Zitader Gustav/Melusine Resin Conversion.

Intro.

Within Kow Yokoyama's Ma.K. universe the Melusine is my favourite suit, so on seeing that Zitader were producing a limted run (200) of their PKA Ausf M Probeherstellung art (Experimental type Melusine) I snapped one up from Rainbow 10. My box said 7/200, all I can say is I feel sorry for the person who gets 200/200! The kit is pretty poor IMHO and requires a fair amount of work to fix the ill fitting parts.

The diorama.

I kind of have a background story in mind (I aways cook up justification in my head to help stear the direction of the diorama) that these are 3 first prototypes, developed specifically for a mission into uncharted territory, with the aim of locating a rumoured secret base. As such the 1 of the units has sophisticated tracking/detection equipment. The mission brief is discovery and sabotage at any cost. As a first (and possibly last) sortie the units will be specifically painted up for the type of woodland they are in, scratches from branhes etc will be applied, but no rust. The units are equiped with additional fuel tanks and camo nets (as well as smoke dischargers) to assist them in their tasks.

As the units are prototypes, on a first sortie, the weathering is intentionally light. However, walking through this kind of woodland would probably result in scratching (although some AFV modellers maintain that the paint used on armor would not scratch as easily as is often portrayed in modelling), and so the front and upper surfaces have heaps of minute scratches. Also areas of motion wear have the paint worn down through to the base coat (to a dark green/black). The units are too new for wear down to the metal and any rust to exist. The ammo case, and hands however, have some of the corners and raised extremities taken back to the metal.
Finally I based the terrain on the woodlands outside my house, the base of which is extremely firm, and as these machines are supposed to be approx 400kgs, there is little or no sinking visible in the ground (in the case of the unit carrying the makeshift bolt on launchers the legs are compressed more, and there are ferns over the feet - I assumed it would "shuffle" a little more than the other 2 under it's additional payload). The unit carrying the ammo crates is supposed to be mid step, with only the heel of his leading foot firmly planted.

The build.

Inspired by the SAFS over at Kruegers Krieger I set about making a wire equipment basket to mount on the back. Pretty fiddly work, cutting, bending and soldering the brass rod.

The fit between the resin cast parts is so bad that it was necessary to reshape these parts using mori-mori. 1 side of the join between the 2 pieces was made smooth and then lightly "painted" with lipsalve to prevent the mori-mori adhering to it.

The second piece was then coated with the putty and pressed into the first piece. Mori-mori takes a relatively short time to gell, and about an hour to harden. It is then a case of sanding, re mori-mori-ing etc until a good fit and finish is achieved. In addition to this I used SSP-hg to reshape the "mouth" to give a better fit and some "overbite" :).

After priming the pieces (and reputtying, did I mention this was a pretty shoddy kit ;) ) I set about recasting the better fitting, improved shape pieces. I think I will now use the equipment basket for another project using the Modelkasten Melusine conversion set.

The re-tooled parts are clayed inside a box built from lego (to form the mold), and the silicone rubber for the first half of the mold poured and allowed to set.

Initial results are looking pretty cool, I used a very high quality BiResin from a specialist sculpting supply shop the store owner showed me some amazing detailed minute ships that he had cast using this resin, which made it a very easy choice. When making the molds I constructed them in such a way that any seams would be away from the visible surface, as it turns out the seam lines are practically non-existent anyway :).

So here they are, all in a row :) they are not pinned or trimmed yet, but the fit is pretty good even if I do say so myself. The small parts turned out well, I was unsure how successful they would be, but they were more straight forward than the complex body segments.

Phun with Photo-etch, or Miniature Metal madness.

The fuel drums and Smoke canisters are from an ABER PE set, it is the first time I have used this kind of PE, and I have to say I cocked a few of the little catches on the fuel pods up before I got the hang of it. The detail on the smoke canisters will probably be lost in the final diorama, but it is pretty cool none the less. (not used in final diorama-too cluttered)

Doing everything in triplicate is a pain in teh butt! I made some forearm casts also so that the prototypes can be carrying stuff with both hands.

The standards nitto kit joints have been discarded, and the limbs have been filled with 2 part auto body putty. Brass rod is then inserted and bent to the required positions. The brass rod is then covered with Tamiya "quick type" epoxy putty, which is "sculpted" with a dental tool to resemble joint covers. The second picture shows a rough layout of the scene. I am not sure at this stage whether to use the "late autumn" foliage or not.

For the woodland camo I found a reference picture of Danish Jungle camo (for all that rainforest found in Denmark!!). I Experimented with one of the leftover Gustav bodies with a technique using Mr Masking sol Neo to recreate this pattern. The body was not primed or finished, and hence some plastic is showing through. As an experiment is was a good excercise, I think it will work out, but I need to use a lot more of the dark base colour, and possibly increase the tonal variance between the 3 greens used (although use of filters should exagerate these). The second test is using Vallejo Air colours (cf Mr colour) I think the colours work better and the edges are less harsh using the acrylic paint. I still need to use more of the dark green though.

