restricted to military-style models, and this is certainly the first mecha kit I’ve made that has needed glue (in 15 or so years).

I briefly started with some crappy glue I just happened to have on hand before buying this stuff:

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It’s very fluid – like waterย  – and does an extremely good job. Recommended if you want to make a plastic model kit.

The Mortar Headd is assembled in 7 stages which will be put together at the end. You start with the body and waist, and very quickly I found that this was no beginners model. Parts were designed to be movable even after assembly, and very often the assembly itself was fiddly (even irritating) and required very precise glue application:

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It was also apparent that they didn’t go together as perfectly as it seemed they should. I’m not sure if this was a molding or design issue, but sometimes there were hairline gaps between pieces (even after gluing) or they didn’t match together quite right. Some of the piece design was questionable as well and seemed only to increase the piece count. For instant there were cases where tabs (to insert into other pieces) were glued on separately rather than molded, or when obvious single pieces had been split into two for no apparent reason. This leg for example has about 40 individual pieces in it and was a real pain to assemble:

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Before I get to the end comments, I invite you to speculate as to how easily this kit may stand given the design of those feet? ๐Ÿ™‚

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The hands were particularly bothersome. You are given a choice of eight different styles (per hand) with many different pieces from which to assemble them. Unlike most other kits of this type, rather than simply make one articulated hand you’re supposed to choose which weapon or position you want the kit to have and then pick the appropriate hand for it. This would be ok in theory if
1) The hands were easy to switch (which they absolutely aren’t), and
2) The hands actually held the weapons they are supposed to (again, they don’t)
So one of the final steps – making and fitting the hands – ends up being one of the most frustrating.

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Building the kit took many hours. This was because the pieces were tiny, needed a lot of cleaning up (the connections to the runners were often positioned poorly) and because the glue – while very good – had particularly strong fumes which necessitated working in small periods ๐Ÿ™‚

But eventually the pieces were all together, and it was time to assemble the final product. Here’s a shot pre=assembly:

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And here he is about thirty very frustrating minutes later:

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During assembly the head, hands and part of the waist broke. I was able to fix the head and waist, but the thumb on the hand broke cleanly off (not along the glue line) so he ended up thumbless. All these breaks occurred because of the force required to attach the limbs via ball-and-socket joints. Again, I attribute this to poor design. It would have been vastly better (a la the Gundam model) to built a skeleton first them put the armor on afterwards.

You can see he’s still unfinished. It was time for those pesky water-applied decals:

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Putting them on wasn’t so bad, but it turns out they aren’t quite the same technology as I remember from my youth. To be specific, there is no adhesive in the decal binder anymore, and surface tension is not enough to hold them on to the model when the water dries. You are supposed to apply a binding agent both before and afterwards, which ‘melts’ the decal plastic onto the kit. I had no idea of this, and was quite surprised when they all started flaking off shortly after application!

But I snapped a few photos first. Here he is post-decal and with some (unimpressive) detailing using a Gundam marker. Even between these shots you may notice some decals have come off:

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Don’t be fooled by him standing. It took forever to balance him and if I even thought at him the wrong way he fell over!

As you can see he’s nowhere near as impressive as the packaging, since he obviously requires a lot of detailed paintwork to look perfect. I’m happy enough with how he ended up though, given the frustrations and difficulties I had with the kit!

Last word: if you’re after a robot model kit, avoid Wave! Go with Kotobukiya (incredibly complex and detailed snap-together kits) or Bandai (slightly simpler but no less impressive snap-togethers), both of which produce easier-to-assemble models that are technically more impressive than this one.

If only Kotobukiya would get the FSS license…

Exosuit

Sunday, February 8th, 2015

Bernard got me this for Christmas:

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It’s a ‘designer series’ Lego kit, which means it was designed by a fan and made by Lego after it won an Internet vote. I’d never heard of it, so it was quite a surprise. Look at the design!

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Lots of small pieces boded well for complexity, and the manual is very professional. Everything about this ‘amateur’ kit suggests the opposite!

