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| For some time, I felt the need to prove to myself that I could create something original and see it through from start to finish. This is one of those builds that I believe is instrumental in the further development of what I like to call my "skills" and serves as a great experience! | ||||||||||
| - the concept - |
| Sometime in 2004 I found a plastic bowl at work. It was about to be thrown away but I kept it instead because of it's interesting shape. I like Maschinen Krieger and immediately imagined an Ma. K inspired vehicle of some sort. I originally wanted to do a four-legged spider tank but then I remembered something from an old Nintendo (NES) game. |  Bowl |
| The original Mega-Man game was one of my favorites as a kid. There was an enemy who usually hung out at the end of the levels right before the leader; a pogo robot who hopped around intent on killing. It was that bozo that led to the final design of this droid. |  Mega Man Robot |
| Ultimately, many things inspired this build...from Star Wars to builds by some of the very talented modelers around the internet. The main things here were to learn and apply. |
| - antenna dome - |
| The bowl was turned upside down and used for the main body. I started by drawing a grid pattern; this would help when the time came to add detail by keeping everything symmetrical. Next, I cut the bottom end of the bowl out and inserted a plastic hemisphere. This dome houses the transmitter/receiver so I cut a hole in the center for an antenna to stick out of. Detailing of the array dome was accomplished with some strip styrene, t-bar and a metal hardware. |  Drawn Lines  Antenna Dome Detail  Antenna Array |
| The main body will be realized as a solid cast hull so I inserted some brass nails with rounded ends to simulate large rivets holding the hull in place. These were placed along the lines of symmetry that I had previously drawn on. | |
| The antenna was built using a few 1/35 military parts were used as well as aluminum tubing and very thin styrene round stock. It's funny how rewarding building something as simple as this feels! |
| - Sockets & detail - |
| This droid is supposed to be a weapon of war so it needed to be able to mount some armament. Therfore, I built sockets into the sides of the hull to allow for that. I used old, discarded hardware from work, strip styrene and a wheel piece from a model car to accomplish this. I also allowed the armament to be moveable by using aluminum tubing in the joints. |  Armament Socket  Eye Socket  Hull Detail |
| I felt the need to incorporate an eye socket to give the droid some character. Again, styrene, brass nails and plastic tubing were used to shape this area. The found object that will serve as the eye is made of metal and has a natural metal look that I feel is perfect . Therefore that piece has not yet been installed but will be after painting of the model is completed. | |
| The hull needed some detail so I started by adding bits from old floppy disks above the protruding lip of the bowl. Next, I installed a length of track from a 1/35 Tamiya German HANOMAG along the bottom edge. |
| - armanment - |
| I wanted to give this droid a futuristic looking plasma cannon so I again borrowed 1/35 tank parts and bashed this up. The barrel is aluminum tubing as well as the mounting point that will meet with the armament socket. |  Side Gun  Rocket Tubes |
| The weapons systems needed a bit of variety so I went with different weapon hardware for the opposite side. The tubes are aluminum tubing dressed up with pieces of strip styrene, t-bar and 1/35 tank parts. Later, I would add modified 1/35 tank shells for rockets. |
| - engine - |
| I got this neat idea to use the shell from an old auto air freshner for the engine of the droid. The slots make cool vents and the whole thing keeps the round shape look of the main body. The innards of the engine came off an old G.I. Joe vehicle with 1/35 tank parts added for interest. |  Engine Detail  Engine Parts  Finished  Adding Texture |
| The air freshener was cut up and modified a bit. I had to paint and weather the engine details before attaching the whole thing to the droid body since I wouldn't be left with any room to work with afterwards. I would just mask the vents with tissue during primer and paint to avoid messing my work up. | |
| More tank parts and some ship parts were used to detail the exterior of the engine. The idea is that the engine shell will be able to hinge upwards during maintenance so I placed little styrene bits around the panel to suggest that it is in a locked position. | |
| I also went ahead and took the time to add texture to the main body to give it a bit of a gritty look. I learned this technique in an issue of Finescale Modeler way back in the day and had always wanted to try it. Mr. Surfacer 1000 was used for this. It's a bit thin but it's all I had so I just thickened it up with Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty. The mix was applied with a stiff brush and allowed to dry. |
| Here's a few shots of the progress I've made so far... |
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| © Copyright 2005-2007. All photos of actual models are property of Joe Jimenez and cannot be used without permission. |