MWO Desert camo Hunchback

This was painted for an exhibition and the first HBK to be finished. Because it's going to be in an exhibition, so assembly consideration had to be given. The aerial and small head laser have been omitted and the hump has been glued to reduce the chance accidents as a result of clumsy handling.

All made in house on a Roland MDX40a 4 axis mill, recast and painted by myself. Record time for painting on this one 4days from bare resin put in some very long hours and blurred vision!

I know this is an odd thing to be please with, but I particularly like how bicep decal came out any one whose had to put a decal non-flat surface will tell you its a pain, but this one came out right first time. The decal was place on the bicep allowed to dry then sealed with gloss then the floating parts were cut with a scalpel and lowered into recess of the X emboss, sealed in with gloss and shaded with the rest of the model.

click on the image, then right click and view image for the full rez version or view on my DA page
deviantart.com/MWO-Desert-camo-Hunchback

Approx 16cm to 16.5cm tall (Table top HBK for comparison).
1/60 scale.
Waist, shoulders and elbows articulate.
Legs can be glue in different articulated positions.
31 separate parts go into making the model.

Comparison with my earlier Centurion.

Have questions? here's the RD email

HBK painting

Just thought I'd share this progression montage of the HBK so far a days worth of painting (+1day for prep and glue). I can't tell you how good it feels to be into painting and loving how good the model looks now it has some colour.

This is a one tone scheme (my first) I had to paint this one differently because I didn't have lots of time to wait for paint to dry. It'll get the usual weathering treatment and I plan to give the metal parts on show here a dust of gunmetal to brighten them.

I need to get this wrapped up asap as it's destined for a trade show end of the month. Two/three days worth of painting to go but I off on holiday this week so I need to cram as much in before hand.
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I'm Lord of the Boxes!!

I'm also probably abit high on hot glue

Woot end of a tedious day of cutting up cardboard and rolling plasticine but rest of the mould boxes made ready (hopefully) for the delivery of some RTV tomorrow.

Clear RTV test

So I waited and waited for that clear RTV (rubber) sample to arrive. Frustratingly it arrive late on Thursday to late to get a 5kg order in before the weekend >.<

This rtv is 2x the price of the normal stuff so i really did have to wait to see how the test come out (a rare case of patience for me) and I'm glad I did. What I knew is this was 40shore hardness (compared to the the 20-25shore I normally have) but with not point of reference there was know way of know how hard it would be.

So I made Up 2 mould boxes (abit a little too over sized). As soon as I weigh out the main part in I knew it wasn't right for me. The Silicone was thick, really thick it was hard to degas and I had to take great care in pouring it then degassed the mould again and it still looked like I couldn't pull a high enough vacuum to pull all the bubbles out. The RTV also clung to the bucket which left a frustrating wastage which meant I could only pour 1 test mould.

Surprisingly the cured mould didn't have any bubbles in it so I guess the degassing did work and it was only surface tension bubbles. Here you can see the ghostly Hunchie shin suspended in the silicone (the pen was to help the camera focus).

Now the fun and games started holy fruit of the ball is this stuff hard and it didn't help the mould was a bit too thick either. Even with the help of my wife it was a job to cut this mould. In the end I had to trim 1.5cm off the parting line side just to get it to relax it enough to cut down to the part. At one point i was thinking I would just have to cut the part out but lucky that wasn't the case

The mould its self is actually quite good (as you can see below) it aligns nicely and this was the most tricky part to cast but all the venting and bridging (2vents 6brigdes) help the bubbles out. However it takes considerable strength to pull the part out of the mould which is a fingernail killer.

So in conclusion it made a nice mould but boy is it too hard to use esp if every mould was made like this. Glad I didn't buckle and buy a 5kg tub it would of hurt my wallet and my poor fingers.

I did order another clear rtv sample from another company it was 13shore (so softer) that comes on Monday but I really running out of time to get these moulds done so I've also ordered 5kg of the blue stuff just get her done because I know it produces good moulds only downside is your cutting blind.