Hoihoi-san in 1:1 scale (part 2)

I decided to base coat the weapons in black even though the pieces are molded in gray plastic. Acrylic paint sticks better that way. I wish I had remembered this earlier because the orange USB port didn't turn out as smooth as I had hoped.
First I painted the black into the recessed areas. Then dry-brush the raised “USB” letters. Finally add the orange. The orange needed two coats because it's less forgiving than the recessed darker colours.

Painting multiple surfaces means you need to “hold” the pieces up to dry. An easy way is to use a clump of putty and let the pieces stick up in the air.

Sadly, I later discovered the “audio plug” to be a wasted effort. Turns out that particular piece is a tight fit and it pretty much cleaned the paint right off when I tried to insert it into the jack behind Hoihoi-san's head.
Speaking of her head, I debated a long time whether to matt-finish her face as well. But since Hoihoi-san is meant to be a doll, the plain plastic-y finish on her “skin” areas seemed to make sense.

The finished model has real tight joints. While she's poseable, Hoihoi-san is also very delicate. Some of her snap-fit parts (like her main torso) will actually fly apart in your hands if you're not careful while twisting her joints. Her bangs will also come apart every time you try removing her face to replace the “eyes-plate” underneath for looking left, right, or straight ahead.

Here she is completed (and ready for action).
Here we go!Any roaches hiding on this side?Perimeter secured! Okay... Must check bananas now...Alright - mission accomplished!

Hoihoi-san in 1:1 scale

In an anime mecha plastic-model kit (“plamo”) industry dominated by Bandai, there are few contenders. Kotobukiya is a relative newcomer working to carve out their own piece of the market by catering to the franchises that are NOT Mobile Suit Gundam. The Hoihoi-san kit is based on a PS2 game property about an automated robotic cockroach extermination system... which, interestingly enough, means any kit standing about 3 inches high could be considered “life-sized.”Hoihoi-san comes injection-molded in several colours not unlike the Bandai Gundam plastic kits (“Gunpla”). There is absolutely no flash and the sprues are clean and sharp. Kotobukiya, tampo-prints some of the markings directly onto the parts. However, if one chooses to base-coat and paint the kit, they also provide wet-transfer decals.
Kotobukiya also ups the ante by also pre-painting certain parts to simplify the build. Personally I would prefer they didn't but the ultimate goal seems to be for allowing the build to look its best without additional paint. The boot assemblies come with a smooth coat of black paint in the appropriate area.

When the instructions are marked with "!", pay attention to the orientation of the pieces or else they won't fit!
In all my years of plamo, I never expected one day I would be assembling a pair of miniaturized plastic bloomers.

At what appears to be the half-way point through the illustrated instructions, it's time to stop and consider what to do next. While a majority of the parts are molded in pale colours, the black parts pose a bit of a problem. When black plastic is strained, the plastic turns white. Even taking extra care with my snips and using a utility knive to gently shave the sprue, there are visible stress marks on the hem. Perhaps this is a good time to do some paint touch-up and start the matt-coat (especially because from this point, I'm starting to foresee certain parts which are indeed molded in the “wrong” colour such as the replica USB port, etc).

Imperial Guard Valkyrie 4

The Valkyrie build was delayed for a variety of reasons, but here's the final follow up.
First I wanted to turn the kit over and present possibly the ONLY image of the underside of the model anywhere. It's not clear from the instruction sheet nor from the photos. But the hatches don't have anything holding them in place until you finally put the wings and tail fins in place. Once everything's together, the hatches sort of get sandwiched in the grooves naturally. You'll wonder how it wasn't so obvious before you test-fit everything.Another trick I had to ask for help with is the canopy over the cockpit. Firstly, do the easy thing: base coat the "window frame" bits first. Just remember to leave the underside unpainted because that's where your glue will make contact! While you're at it, carefully tape off the windows leaving only the horizontal cross-bars that are molded into the clear plastic. These "bumps" will form part of the frames on the finished model so you'll need to paint that too.Here's a shot of the finished canopy resting on top of the cockpit assembly. Don't glue it in place yet!
Why not, you may ask? I painted the interior first for a reason. The finished canopy will serve as a conveniently cockpit-shaped template. How? Here's an easy trick for basecoating: wrap the finished canopy in plastic-food-wrap then sit it on top of the cockpit you want to protect. Plastic wrap is easy to hold together and easier to remove when you're done spraying!And finally... the photos you've been waiting for. This is after a coat of black, then a dusting coat of generic olive-drab green. A touch of randomness is done by holding up a sheet of card-stock with holes in it. And a final touch: sky-gray on the bottom... look it up, there's a reason for this paint scheme on military aircraft. Finally weathering is done with a combination of more chaos black, tin bitz, and boltgun metal from Citadel Colour paints.