That said, the first step of the instructions is the easiest step I’ve ever seen in a kit:

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Assembly was simple, and the final product looks amazing:

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It’s detailed and extremely poseable:

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It’s also (coincidentally?) in approximately 1:144 scale, which means it plays well with most robot kits. Here is Lego spaceman using his Exosuit to fend off a savage attack from Liger Zero:

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And yes, I do know Liger Zero isn’t 1:144 scale ๐Ÿ˜‰

A great kit. Thanks Santa Brother!

My Very Own Odo

Saturday, January 24th, 2015

One of the more unexpected items I received for Christmas was this vinyl model kit:

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Yes it’s everyone’s favourite changeling, ‘Constable’ Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space 9. This kit was made in 1995 and KLS bought it new for under a tenner! Here’s the contents of the box:

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Not a bad likeness is it?

I’ve assembled vinyl kits before, and immediately a problem was apparent. The age of the vinyl had made it hard and brittle, and there was no way I’d be able to cut off the flash without softening it first. So it was time to give Odo a hot bath:

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A few minutes at a light boil was enough to soften the vinyl enough for the razor blade:

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And soon the pieces were ready for gluing:

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The second problem became apparent at this point: the kit wasn’t well designed. To be specific, some of the pieces didn’t fit well, and the fact they needed gluing (as opposed to using ball joints) was poor design in the first place! I soldiered on carefully though, and soon got to this point:

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A bit more glue and some time drying and assembly was complete:

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What’s that you say? “Where’s his legs?” The fact is the waist joints just didn’t match at all, and even if they had the upper half is so much heavier he wouldn’t ever stand so… I tossed his legs in the bin! I was happy with half an Odo ๐Ÿ™‚

But I wasn’t finished yet! I was serious about this kit, and carefully began to paint him…

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And mere minutes later, my very own Odo was complete:

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Look at his flaming hair! His jaundiced skin! His inky-black jacket with red piping and silver trim. As one would expect from a design of my very own, Odo looks majestic.

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Now before some of you get all ‘but that’s not canon’ on me, please be aware that this isn’t supposed to be Odo from the TV episodes.

No my friends, this is Odo from my unpublished DS9 fan fiction script entitled “Elegy of The Vampire Savior”. That’s the one in which Odo teams up with Space Dracula to save the colonists of the fourth moon of Nosferon from being enslaved by a tyrannical computer. This particular outfit is the one Odo wore during the logic battle with the Machine Brain, immediately after his fated lover Udu died in his arms.

If you’d like more details, please let me know.

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I didn’t ever expect to get my very own Odo for Christmas. And now I wonder how I ever lived without him!

The Great Bear-Off

Friday, December 19th, 2014

And so we begin the second half of

MJ Xmas

This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts ๐Ÿ™‚

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The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.

But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?

It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people never used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.

However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!

But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!

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The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.

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There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.

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You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.

The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:

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Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.

Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:

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So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:

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He’s just showing off now isn’t he?

A Piece Of Christmas Magic

Thursday, December 18th, 2014

Most of you know how much I like these things:

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These two were purchased last week at the dollar store. Had I not already sent/wrapped the Christmas gifts you may have received one too! I quickly set them up and found they weren’t the most well-constructed of kits:

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They are made of porous cardboard with the edges dipped into food colouring (or in the case of the snowman, not dipped). A small packet of liquid is included, which is poured into the reservoir at the bottom.

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It doesn’t take long for the liquid to move up the cardboard until it reaches the tips, where crystals begin to form. If the crystallization occurs where the cardboard contains food colouring, the crystals themselves are coloured as well.

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So what’s happening? Well it’s actually quite complex. The solution contains water and a mix of alkaline and ammonium salts. Since it is a liquid, capillary action causes it to move into the cardboard. Once the water evaporates (which is most likely at the edges) the remaining salts form crystals. The process is quite quick (less than 6 hours) and once completed the crystals are fairly rigid and the ‘tree’ can survive for years if protected.

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We actually have a few (better) ones in our curio cabinet, including a panorama of Mt Fuji that we must have had for a decade now! I sent many of you trees like this a few years ago. I wonder how many of you still have them?

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There are many good explanations of the science behind such trees online (this is a good one), and you can even find instructions on how to make your own. If I taught chemistry instead of physics, I think I’d certainly work this into one of the lab experiments!