Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

For those who don't know, Akira was a ground-breaking Japanese animated movie that wowed American audiences in 1988 and opened up the western world to Japanese Anime.
In the movie a bunch of biker punks wrestle with the military, corrupt government officials and the development of earth-shattering psychic powers. The main character, Kaneda,
rides around on a slick recumbent motorcycle that I have been obsessing about ever since. When I saw Irondog Studio's conversion (http://www.irondogstudios.com/images/akiraboss/mek_akiraboss.html) I knew I had to try it.
More than that, I knew I wanted to created an Ork army with that model as the center piece.

This thread is about the building of that army.

The first thing I did was to pull the graphic novels out of storage and look at reference pics of the bike.

Kaneda, in the comic series, was the leader of a gang calling themselves the "Pillboys". Well, that's how they were referred to by other gangs.
I decided my Boss would be called "Kan-eata"
Tetsuo Shima, Kaneda's best friend, becomes a violent, psychopathic psionic of immense power so I decided to have a weirdboy named "Tetsuo Smasha"

I decided to use the AoBR Warboss as the base model for Kan-eata. The model I bought from ebay was already assembled and painted so I agonized over possibly ruining a great model. In the end I cut him apart with a razor saw to preserve as much of the paintjob as possible. This also made me slow down and plan carefully what my next step was.

Kan-eata's head had to be positioned higher so that he wouldn't be staring at the ground. I fixed his neck with green stuff.

Another pic showing the "Big Red One" and Merkury stickers. Later in the series an Arai Helmets sticker is added, but I chose to keep it simple.

Impressive conversion! What did you use for the windshield glass? Did you cut its shape yourself and how?

Farseer Pef wrote:
Impressive conversion! What did you use for the windshield glass? Did you cut its shape yourself and how?

It's just blister pack plastic. I had to guess at the shape and I went through five different versions before getting it right. I had originally thought that blister plastic heated with a heat gun would create a bubble shape like the original bike, but the plastic didn't heat evenly. I ended up cutting several templates out of paper and test fitting them until I got the correct shape. A flat shape bent and glued looked better than anything I tried with the heat gun.

That's fantastic, the bike looks great and the Warboss has a very cool pose.

This is...AMAZING! I freaking love it.

Orkira I love it

HAHAHA YES! I love it! Awesome work

Can't wait to see Tetsuo, Akira has always been one of my favorite Manga books.