Happy New year

Here at the Reverse Disabled Build blog I'd like to say thank you for all the support people have given me in the last year.

This year I completed three mechs and with each one my knowledge has bounded. Some hard lessons have been learnt others have been more of a happy accident. It has been fun to push my skill and find a new confidence with in myself.

The positive comments and your willingness spent your hard earned my work is an imminence sauce of validation for me. Which is so important as I work in isolation and motivation can be elusive to find.

For 2013 I plan to move onto the next evolution of design. A 3d printed model with detail and assembly of a professional grade is my goal. The first Mech will be a test run to see how the process works and if successful 2013 will be a Bumper year for Big Mech and MWO fans a like.

I have dreams for the future behind 2013 but at this point they are too far to grasp. But if growth continue like 2012 who knows!

Have a good 2013 MECH FANS!!

I'll also be accepting new orders from today. If you have already emailed me and I'll be getting to those this week. If you want to get in touch as always the email is;

Painted Hunchback IIC

"The Hunchback IIC is a Clan-tech refit of the venerable Hunchback. Its meager six tons of armor, coupled with paltry ammunition and lack of long-range weapons, led Inner Sphere observers to conclude that this 'Mech was a last-ditch effort for failed warriors to die with glory. In truth, the assignment of a Hunchback IIC was essentially a death sentence. Warriors given this machine were not expected to survive their next battle. However, despite the attrition rates expected for pilots of this BattleMech, the number of Hunchback IICs within all Clans has remained more or less constant, a surprisingly high 3% of the entire touman of each Clan.

After the actions of a star of Smoke Jaguar Warden MechWarriors, however, this 'Mech has become popular with Clan Jade Falcon sibbies during their first Trial of Position as it often allows them one quick kill, though the practice is often derided by older Clanners. Perhaps the only bright spot in this design is the inclusion of jump jets that allow it to more easily traverse difficult terrain so that it can bring its mammoth guns into play." -Sarna

I have a little story to go with the mech too;

"Pytor had (much to his commander Nicolai Malthus annoyance) to survived every fools mission he was sent on. A a relic by clan standards Pytor had won no blood name or feats of daring. What had did have was a strong sense of self preservation where others push past to die in glory he'd play the long game and see the end of them all.

He was well matched in his hunchback. Its knife edge of life of death brought out the true warrior with in him. His last mission had seemed hopeless a sole mech as a rear guard action against a merc lance. His Job was just to provide a distraction the price of which, was his life. He'd already taken down their scout a surprise attack so savagely the Osiris fell to the ground as ferros rain and a fluke shot had crippled the highlander but he had been pursed into the city by and Atlas and a catapult.

The city evened the odds as but still he faced and almost impossible task. With a soft feather of the thrusters he brought the Hunchback to gentle rest on the roof top it winced under the hunchbacks weight. He knew their route would have to take them past him to get to the bridge 2 clicks down.

Powered down he chewed gum to clam himself. Dust on the rooftop skipped as the Altas past under him. Following behind the catapult. As he watched the reflection  in the building opposite he could see the tops of the Catapults LRM launchers. Pytor punched a button and the fusion reactor lit, a dance of lights ran around the cockpit the seconds slowed to hours as he waited for sequence to finish. The Atlas began to pivot around on its new sensor contact.

The hunback Jumpjets kicked into life, he sailed into the air a silvery gauss round flash past him as Pytor landed prone behind the catapult. At point blank the AC20's couldn't miss a cloud erupted from its rear to which Pytor stabbed his medium lasers. With a spout of flame the catapults LRM launcher Cart wheeled off into a building. The Atlas returned fire down the street but Pytor provided no clear target obscured by the atlas' own faltering lance mate. The catapult pilot panicked as he tried to clear the line of fire, took a few wobbly steps before he floundered into the tarmac.

His temporary cover removed Pytor lit his jump jets to lifting clear of the atlas' fire however the upward movement meant his legs took the brunt of the Atlas' deadly fire killing some of his upward momentum. His hunchback clipped the lip of the building and sprawled its self across the roof. "knee actuator destroyed, reverse disabled" the hollow voice of the computer rang out. He gathered the wounded mech under him as the building started to lunged to one side.  Pytor  leapt from stricken building almost as soon as he crash onto the next roof top the building lurched back and forth from the onslaught the Atlas pilot unleashed to shake its lofty prey loose. Pytor worked his way from roof top to roof top his foe cutting them down like a monstrous mechanical lumber jack. If he could get to the bridge he might find salvation.