Planetstrike kits

Today I'm bringing you a look at the Planetstrike scenery kits (which if you got a chance to check out the new expansion book, serve as more than just scenery). We'll start with the Aegis Defense Line kit.As you can see, there's very little to the set. There are 4 long walls and 4 short ones coming on a pair of sprues. Slap some paint on and you're done. The only thing to assemble is the quad-cannon model which will come in handy if you decide to leave the base and the gun unglued. The Planetstrike line has a common feature in most parts: the hatches or mounts for turrets are all the same size so they're interchangeable.
The Imperial Bastion comes on 6 sprues. The walls for the main structure are on 2 pairs while the rest of the stuff including the Comms Relay and Lascannon are on their own.
The first thing to do is to start with adding corner joints - you need that angle to start off the structure just like the Cities of Death kits from a few years ago. Next, use a main deck panel to help text fit the walls together, this will help get as close to a proper 90-degree angle as possible.Don't worry about perfection. The plastic has just enough give that you will be able to press the next parts together on top. More importantly, lay down the deck without glue. Friction between levels will keep the parts together! And that's how this kit becomes modular as described in the Planetstrike book. Just remember to test-fit everything on top of the previous level and glue only the walls you want to hold. In the end, you end up with this:
Note the deck panels are reversible so you have the option of reassembling the Bastion with or without the mounting point on the roof like so:Of course, building the kit to take advantage of its modular nature means you can do this (using the quad-cannon from the Aegis Defense Line kit and removing the middle level from the Bastion):
Or change the prop on the roof to suit the mission scenario you are playing:


Or try to use everything since the Bastion kit comes with a variety of ground-deployment bases. Mix and match parts to offer some dynamic looking setups.


Remember, if you shop smart, you can assemble an Imperial Strongpoint (a limited direct-market release from earlier this year) simply buy collecting 2 Bastion kits and 3 Aegis Defense Lines. It's tricky, but it can be done for the same price as the limited offer.

Imperial Guard Valkyrie 3

Easily the most irritating assembly of every vehicle kit I've ever built in my life, is the cockpit. You reach a point where everything is down to an art-form and a science. But every kit throws a little something different at you. The Valkyrie is no different.
As with many cockpit assemblies, the Valkyrie uses the usual "fake legs" pilot figures. These pilots have no feet. They're just torsos with arms and heads. The tough choice tackling a new sculpt is trying to figure out what you can get away with because you know certain bits will be forever hidden from view once it's done.
As you can see, the most visible parts are the heads and the control panels. In fact, you could mostly get away with base-coating the arms entirely. That said, as is typical, the easiest way to work with a cockpit is to do the paint details by dry-brushing before putting the assembly into the rest of the nose of the vehicle.
Also to note, the biggest display screen on the RIO's panel? Just use a bit of yellow to fake some tactical info. When the canopy is in place you'll barely be able to tell what's there anyway.

Imperial Guard Valkyrie 2

The main fuselage is nearly completed. The next page of the manual features the typical layouts found in a Citadel Miniatures booklet: a small blow-up box showing what needs to be assembled multiple times and then set aside.
Irritatingly, it describes a pair of turbine assemblies that do not have any supporting tabs holding their halves together. Only on the following page you will see that as you fit them, there will be tabs on the base where these pieces will go. See the photo below: the starboard turbine is about ready for assembly and the round bit at the back provides a ridge that will slot into the turbine’s grooves.
A friendly reminder: test-fit EVERYTHING. At a glance, the tail stabilizers look the same for both side, but they are indeed side-specific. The ridges slotting into the tails are angled, so try each bit before gluing. And be sure not to use too much glue. That’s common sense but is extra important in this case because those doors that are resting in the bottom guide slot will be secured by those tails at the top. Just a drop too much and you’ll wind up gluing the doors.
Another note about those tails, the diagram in the manual indicates there’s a bit that fits underneath next to the main fuselage… but I simply cannot find the corresponding pieces. I’m guessing this is some kind of left-over from the original Forge-World resin version of the kit. For example, there’s a bit in the front corners of the fuselage that, even with camera angles in consideration, it will not align exactly as in the photo. I surmise that parts of the documentation are recycled from documenting the old version of the model.

