Model Making

Model Making

Everything I own, have built or have on-order. With links to in-progress and completed images of the kits.

I did the stereotypical Airfix Spitfire, BF109 and Hurricane kits as a young boy - put together with horrible superglue that always oozed everywhere, painted with those dreadful tins of Humbrol enamels and with paint brushes that may as well have not bothered having any bristles at all. Wow, thinking back, those things were terrible, but it definitely got me started early with 'making things' from kits and I always kept my hand in at 'arty' things - ultimately almost going the creative route at college (art and design), but eventually deciding I simply wasn't good enough to make it as a career.

I still dabbled, from time-to-time with various hobbies and model making and/or miniatures were something that have been common ever since.

This page tries to catalogue of the things I've built in modern times (i.e. since having a consistent website, email address, the dawn of Youtube etc), as well as progress updates on the various things I'm on with at the moment.

Generally, if the image for a particular kit listed below is just a box cover, I probably haven't built it yet….

Kits from the various Gundam shows; I mainly prefer the U.C (Universal Century) timeline, as it's a bit more gritty and a bit less superhero, compared to the other versions. So the stuff I tend to get kits from includes:

Gundam (0079)
Gundam 0080 & 0083
Char's Counterattack
Zeta Gundam & ZZ Gundam
Gundam Unicorn
etc.

But not Gundam Wing, Seed, etc, as they're all a bit silly and deviate from the hard-scifi of the original series.

Oh, and the bad guys and the cannon fodder designs are the most interesting to me.

Gundam model index

I was introduced to Robotech as a child, so interest in the expanded Macross universe was inevitable (and of course, its a far more cohesive story that the Americanised version of Macross that Robotech resulted in). These are the kits and models from the various Macross related anime series and films that I own or have built:

Macross
Macross Plus
Macross II
Macross Delta, 7, Frontier, etc.

Macross model index

I never watched the original version, but the remake of Space Battleship Yamato in the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and Space Battleship Yamato 2205 (and now 3199) series (which is really one long series) which came out in the 2010's was really great. Some fabulous ship designs and transplanted WWII naval warfare tactics to sci-fi fantasy.

Worth watching!

Space Battleship Yamato list

This is a really cool retro-futuristic sci-fi series from the Japanese artist Kow Yokoyama in the early 1980's. Unlike most model ranges, the models and art came first, with 'official' back story and related works like games and novels later.

The visual style is a mish-mash of retro (think dieselpunk or WW2-what-if type scenario) crossed with a blend of utilitarianism and curvy, bulbous lines. There's not much else like it.

The main things that the series is recognised for include:

The Super Armored Fighting Suits - a cross between a deep-sea diving suit and a powered exoskeleton
Realistic looking figures, designs and proportions
Designs that look as if they may have come from Space 1999 or Gerry Anderson's U.F.O, crossed with WW2 experiments

It's not massively known outside of Japan, but there are a range of (large and small) manufacturers producing the figures and models under license. The original manufacturer was Nitto, with their models having been out of production for at least 20 years. The modern 'big names' are Wave and Hasegawa, with Wave concentrating more on the 1/20 figures and powered suits, and Hasegawa producing more of the vehicle designs (though not exclusively so). Many other smaller manufacturers make some of the variants and lesser-known designs mostly in resin.

I've also printed models from resin myself, as listed under the 3D Printed Models section below.