The main build is done, but when I finished it there was one thing that just annoyed me to bits.
And that thing was the gun.
Not so much the weapon itself, but more the limited and frankly stupid way, the suit was able to hold it. Movement in the arms is so (limited) that it can hold point the gun to the side. To its left side.
That was just too dumb. This is supposed to be a machine of war.... in space.
Anway I decided to scratch it a new gun and I decided to integrate it into it's left arm. Like the smaller Ma.K suits.
It took a few attempts before I settled on a design I though best followed the lines and flow of the suit.
The first attempt I use the cap of a Copic marker and some of the remains of the original gun but this one looked too much like a pirate's peg leg:
Then the second attempt adding a more asymmetric element... didn't really solve the problem:
Then a builder friend of mine noted to lack of continuation of the lines of the arm.. and I had to agree, so I scraped the whole marker cap approach.
Third attempt was getting somewhere but still a little boring. I used acrylic nails, styrne tube and Aves putty for this.
The final design was close enough but had a little more detail:
So that was the weapon sorted. Then there was the issue of the shoulder plates. These things... what can I say. The didn't fit right, didn't fall naturally, they hit the top of the lower arm, the just looked off.
So I got rid of them. I tried shortening them but it just didn't work, so I chucked them.
But now the shoulder joints were too exposed, which wouldn't make sense on a futuristic space war machine... so I scratched him a couple of shoulder cover type things.
I think they work. Someone on Maschinen Kreuger's forum said it made him look less "Ma.K" which I get, but I decided not to care.
After a lot of ooh-ing and ah-ing I decided I was going to be presenting this guy in a garage / maintenance type of situation. The cockpit turned out pretty well and I don't think I have the guts or the talent to ever take a hacksaw to a regular Ma.K kit to scratch an open suit version so I figured this was going to be it. An open suit.
This will need some further detailing/modding/scratch building.
I want him connected to a good few hoses and wires eventually and a logical one would be a fuel hose.... but where would it go. The only really logical spot was und the bulbs cap on the back of the fuel tank. So I pried it off and turned into a petrol cap with a tank opening under it.
The hose will have nice nozzle on the end of it eventually...
And then there was some further work to be done on the cockpit. Apart from som more painted details that I plan to do the armholes needed to be more like actual holes.
They are pretty shallow in the orginal kit so I took the dremel to it and deepened the holes. The I was satisfied with the depth (or rather when I was afraid got any deeper in fear of the arms falling off) I made some paying on the inside with Aves putty.
I nicked the left 'leather' part of the arm hole so this will need some further restoration and a new paint job but I'm pretty happy with the results thus far.
In the meantime I've also started work on an Oskar but I'll show you more of that next time...
Until then... meet Eddie. He's got asthma....
Thanks for looking, let me know what you think in the comments below.
Cheers,
Martijn
