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OK, yes, I know. Stable doors and bolting horses.

But after an unwillingness to let PB see any more of my money, and an inability to catch any on the second hand market in the UK, I have finally got one of those teeny tiny, expert grade kits that our dear chum Kevin sent out over a year ago, and I promised a friend I would do a build here on Dakka.

So here I go.

First impressions.



I know others have said it before me, but a LOT of those pieces are just ........ wrong! The legs split into left half/right half instead of thigh and lower leg. And they don't even have the excuse of doing it so that you could flex the foot. And some of the parts are miniscule.

<Must stop ranting about poor quality, get on with the build!>

OK, I haven't done much yet other than mental work on what I want to do with them. I have decided that, as I have two battloid modes, I will assemble them both and try and paint one in a more "Inside the Reality" manner, making it look like a real world vehicle as if I was making a model of one from on board the SDF-1. The other will be as a fan of the cartoon and will be painted in that dated cartoon style that we can actually see in the show.

And last night I got the frame with the parts for these two primed with Vallejo grey. It's a light grey in colour, prefect for me to cover over with a darker grey for shadows and a lighter grey or white for well lit areas.

Next step will be fixing a bent rod to use as a stand for the one with the leg which is permanently bent at the knee, and ensuring it is glued well inside the leg as a support. I will also be trying to get a very fine [watered down] ink into the panel lines to get them the definition they need before I dust white over the top to tone it all down again. To try and help the problems I have seen with the joins down the front of the legs, etc., I have an idea to thin down the pegs a little and chamfer the edges to be joined. These measures should allow me to use a solvent glue and push the pieces together so that a small bead of plastic forms along the length of the join. As this would be slightly proud, it can be sanded flat for a nice join. [At least, that's the theory!]

Hopefully I will get some pictures of the progress on my phone tonight. Sorry they won't be brilliant, but I don't have my cannon up here in the digs with me.

Ah, good stuff.

I too would question the need for certain splits but the end result IS good just the fuss getting there begs the question.

I have done a few cuts at the back of the knee for both the straight legs or bent and glue of green-stuff fill as needed for more variety of poses.

Seeing any work done on the VT's IS brilliant.

The best glue for the job is plasticweld. Many polystyrene cements won't act strongly enough on ABS.

Also - priming first? Brave, especially if you're using PU primer. It does not like being sanded.

WD, Plasticweld is the ONLY glue I use on any type of plastic.

Only use CA or epoxy if the job requires it - which the bent-knee version will for the brass rod I will need to use for the pose on that one. [Keeping schtum about what that will actually look like until the big reveal at the end of this build.]

I don't see myself doing a lot of sanding on these. Way too small, I'd lose half the mouth-watering detail if I tried. also, I didn't prime both sides. All the internal spaces have been left. I prime with a good quality gravity feed airbrush so I can command the coverage better. I'm more likely to have to do some brush touch-ups as I remove mould-lines and connection points, but that is one of my main reasons for doing so.