Brocken Labor WIP to completion

I hadn't been doing much modeling for a while, and that had to change.

I dug out an old Patlabor kit that I picked up cheap at a Convention years ago. I didn't want to instantly burn myself out slaving away at an L-Gaim or FSS kit, so I went for something simple.

I didn't do any modifications other than weighting the feet with birdshot - no flying poses will ever be done with this guy.

Mostly I didn't even bother to chop registration pins as I was putting this together. I glued the facing edges of parts that would form seamlines as I snapped the kit together and that worked pretty well for later smoothing those lines.

I really had fun with airbrushing this kit. I made my first significant attempt at shading, and layered multiple shades to get what I think is a very nice depth to the finish.

Here are 4 videos of the process:









Here are a couple of finished images



If you'd like to see more, you can look here.

why weight?

Weighting the foot of the Type 100

Ignore the audio in the videos.

Taking the test fitted foot apart to find places to pour in the #12 lead bird shot:

One of the core foot pieces, before and after chopping and grinding out the "snap together" pins (all the before and after shots read right to left):

The other core foot piece, again before and after removal of "snap together elements."

The base plate of the heel of the foot, before and after:

The upper plate of the heel, before and after:

The toe, upper plate, before and after:

The toe bottom plate, before and after:

I also trimmed down these tabs that fit into slots on the upper plate of the toe assembly to make room for just alittle more lead shot. Before:

...and after:

Here's how the part above looks in a before and after test fit, before:

...and after:

Here's the paint dropper that I use to pour the lead shot. I clipped the tip so the opening is larger than a regular paint pipette. It's standing in a tape roll so it won't empty tiny balls of lead onto my work table.

Here's me pouring the lead shot into the prepared foot part:

Here are the two base foot parts filled with lead and with their various holes sealed up with epoxy putty:

Another view:

The core of the foot, also filled and puttied:

I love a nice bead of glue on a seam line. This will clean up nicely:

The final piece:

Too bad you can't "see" how heavy it is now :)

10 Pounds of Lead Shot Will Mash Your Packing Peanuts!

(cross-posted from "pajkossy" (another blog of mine)


I bought this bag of #12 (believe me when I say, that's the tiniest pellet size you can get) lead bird shot. This stuff is definitely not to be used in the course of hunting for food - unless you like breaking your teeth on the way to getting lead poisoning. It's like very small Christmas cookie sprinkles, only made of shiny black metal.

Why did I search for hours on the internet for this stuff?

Only love or anime could make me do something so odd. To be more precise: building injection-molded plastic mecha (robot) models.

I still haven't gotten around to watching Zeta Gundam - the show from which the model I'm currently working on came, but this Hyaku Shiki (that's "type 100" in Japanese) has some DAMN heavy feet now.

Prior to filling them with the lead shot, which settes in very nicely thanks to it's small size, each foot weighed about 1/4 ounce.

I'll update later with their new weight, as well as the weight of the rest of the kit. For now I'll venture a guess that the feet will weigh almost as much the entire remaining structure.

Pix here when I finish it.

UPDATE:
Each foot now weighs about 1.25 oz, so together they weigh 2.5 oz. This is about how much the whole body from the hips up weighs. This should make the center of gravity low enough for more dynamic poses that an unweighted model could maintain.