At first he could barely catch a breath before being flushed out, but slowly the rest bites became longer and he opened a lead on his crazed foe. The bridge beckoned and with a final leap his landed at the foot of it. Too far to jump jet across it spanned a shallow yet rapid river strewn with mech sized boulders. The bridge itself was a suspended from 4 pillars which prevent using jump jets skip across. Beside it two ferrocreat reinforced petrochem pipelines that ran from the Plant 20kms east to the space-port 10kms north of town.

However mechs weren't made to fly and Pytors hap hazard trail had taken its toll. His left leg was holding on but locked up but least allowed him to remain upright.  The ammo feed was jammed leaving him lots ammo but no way of delivering it. He did manage to chamber 2 rounds giving him a chance of a landing lucky shot - 'let's call that plan A' he thought to himself. His lasers were working, but worse his targeting computer was wildly out of calibration. Taking his gum he placed it in the centre of view port. Pytor smiled at his low tech solution to a high tech problem. He'd never make it across the bridge even if he did it'll be 5kms of open ground nor could he go toe to toe the atlas there had to be a way. That's when Plan B. started to form do it now or it'll be too late..

His controls felt clammy, silenced warning lights blinked in the background. From his position behind the bridge's buttress Pytor could see the cloud of debris strewn dust tracing a trail across the city and emerging from it his tormentor. Pytor could of sworn he saw the Deaths head on top of his foe sucking in breath and swelling its chest. The Atlas strode onto the crossroads hammering fire into Pytors location. The bank of the river crumbled under foot and pytor struggled to keep the Hunchback in cover. "come on you fat ugly mother of a surratt" a few more steps and the Atlas had sealed his fate. Feathering the thrusters gliding him horizontally along the bank and away from the bridge and landing like a drunken sailor he fired of his AC20 rounds wildly at the atlas before his mech toppled over. As his mech sat up a withering fire of SRMs and PPCs howled in his direction, it was obvious plan A hadn't worked The computer matter of factly stated "ammunition depleted,  ammunition depleted". - "Well thats plan A out of the window now for plan B". With a long exhale Pytor steadied the make shift sight over the petrochem lines and with his medium lasers traced two emerald beams to the cluster of AC20 shells nestled just beneath.

All colour was erased from the world replace with pure white and I high pitch hiss and then a moment later the world fluttered through yellow orange red before settling on a acrid crimson brown. Computer announce "Heat critical, Shutdown imminent" he couldn't believe it he was still alive but not for long. A chemical fuelled inferno clung to every surface he held the over ride button and rolled the hunchback towards the river bank with whatever was left of its limbs. He dropped off the bank into the foaming river. The mech seemed to ease into the mud as temperatures came down and water washed over the view port.

Pytor reach up to grab his gum but stopped. What he saw shocked his very soul within the inferno was vision of Hades himself. Ablaze its arms outstretched towards the stricken hunchback. - "He couldn't of? how could he? he was right as the blast centre! Mother of Kerensky!!"

As the glowing hulk reached the river bank filling the entire sky. Pytor's body melted into the command couch, like his mech it had no flight left in it. The creature razed a fiery arm and then jerked to a stop its guts bulged and belched as the ammo stored within went critical, its shoulders dropped into its waist and fell away into the fiery hell for the final time."

Falling abit behind on painting

Best layed plans an all that I didn't finsihed the IIC yet as planed. I tend not to like to show working in progress of paint jobs (like most artists) because it only really comes together once it has all the stages complete.

However I have all the paint on, ready to be distressed, highlighted, decaled, weathered and to finish the laser lenses. To give you an idea on how much is left to do I'm about 50% of the way through.

Its a marmite paint job I know, my wife says its a Barbiebot. But I'm sticking to my guns on this Jade Falcon scheme the colours will tone down once distressed. You might remember I lifted the painted job from the MWO colouring thread. Tweaked the pink to pastel purple to give my falcons a flavour of the old Strikers cartoon (they loved clanners in purple in that show).

The keen eyed will notice I've kept the under slung Medium lasers on the arms. I know the IIC doesn't have them but I wanted to show off the arms as I made them so forgive me some artist licence.

HBK IIC coming to life!

MERRY CHRISTMAS mechwarriors,

Let me share with you this Christmas cracker;

It's looking real mean in its base coat this time I added a orange wash to age the metal more (Ratmech look?) I'm just about to put some clear down on it to let it cure hard over night. You notice I added shoulder pads and upgraded the chest lasers.

