1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 6

Time now to do some work on the front of the body. The lens are meant to be amber, these were painted with Crystal Orange as in part 2 of the blog.  Satin Black was used for the grills & the lens pushed into those. I found that the grill were very hard to push into place & had to get a file to the inside of parts A13 & A14 to make them fit better.

At this stage I pushed in the shoulder joints to the body & they go in with a clicking sound as the ball joints sits in the body.  The lower body covers (A7 & A9) were sprayed Satin Black then put in place.

 

The body is coming together nicely & the top ½ needs some attention. The shoulder armour, lower access hatch (B29) & all the top armour pieces were done in White primer & the fixing bracket for the hatch in Plate Mail.  The shoulder armour went together over the lights with a poly-cap in place inside & then pushed onto the remaining ball joint in the shoulder. The upper hatch was done in Satin Black then fitted to the arms that come out by the HUD.   The top armour & neck gaiter just plug into position.

 

Let’s start to put this bad boy together.

The elbow armour was sprayed white then then the gaiter for the arm pushed over the arms & then this unit & the elbow armour fit into the shoulder joint on the main body. The head just clicks into place on the top & the waist then fits at the bottom. 

The gaiter for the waist can be pushed into place with a cocktail stick or the blade of a small flat screwdriver. The painted shoulder pads were pushed into place, and then the gold crest fits to the front.

The armour for the upper part of the legs were painted & fitted to the earlier made units & are pushed into place on the lower leg through the gaiter for the knees.

One of the final parts is to make the weapons & shield.  The shield is a simple 2 part unit painted black & white.

The pistol was painted in satin black, then to give some detail the grip was painted with mix of dark brown & matt black & the chamber in plate mail primer & then fitted. The night stick was in satin black & “Ammo Of Mig” rubber (AMIG-033). The shotgun was done in Aluminium, Gun metal & the pump action section satin black.

A large majority of Japanese kits use rub down transfers & stickers instead of water slide decals that I am more used to, so still perfecting the art of doing it right. This kit comes with 2 types, so decided to lay them out & see which would look best on the kit.

The trick with rub down transfers is to use some low tack masking tape to hold it in place while you rub so the transfer doesn’t move & split.  

Just a simple case of fitting the legs, shield & deciding what weapon to have & the Ingram is done.

1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 5

Time to work on the head. As I am spraying the model it was easier for me to make the LHS antennae (L19,L20 & L22) first so I could sand any seam lines down, give it a coat of White primer, then mask off the tip where the sticker goes & spray that area in U.S.Grey. 

Part J13 comes in clear Green, but you need to mask off a lot of the centre part & all the back of the visor then spray it White to get the right effect. 

Bar parts J14 & J7 all the other head parts were coated with White primer.

Just be gentle when pushing these parts together as some are very small & may snap.

Here comes the part we’ve all been waiting for with this kit… Oh yes flashing lights.

Before putting the light unit in I had tested that they worked, the unit sits in the back of the body & the 2 main cables come out of the side.

The back panel (N1) was sprayed in Plate Mail primer & when dry screwed into place. At this stage it is best to make sure that you have the lights facing the right way. The 4 lights should face forwards & only 2 LED’s should face backwards.

You need to make a pair of coupling arms in section 29 & these do not need to be painted. 

Best way I found to fit these over the cables was to fit the support rings E5 to the rubber gaiters first, then gently slide them over the light unit & then to fit the couplings arms inside the gaiter. Just to be sure I checked the lights still worked.

Gently push the connectors into the side of the body & you may here a slight click so you know they are in place.

The light supports (I5 & I4) were sprayed white & then fitted to the light unit. Make sure again before you do that you have the 4 LED’s facing forwards then the red lens just clicks on top.

1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 4

Now to work on the Ingram’s arms.

The top joints are both the same & as they will not be seen on the finished kit I just screwed them together as in section 11 of the manual.   The right hand side lower arm is meant to slide down so he can reach the gun mounted in the leg & does need a bit of work.