Imperial Guard Valkyrie 1

I know, I didn't get around to posting my final finished Stormlord. I will, I promise! But I'm just so excited to finally get my hands on the new Imperial Guard Valkyrie kit. Not because I play IG, but simply because I think the IG faction of Warhammer 40k have the coolest looking mechanical designs. They look grounded in real Earth technology but at the same time, taken to extreme ridiculousness.
The first thing to notice is that the kit is jammed into just 4 main sprues. But thankfully, a casual glance will reveal that most of the parts from a given sub-assembly are within the same sprue. We're still a long way from Bandai's individually numbered pieces, but it's manageable.

My made a few notes going through the manual. There are lots of moving parts rather than options on this kit. Unlike my very first Tau Devilfish, I won't need to glue a hatch permanently open, it seems. And the deploying guns are on free-swinging hinges. The rear access ramp is also hinged. I'm liking this build already.
Those guns are going to be a problem, however. With all the detail on those sprues, you'd think by now Games Workshop would design a multi-part Heavy Bolter so that I wouldn't have to drill my barrels anymore. I don't know what it is, they can put reasonable dents in exhaust pipes to simulate hollow-ness, but they can't put a similar dent for a weapon barrel. Oh, and last note about the gun: pay attention to the images in the manual. It's supposed to have grips for a soldier... but for some reason this bit is ommitted on the detailed blow-up of the assembly (if you look at the port-side version you'll see it does have the grips - and there are indeed grips bitz on the sprue for this.
After test-fitting several of the panels, I started glue. But here's another tip to save some trouble. Do the sides of the main fuselage first: That is, do one side, slot the gun in place and then glue on the top part of the hinge to hold it down. Then position the rear hatch and glue the other side in place to hold that down. Slot in the gun for that side and glue down the top of this second gun hinge. The reason you must do the front LAST is simply because the side panels have a little tab near the fore that fits right between the floor and the edge of the fore panel. Just trust me on this, I know it's counter-intuitive. If you've built any of the Cities of Death kits, you know you should connect and glue 3 adjoining panels to make a stable structure first. However in this case, because of those tabs, that strategy goes right out the window.
After that, page one is done. Just glue on the "roof" of this crew compartment. You might try tying it down with an elastic while it dries. Past experience with Citadel Miniatures kits is that large chunks warp a little. I don't know if that's to do with the plastic they use or if it's just the Canadian cold. More to come soon.

Stormlord 4

Here's a follow-up to the drilling work I mentioned... Thankfully, I've learned that less glue is better for 2 reasons: First it'll dry faster and cleaner, second it's easier to snap off mistakes. Here's the post-operation heavy bolter before I glued it back on.And to be honest, there's nothing else particularly interesting about this build because the rest is the final "turret" assembly. And as I previously said, it barely counts as a turret since it's actually so big is just sits in place and doesn't turn (it makes Baneblade's Vanquisher cannon turret look puny by comparison).
However, I will stop for a moment to show the heavy stubber guns mounted at the back. The instructions rather gloss over their assembly. In fact, the CAD drawing is actually wrong in one part. Firstly, you MUST pay attention to which pieces go on the left or right. The photo below shows the port-side gun (the "bolts" on the panel are at the rear of the vehicle). Also to note, the chain of bullets are on the sprue next to the wrong gun! You'll see when you start test-fitting: the bullets will point backwards if you have the incorrect bit. Lastly, it's not obvious, but the handles are also direction-specific - the handles are longer on the bottom than the top.And here's what they look like mounted. I took these photos specifically because the literature never shows how the final panels are supposed to go onto the tank - the front part goes under the hull ledge while the back part (with the bolts) goes over the hull ledge.
Finally, here are some random pics of the final build before paint. All I can say is I love how much surface detail is on the new pieces. I have a whole new appreciation for the original Baneblade parts too.