Not enough people expressed an interest in the IIC version. So this will be just a one off custom job for me :) However its worth noting I wont break up a painted model so you have till tomorrow afternoon to say if you would like one (same price at the CBT version) if enough of you want it I'll make a mould of the torso. I aiming to finished this before the end of Christmas

The next level in design

Ok so here I'm think how i could step up to the next level in desgin in both detail and articulation.

The answer is 3D printing.

The upside:
The results would be highly detailed, prefect articulation, hollow light weight parts.

The downside:
Cost for 3D drawing, Cost for 3D printing. My guess its £600 or more just for the prototype before casting costs.

The net result;
You get an exceptional professional quality model to play with, but its likely to cost £100+ not matter if its a light or an assault..

Its a big risk for me to take if the math doesn't stack up for me or yourselves. Your thoughts in the comments or on email;

Anyone painted there HBK's yet?

By now everyone should have gotten their HBKs (if you haven't email me and I'll check the tracking).

I love to see some assembled and painted you can email them to;

In other news Christmas has rolled in and family duties have taken over so there wont be too many updates till the new year. I'm still hoping to get the HBK IIC finished its just soo cold out in the workshop its not as appealing as playing MWO

If you do play MWO and you see a blokey called Almeras that would be me :)

Hunchback Assembly notes and the HBK IIC

 Some Hunchies might be landing with their new owners around about now (the rest are almost done) So I thought I would give you some tips to get the best out of them.

Hunchback Assembly notes;

• Please be careful removing pour spouts esp on the CBT forearm and CBT Bicep. My advice is to use a small hack saw or razor saw to cut the bulk off then use a file or sand paper to bring it flush.
• For the perfect alignment of the arms you will need to heat the end of the bicep (hot water or a hair dryer) put it in the torso and gently bend arm till it's in the right position. Don't go mad with heat warm to hot is good enough in most cases
• The forearm to bicep joints were deliberately left slightly loose because with painting they will get tighter.
• The bicep to forearm pin only needs gluing on the outside to retain articulation
• The bond on the ball joints once glued is incredibly strong! Make sure you happy with the pose before the glue sets too hard because (as i found) those parts will not come apart
• Make sure you wash to parts in soapy water before painting to take off the release agent.

In other news -

Say hello to Bam Bam Pam;

 I've only made slooooooooow progress because I've been busy casting and rebuilding PC but I'm almost ready to glue on the AC20 and fill in all the gaps. I'm toying with the idea of modding the body some more too. Filling in the centre and maybe replacing the medium laser barrels with those off the CBT arms.

If you really want one I'm happy to cast it on the proviso that there 5 pre-orders and even then it probably wont dispatch till the new year ('cause I'm tired of being out in the cold garage for hours).

Quick touch base

Hi guys

Just to let you know I'm working through orders now hopefully everything will be out by the end of the week.

In other news my PC took a dump when my 6month old SSD drive failed (Touted as bullet proof, aparently not according to the amount of 'failed drive' posts on their forums). I lost most of what I was working on for the last 6months because my PC wasn't backing up files correctly. Hoe hum woe is me.

Heres progress

Here's casting progress about 1/3 of the way through

You've probably noticed the different colour resin I ordered a few different types to see if i could find something better so far regular beige is the easiest to work with.

Hunchie casting under way

Just a quick update for those that placed orders. I been casting all day I've gone through 5kgs of resin and have some more on order. Hoping to get it all finished and shipped by the end of next week.

Finished Model gallery

If you ever want to see all my finished models in one place you can do so here;

http://smtkelly.deviantart.com/gallery/

I also made a montage of the production cycle.

MW4 Hunchback MK2 complete

MW4 Hunchback MK2 complete

 

Click to enlarge to size

Armorcast Atlas for scale comparison

All November build slots filled

All the November Hunchback build slots are filled orders our now closed.

If you still wanted one or any of my other models don't worry you still can. But they will be cast at start of December.

Debut of CBT-est Hunchie

So I've literally just finished casting the CBT arms (honestly the resin still soft :P) and popped them on my spare torso legs to get a photo to show you guys. Minimal clean up and just tacked together with super glue.

In other news. I'm getting killer progress on painting the MW4 hunchie. Some shading, some weathering, a few decals and it's about there.

Huncback Orders

So far I have 4/5 order requests Invoices will go out shortly. Once i get 5 I'll crack open the resin and start casting.

If you want to get in the first batch let me know.