The sides of the arm & rear plate E6 were painted Plate Mail primer, the sliding beam & fixing clip in Magnesium & the piston in Plate Mail & a copper top section. The left arm comes in just 2 pieces & was done in Plate Mail & copper. The outer armour pieces (B30,B31,B32 & B33) were sprayed in the White primer.

 You need to cut 2 pieces of red wire that go through the arm & bend into place.  The completed lower arm sits into the armour.

The end caps (A16) were sprayed in Satin Black then they push into place on the arm.

The hip joint is a simple 3 piece unit that screws together, the connecting joint D13 pushed into place, then sprayed in Plate Mail primer.

 The outer casing for the hips (B38) had the winch fitted & then sprayed in White primer.  The winch cable was hand painted in Aluminium & then a black wash to bring out the depth of the cable more.

This unit then pushes into the waist section that was done back on part 2 of this blog.

1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 3

 Time to do some work on the cockpit area even though a lot of it will never be seen again J.

The seat comes in 3 parts with the rear bulkhead details moulded on the main part.  I used Vallejo Grey primer for a base coat.

The rest of the seat & bulkhead were highlighted in Vallejo U.S.Grey (71.047), Fire Red ( 71.084), Black (71.057) & Plate Mail primer.

The side walls of the cockpit were sprayed with Grey primer, then 3 coats of Exhaust Manifold. To try & represent the display screens I used  “Ammo Of Mig” Crystal Green (A.MIG-092), but in the pictures it just doesn’t show the deep colour it gave.

The cockpit was screwed together as in section 24, where the poly caps & some small parts were fitted.  Please pay attention on how to fit parts D10 & D9 as they need to go in before you screw it together.

They need to go on the inside of the cockpit horizontally to click in place then gently rotate them so they sit upright.  The side pods of the body (D21 & D22) were sprayed the same way as the cockpit & the arms (D16,D17,F1 & F2) in Plate Mail primer. These parts then fit onto what now has become the body of the Ingram.

 The completed flip down screen (F9 & F10) were primed, then painted in U.S.Grey. This time I brushed some Aluminium (71.062) first into where the screen should be & when dry used the Crystal Green. As you can see this gave a much better result.    

The final part for now on the body was to lower body panel B37, which has been sprayed with the White primer & the grey rubber boot that should have gone on the waist.  The reason I fitted it here was there are 2 pegs it has to sit on at the front of the body & I could see it was easier to get these fitted first then place the lower body panel over the boot to lock it in position.

I am still not happy with how these rubber parts look even with the seam lines taken out & I wish there was a way to totally remove the mould lines & not ruin the detail.

1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 2

The upper part of the legs will barely be seen, but that doesn’t stop me from painted them once built. Once the units were put together as in section 4 of the instructions they were sprayed in Vallejo Plate Mail primer (VAL 70.628) & allowed to dry.

Time to spray all outer leg armour parts & all of them were given a light sanding to remove any nub marks where they were taken off the sprue, but it also helps as washing them after also removes any mould release agent that can affect the paint going onto the plastic.

As mentioned at the start these were painted in a few light coats of Vallejo white primer (VAL 600) with light sand between coats when it was fully dry. Please make sure it is dry before you start to sand the primer.

It was at this stage I decided to do some detail work on the lower legs & my using a small amount of the following paints gave them a bit of a lift. I used Vallejo “Metal Color” Magnesium ( 77.711), Exhaust Manifold ( 77.723) & some “Ammo Of Mig” Old Brass (A.MIG-190)

The outer parts easily clipped into place & I left the legs on one side till later.

 Looking at the lights in the waist they are meant to be orange, but in the kit they are clear.  I have some “Ammo Of Mig” Crystal Orange (A.MIG-097) that will do the job nicely with 3 light coats.

The waist parts were sprayed in white & black primer then went together as in section 8, but I left off the rubber gaiter till a later stage.

