The good news from Kotobukiya just keep coming! Just announced is the HMM Iron Kong, due in December!
It’ll retail for 10,290 yen. Glurk.
As per usual, Kotobukiya did some minor redesigning so in the HMM, IK now has teeth! I just hope that they redesigned their joints too. Kit this big sized needs reinforced joints for it to do any meaningful poses.
I will probably wait for the inevitable Iron Kong Mk.2, Iron Kong PK or maybe even the Iron Kong Schwaltz Custom!
Ready for first coat of primer. First up though, I dipped the canopy in Future Floor Polish, masked off then cement the 2 piece canopy to place.
Normally, I’d use white glue to stick the canopy (cement would cloud clear pieces). I’ve been told though that it’s safe to use cement because the clear pieces are protected by the Future. It’s always awkward to use white glue so I decided to bite the bullet and use cement instead.
An inspection after the cement has dried seem to bear the theory out. It looks fine. Anyhow, primer time!
The once delayed HMM Buster Tortoise has just been given a release date by Kotobukiya. It’s coming in November priced at 3,990 yen.
I wasn’t too impressed with it when the image of the prototype popped up. But the final version sure is nice. I’m not sure what they did to it, but it looks much better now.
Unlike the original Zoids Buster Tortoise, the original cannon is totally removed and replaced by the Buster gun. I personally prefer this look vs the old one where the Buster gun is mounted on top of the cannon. Kinda broke the silhouette of the whole design IMO.
Doubt I will be able to resist this. Sigh.
Based on David Aungst’s article, the sensor fairings had to be modified for this project. The fairings were installed, but the cone-shaped tips were left off. So it’s an easy matter of cutting them off during installation. There were 5 altogether. The other antennae are too small so I will leave them out until final finishing.
The kit lets me model the flaps in the down position. These had some ejection marks so I gave them a quick sand.
I chose to close the air brake doors as these can remain closed while on the ground. Also, less work for me hehe. Construction has been remarkably smooth and after 2 hours total of work I have this:
Time to close up the cockpit for the puttying stage. The HUD is attached with white glue while the front canopy is masked off and cemented onto place. I used a mix of masking tape (in yellow) and liquid mask (dries blur) for this. The rear canopy is glued in place with white glue as I need to pose the canopy open later.
I also quickly hand painted the landing gear. It’s a matter of qhite for the base color then giving all the parts a wash of black grey. Then a light drybrush is done by silver grey color pencil.
The funeral’s over. But this won’t be the end. Soon, people will forget the artist and the father that is Michael Jackson and instead, dredge up the eccentric that he was.
Call me cynical but it’s not the first time, it won’t be the last. Goodbye sir, I hope you find some measure of peace that you couldn’t here in this life.
You’ll always remain the one English-speaking singer my mum (who doesn’t speak one word of English) is a fan of.
Kit Info
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Scale: 1/48
Media: Injection Plastic
To keep my mind off all the chopping and sanding required by my F-16D Barak build, I decided to start this project and keep it strictly out of the box (OOB). The only aftermarket portion is the markings, which comes from TwoBobs. So it’s OOB with non-OOB markings and camouflage. It’s going to be my sanity build. Heh.
Back when the US Navy ran the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School aka ‘TOPGUN’, it operated A-4 Skyhawks in the role of the adversarys, ie. the bad guys. This particular Skyhawk took that role to the extreme by having an actual silhouette of a MiG-17 painted on it.
This project is heavily reliant on the excellent article by David Aungst at Hyperscale, who did all the research required to do up an accurate Top Gun #56. In fact, the TwoBobs decals are also based on this same research. The kit itself is the excellent 1/48 Hasegawa A-4E/F kit.
As with all aircraft kits, I began with the cockpit and I must say this kit’s cockpit is nicely detailed enough that I won’t consider an aftermarket resin set at all. Even the seat is reasonable detailed with molded on buckles.
I tried something new for this kit. I did the normal aircraft grey for the tub, then black grey wash over all the crevices, then black grey for the control panels. For the highlights though, I used a silver grey color pencil to go over. I really liked how it turned out as the color pencil gives me more control over drbrushing with a paint brush. I think I’ll use this method from now on. The main screen in the center of the control panel is given a wash of red color to simulate a turned off TV screen.
To make things even more challenging, the fingerprint appears over (or under) the ‘rescue’ decal. Meh. So anyhow, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with this. Most likely though, I will live with it.
The exhaust is made of 3 parts, the fan and 2 half-cylinders to make the trunking for the engine. The instructions called for the inside of the trunking to be painted in steel but I decided to leave as is because after putting the whole exhaust together, the inside can’t be seen. Less work. Heh.
The fan in the intake however, is more prominent, so this was handbrushed the same way as the cockpit. Steel for the fan, given a black grey wash, then highlighted with silver grey color pencil. The scoop itself is handbrushed white.
The instructions called for 8 grams of weight for the nose but I decided to overdo this a bit since if I didn’t weight it enough, I can’t go back and add more weights. It’s now suitably nose heavy.
With that done, all that remained was to cement both halves together. I slowly ran cement through the joints, inch by inch and worked around both halves of the fuselage, making sure the fit was good all round. With the cockpit sealed up, very little of the inside can actually be seen.