I'm waiting the the CBT arm moulds to cure at the moment they should come out later today. While that's happening I've laid some colour down on the HBK.

I've have some more stenciling to-do then i can get on to the brush work. Here you can see how it scales to the highlander and the old 1/43scale HBK behind it.

Hunchback pricing and info

Hello Guys

Right then I've sat down and worked out what the Hunchback has owes me and what it will cost to make each model.

• £75.00 for the MW4 version ($121.00/€93.00)
• £78.00 For the CBT-est version ($125.50/€97.00)
• Postage should be approximately £15 to £18

I'll be taking 5 orders at first. But don't fret if you miss out I'll taking more in December. I do it this way so I don't get swamped with orders and gives me time to paint my own, cuz you know its not finished till its painted 

If you would like one you can contact me at this address please title your email HUNCHBACK ORDER

You probably wondering why it came out almost as much as the Highlander. I can assure you the truth is the resin isn't the expensive part its the Silicone moulds that really amp up the costs. And for the Hunchback I needed to make a number of extra moulds to make blank parts which would go on to become left and right handed. There's also only 2 mirrored parts on the mech (foot and bicep) which results in more moulds. This means the HBK used as much silicone as the highlander the up shot is the Huncback is rich in details.

So on to the model features;

• Stands 18cm (7.1inches) which is bang on 1/60 armor cast scale
• 415grams of resin
• the MW4 version comes in 16 parts. 
• the CBT-est comes in 20 parts. 
• Most parts have locator pins, buttons or sockets to aid assembly. 
• The legs can be posed at the ankle and hip.
• the arms can be posed at shoulder and elbow.
• the torso rotates at the hip and is tight enough not to need gluing. 

A little about why i love the Hunchie;
           The hunchback to me follows the philosophy of American muscle cars of the 60's. Drop a big block V8 in a small car and get something that upsets class balance. Its a super fun mech to play in table top for that reason. When you drop that big AC20 and the other guys going to feel it even if hes bigger and meaner.

Putting some paint down

Just put down a base coat for the HBK. My wife likes this stage she says i should leave it that colour but to me its just a base coat that will help me weather the model later although I admit it does look cool.

Lack of light called and end to play for today but tomorrow I hope to get some color down.

Also expect details on pricing tomorrow.

We have a CBT arm

So I've got the CBT arm together. I've just put a primer coat on it to pick out any faults

It's not quite finished yet it needs cleaning up in places but all the details are there. (Ignore the white pin the real one sits flush in a recess but once its in its a devil to get out)

 Above you can see I drew heavily on the Mechwarrior Online hunchback for arm design inspiration.


The arm its self will be cast in 4 parts;

• Bicep
• Forearm
• Hand
• Under forearm laser

I'm still doing the math on what the HBK will retail at. I need to weigh the model to see how much resin it uses then work out what the materials has cost me. I do have a spread sheet for that but its finding the time and tbh I'm focused on finishing the CBT set.

If you like to register interest in a hunchback then let me know at:

MW4 HBK - Reactor Online

78 days ago I started it and today marked the day the HBK was fully cast - yay go me

Here she is as she came out of the mould with minimal clean up.

(Click to enlarge)

 

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see lots of crisp detail the legs can be posed to give a natural stance. There is articulation in torso/hip, shoulders and elbows.

Pricing will come later this week once I sit down and work out how much everything's cost me. I'll probably offer 5 at first then more at a later date (so i have time to paint one myself)

The CBT/MWO parts are almost there as you can see from today's progress.

I think it needs something on the rear probably a pipe of some sort. Just waiting on the putty to cure so i dont risk smudging it.

Other photos from today;

(Inside of the mould)

(Master stood next to the mould)

Some picutres from today

I realised it been a while since i post pictures (a common sin among build blogs) so here we go.

Torso has been pored. this morning should be able to de-mould tomorrow. Below you can see it waiting to gobble up a kg of silicone.

I also cracked on with the cbt parts all the main bits have been made and waiting on the putty to set. Then they need some details.

Just one area giving me trouble there's a gap between the arm the torso. It needs a round piece I've tried a few but they don't seem to work out... not to worry i have a few ideas

Quick update

So I'm officially back to the point i was at week ago when my silicone went wobby yay me.

The new Catalyst is working as it should and i have the forearm moulds made and i have the Torso in a mould box waiting to be pored.

By mid week I should be able to cast a complete MW4 HBK . I can then focus on finishing the cbt styled parts (there isn't much to do)