vrijdag 16 augustus 2013

The story of +(deca)HELL

I have been wanting to build a Makoto Kobayashi design for ages, but the resin kits were always too expensive and scratchbuilding/sculpting seemed too much of a hassle.

Kobayashi design hold some special appeal for me, similar to Kow Yokoyama's designs, big, rusty, organic, ungraceful and often a-symmetrical, they  fill a niche that none of the major genres can touch.

When I got some scans from the Hyperweapon 2008 book, I immediately fell in love with the Alaya build of +(deca)HELL.


















I'm not sure if it was a Kobayashi design built by Alaya, or something Kobayashi liked so much he put it in his book (my Japanese is quite non-existent).
Whichever the case, I wanted to have one. With no resin kits available and the design not too complicated, I decided to plunge in and build it myself.

Not knowing which parts were used for the legs, I started on an old MG Zaku I and remodeled the legs to a similar shape. Using most of the rest of the kit to build the rest of +(deca)HELL.





The shell was built from some warship and spaceship hullplates and a whole load of putty.
Panel lines were added in blocked lines to break up the big flat surface and to contrast and enhance the curves. The shell was filled with 1/12 motorcycle part, 1/24 rally car parts, and some greebles form the spares bin.




































In the mean time, Francesco Benedettini from patopazzo told me where to find Alaya's blog, where multiple WIP pictures could be found.
Sadly I was already way too far into building it using different donor kits than the original, so it was going to look quite different.









Of course there was also a big-ass gun, no robot would be complete without ^_^















I primed the model black with Army Painter, known for it's robustness.

























And in the end, after many layers of paint and washes, but little in the way of pictures, it was done.












































I still need to redo the panel lines, just darken them a bit more.
Maybe add some more dust and muck to the legs too...

But it's about as done as I wanted it.
It won me a Borderbreak Cougar in an online modification competition, so I can't complain ^_^

On to the next model.

Geen opmerkingen:

Een reactie posten