Slight accident here as I dropped an open permanent paint marker on the waist unit while doing another model so had to re-spray the top after masking the rest off.

1/35 "Ingram 2" Patlabor - Part 1

Moved away from armour kits for a while & going back to one of my 1^st loves Sci-Fi, or in this case more correctly Gundam & Anime.

This kit is called “AV-98 Ingram 2” & is meant to be a 1:35 scale model of the armoured unit used by Tokyo police in the TV series.  These are meant to be just a snap fix kit with no painting, but I always paint & try to remove as many seam lines as possible, so here is how I built mine.

For all the white parts I am going to use my stock Vallejo white primer (VAL 600) as it goes on well, has a slight satin sheen when sprayed in very light coats & will not hide any of the kits detail.

To make both feet I put the “poly cap” (PC J) into part F14 & glued this & F15 together.  The seam lines were sanded down & the unit sprayed in Vallejo Plate Mail primer (VAL 70.628).

The sole of the foot (A3) & the base (A1) were glued together & allowed to dry.  The completed base & heel (A11) were sanded and sprayed Satin Black & allowed to dry.  The tops of the foot (I6) & (I1) were painted white then all the parts just press into the foot support.

The right hand leg has an opening side where a pistol sits & a mechanism pulls the gun out when the outer armour is moved.  The inner working (E9,16,17,23,24,25 & 30) were sprayed in Plate Mail  primer. 

As the leg interior may be on show it will be painted & have some details added. The whole leg parts were primed with grey primer (VAL 601). The insides of part (D8 & D20) were given several light coats of Exhaust Manifold ( 77.723) from the Vallejo “Metal Color” range were applied to the inside. When dry the inner was masked & the outer sectioned sprayed with “Metal Color” Aluminium ( 77.701). This gives just a slight colour change when you put the final leg together.

The inner working just push fitted together but pay attention to the manual as to how to fit part E30 as this need to move a certain way. 

The left leg has no moving parts, but to keep the same colour scheme the parts D7 & D19 were primed & the inner & outer parts sprayed the same Exhaust Manifold & Aluminium colours.  The small fixing pieces for the legs (D14,D15,E18 & E19) were sprayed with Plate Mail  primer.

1:12 Porsche 910 :- 15- Final assembly & decals

Homeward stretch now & the Porsche is nearly finished.

Time to do the final bits to the upper body.  The front section under the bonnet needs completed oil cooler fitted. The instructions show no pipe work going to it, so I drilled 2 small holes where the hoses should, in my view, come out & in the back of the cooler & by using a bit of scrap tubing made some pipes

The rear section of the body had the surrounds & lights fitted using clear glue as not to affect the red lens.

Now the oil cooler has set in place I masked off the inside of the front lights so I could spray them with Vallejo Black primer as it gives a nice satin effect.  Getting normal masking tape to go round small corners has been a problem for me until now.  I found some flexible masking tape that is only 2mm wide & more importantly stays in place. A couple of light coats are all it required.

The 4 headlights fronts have a small notch at the bottom, so please take note when gluing them in place as they will not sit correctly if not.

Using clear glue I fitted the lights & indicators then the top clear cover was fitted with a small amount of glue.

Honesty time here I made a right mess of the masks in the kit for the black surrounds to the windscreen in section 21, so had to mask it using the flexible tape & then spray it. The completed screen & dashboard were glued in place.

The reaming small parts for the front including the wipers were painted & put in position. 

When it came to the decal part I decided to use just a few of them as the kit was not an accurate representation of an actual car, but one that had been brought but still raced in classic races.  With the paint being a gloss the decals stuck to the surface very well & did not need any kind of extra softener or fixing agent.

 

The final stage was just to give the engine bay a slight touch of weathering to show the car was in use, but looked after.

There you have it & again my apologies in the time it took to do this blog & can guarantee the next one will not take as long.