Centurion Mecha

[Blindhorizon]

Those fans look awesome, this piece looks really good. your ability to visualise something and then create it is enviable. im really interested to see the guns arms youve talked about plus i wana see this monster complete and assembled.

[mangozac]

Thanks Blind, although I must say the process really isn't as structured as you think. My visualisation abilities are very poor - I simply know what looks good when I see it. So my procedure when creating models like this is to simply play around until I find something that I like the look of. The best example of this is the way I played with clay mock-ups to evolve the armour design

[mangozac]

I've been busy over the last few days and made some great progress - although I don't think that the pictures really do it justice! The exterior of the torso is 99% complete. I'm just waiting for an order of Tamiya supplies to arrive so I can prime it all grey with the airbrush (rather than the difficult to control excessive spraying of the Tamiya Surface Primer cans I usually use).

Most notable recent additions are the spotlight just forward of the main hatch and the lifting points on top of the torso. I admit I've gone a bit overboard with the lifting/tie down points, but I like them as a detail







As you can see I've also filled in the shoulder cylinders with a ball socket. I've machined up the matching ball which the weapons/arms will mount to. I still need to do some detailing around the sockets. Hopefully I'll be able to get stuck into the interior very shortly!

[Commissar-Krad]

This thing just keeps getting better and better. Nice work!

[mangozac]

Thanks K-Rad! There's light at the end of the tunnel!

[Blindhorizon]

Screw overboard man, the lifting points are awesome your adding extra realism to this amazing piece. Love the spotlight and that hatch is masterful, really love it. Also that smoke stack looks really good. I look at the detail inside the tube and wonder how you did it. Do you drill a bunch of separate holes through a piece of plastic? I look at what you do and then think how can i copy that, that gives me an idea of how i can scratch build better but sometimes i'm just stumped on how you got to where you did on some items.

Can't wait till this monster complete.
Blind-

[mangozac]

Haha thanks mate!

I'm not sure which details you're referring to. I'm happy to tell you how I did them though!

[mangozac]

Brass etch success! Yay!

The photosensitive coating kit I bought from ebay/China worked but it gave pretty poor resolution so wasn't suitable for this. It may have worked if I experimented with it a bit more, but instead I decided to play around with the PRP photoresist spray again.

I've got applying a nice, even coating sorted but it seems that the biggest requirement is a fairly long exposure time. On this piece it was up around 15 mins (as opposed to around 1.5 minutes for pre-sensitised blank PCB). I get the impression that a slightly thicker coating and even longer exposure time would provide for even better results.

The etching went well (I should have heated up the etchant a bit more) and admittedly I pulled it out a little prematurely, but I preferred to have it under-etched than over-etched.

Anyway, enough talk; check it out!



There's a few bits that are unusable, but for the most part it's pretty good! Once this is posted I'm going to go and cut some out to begin using them!

I also did some detailing on the inners of the shoulder rings:

[Arkangel]

The brass etch came out really well mate you must be excited! Well done mate another step forward in your modelling abilities.
I just wish i had the spare time to keep up
However finally got my cleaning pot and stand for my airbrush so i have a 10 days before i head back to work after xmas to get my 'eye in'

[mangozac]

Cheers buddy! 10 days off eh? We'll definitely have to catch up!

[Blindhorizon]

Wow you made your own etching?!?!? Thats freaking cool man, was it difficult to do?

[mangozac]

The brass etch is a pretty straightforward process, but there are a lot of things that can be screwed up. The problem is mainly the photoresist product itself: the new formula Electrolube PRP spray has a pretty bad name (and deservedly so). I already have a lot of the gear (like UV exposure box, developing and etching tanks) at work that I use for making printed circuit boards on a regular basis. I have a 99% success rate with PCBs, but we buy the material pre-coated with a photo resist which works fantastically.

I'm mostly pleased with how it's turned out, but I won't do any more in a hurry (and certainly don't recommend others trying DIY).

[mangozac]

Happy new year everyone!

I'm fortunate that my day job takes a 3 week vacation over the Christmas holidays. The first week was spend doing Christmassy stuff. The second week I spent on a yacht on the Gold Coast. Now here I am with my third week half way through and progress on the Centurion is starting to gather momentum!

I'm been focussing primarily on the cockpit detailing, which is a slow and fiddly task. I'm actually a little bit disappointed at how it looks in pictures (tiny model parts always look less impressive in photos) but with another layer of details (like structural details) it will be good to go!



I'm sure you'll be excited to see the first WIP shots of the pilot, as is being sculpted by my mate Marcus. The body is pretty much done, just the arms are left (which require me to complete the hand controls first, still WIP in the following shots). I'm really pleased with how it's turning out!





After I took the above photos I gave everything an airbrushed coat of Tamiya Liquid Surface Primer and am very pleased with the results. The parts look better than I'd imagined when all a uniform grey colour!

I'm hoping to test out the new control system I've built for my CNC router tomorrow afternoon, so I'd better pull my finger out and draw up some patterns for the weapons so that they can be cut out...

[Malika]

Really digging where this mech is going, just...wow...it's really inspiring!

The one thing I'd have to nitpick about is the pilot. The style in which she is sculpted seems more manga/anime, almost cartoony compared to the rest of the machine, not sure if that is what you're going after.

[mangozac]

That's a fair comment Malika. To be fair, it's my fault for not being implicit enough in my specifications to the sculptor. I was channelling some degree of anime in the concept art that I provided. Either way, it does look good and I don't think is completely mismatching the mecha design.