For the woodland base I need a large-ish tree. The trunk is made from 3 half inch balsa wood dowels pinned and glued together. The trunk was then grafted to a section of twig (a dead miniature lemon tree!). Branches were then made from twisted silver jewellers wire. The whole thing is then coated in Flexi-bark, and finally painted with plaster. When the plaster is nearly dry a wet brush is used to create "bark lines". For really rough, old trees the plaster is not necessary, but I wanted to reduce the bumpy texture. Once the plaster is dry the tree painting begins. At this stage the tree has been painted, washed, drybrushed and had a filter applied. I am still not happy with it, so I will probably drybrush and filter a few more times *edit* I ended up completely repainting the tree, washing, drybrushing, flat coat, wash, drybrush etc. etc. )

All sub assemblies are primed, and then base coated Dark green Camo (Vallejo air acrylic).

I wanted to attempt to make the ID bands on the left arm look hand painted, so as an experiment I have masked off the pre sprayed yellow/fluor orange mix with tape, leaving a space to paint in Mr masking sol neo. Once painted in and tape removed, the edges of the masking solution band can be "roughed up" a little. No Idea how this wil turn out (the edges might end up realy rough!!)

After putting down the base coat, the first layer of mask is applied (first pic below), and then the next shade of green applied. once this is dry a further liquid mask is applied (shileds pic) and then the final colour airbrushed on. Bit of a seriously time consuming venture with so many pieces. when airbrushing the camo layers I was careful to not apply an even coat, so as to vary the tone of the camo.

Then the fun bit (or so I thought), removing the mask. For the individual pieces this went very smoothly, but was a complicated pain in the @r$€ for the bodies.

The picture below shows the "unveiling" of the camo and stripes on the left arm pieces, the yellow bands turned out pretty well i think.

Camo nets are rolled and set with watered down white glue, pic 2 shows 3 hand wound antennae (0.3mm brass rod).

Skipped a few in-prog stages, the following photos show the planned layout. The kits have had dry transfers added, been gloss coated with "future", decals added, a second coat of "future" then matte laquer has been applied. Some of the small features have been hand painted, but quite a few still to do.

Filters of brown and green have been applied, and spot washes of tensochrom, the weathering will be quite light on these (as they are prototypes). As well as some paint chips/scratches I will add fuel spills, oil and general muck.

The rocket launchers are Lau 10's from a hasegawa kit, the mounting unit is "scratched" from plastic "T" section, kotobukiya bolts and round molds, plastic cord and a resin cast of a "mass spec pre-column" sawn in half. The fuel tanks have been weathered slightly and fuel spills applied. Lead foil is used for straps the PE buckles from a 1/24 car set.

The pics below show finished weathering on the kit pieces. The small random paint chips where applied using a small piece of scotchbrite pad, lightely painted with a darkened base colour. Some larger scratches and chips applied using a 5O brush (pics a bit dusty). All front facing parts of the kit received these minor chips (from walking through trees, brambles etc). Some of the more severe wear and tear areas got some metallic chips also. I ended up flat coating the kit 3 times, with small enamel washes and mig pigment applications between them

The hand suplied with the Nitto Gustav donor kit is a bit crap, so I selected some b-club 1/144 gundam seed hands. The rats are from the czech company "plus models", oops looks like one got a bit squished!

And then onto my favourite part (and the most time consuming) ; the ground work.The photo etched ferns and ivy I picked up from 4D models (excellent source of Diorama stuff and raw materials). The PE fret is cleaned and then coated with Mr Metal primer, and then a green base is built up using Mr Colour. A final top coat of Vallejo acrylic is applied, leaving the underside darker (for shadow, and so that can be used upside down for older/dead ferns)

The wooden base is stained with dilute enamel paint, and then the edges maked off. A layer of ready mixed lightweight quick drying filler is applied and painted brown. The pins are inserted and a base layer of scenics scatter (forest floor) is sprinkled over diluted white glue. Once dry the excess is tipped off and a fixing layer of hairspray is used. A mixture of static grasses is applied with white glue (diluted) and then blown with a hairdryer to set and make the fibres stand up (again fixed with hairspray).

Next i raided the kitchen, as dried herbs are useless for cooking I thought I would put them to good use on the base :).

The tree has been drybrushed a few time to lighten and detail, with woodland scenics medium green foliage added which took the best part of a day alone :( . The PE ivy (again from 4D models) was painted as before and then the mid vein painted on with a 5O brush.

Another day spent assembling the base, each fern and piece of bracken was individually placed (around the models legs) and bent to indicate damage etc. A small log was coated in fine green turf (woodland scenics), and some small saplings set (twigs, painted dark brown with poplar coloured ground rubber from green scene), one of these is broken over as it lies in the path of the rear most Mel.

The brambles are made from black dyed sisal type stuff, with green scene oak colour ground rubber, again attached with hairspray. I also made some "cow parsely" (well thats what it's supposed to resemble) from some light green dyed fine string and pale yellow scatter.

Almost Done :), Click image for larger pic

All finished images can be found here.