99% Diecast Colombian made Mazinger Z chogokin robot figure

My friend Leonardo had mentioned at some point that he was able to cast diecast pieces and showed me this little project of his. He took an old plastic Mazinger Z figure, cast diecast parts out of it and created this work of art. The fists were sculpted by local Colombian artisans and the Scrander was scratch built. The Scrander also has diecast parts by the way. The figure is completely diecast except for the scrander wings which are Acrylic.

The original figure did not have joints, so these had to be fabricated. The hole in the back was also made into the mold to hold the Scrander. Instead of using regular paint, the paint on this is a very strong resistant coating used in heavy duty manufacturing. The face is hand painted giving it a great vintage look.

During a visit to Colombia, I got to handle this wonderful figure. When I was about to leave for the night, Leo gave me this as a gift and I freaked! From the moment I got this to the moment it landed with me in the US, it endured being tossed around car door pockets, TSA handling, jean pockets and other stuff. In the end it was OK and now being taken care of like all other one of a kind art.

Amazing.

Custom Scrander

One of a kind. Thanks Leo!

Marlboor RID Prime Wheeljack update

Today i painted a part i left unpainted yesterday so it looks better. I also made up some decals today and applied them. They are clear decals so there was no need to color match. The final touch will be the clear coat. Then i could start weathering.

Here's a video update of the Wheeljack.

Fujimi Blade Runner Spinner model kit review now on CDX!

Hey all, my review for the Fujimi Spinner kit is now up on CDX. It's about 95% done. Finishing it to 100% would take up a lot more time which I don't have with review/sponsor guidelines and all but it is complete enough to do a nice review for it. All I really need to do to finish it is paint the window trim with matching blue (ran out of paint) and apply window decals. The LEDs are optional so I didnt want to eat away at the review time which was already overdue by about two weeks as it is. I manage to pop in three LEDs to give it at least some lighting.

It's a great kit that can easily be modified to suit your liking and/standards of accuracy. There seems to be a third party aftermarket brewing also. Be sure to pick yours up at HobbyLink Japan who supplied the kit for CDX for me to review. Get yours here.

Make sure to check out the written review on CDX. Also check out the short video clip.

Project Rodimus Update: Detailing cockpit

I got around to starting the cockpit detailing. I have a long ways to go, I have to touch up some parts, clean up others until I get it just right. I think it's coming out pretty good so far. Let me know what you guys think.

A little bit of touching up and some panel lining should do the trick.

I couldn't find a clear shot of Rodimus' interior but I did see that he has brown seats.

Stay tuned for more, cleaning up interior and redoing flames!

Project Rodimus: Coming along great!

The last few nights have been filled with paint, blood, tears, sweat, sanding polishing buffing, resanding, polishing and buffing. Oh buffing...especially today. My fingers are aching from buffing this paint to a glorious shine. I never got good paint jobs on my model kits up until recently when I decided to paint my stuff like I would a real car. That means, sanding then primering, the base coating, then clear coating x4, then wet-sanding, then clearcoating, then wet-sanding and finally laborous polishing to achieve a nice shine.

Here is a before and after picture of the exact Rodimus I painted.

Well, I guess it paid off because Rodimus is looking darn good. It is REALLY difficult to keep pieces from touching each other and scuffing, but the clear-coat really does a good job at keeping nicks to a minimum. Transformation, while not impossible, would require patience to avoid scuffing the finish. Since I have plans on selling this bad boy, I won't attempt it. I am just happy at the way it came out and would like to experiment a little more on my next Project Rodimus.

Front of Rodimus.

Rear of Rodimus showing the gold flaked wing. Notice the gloss on the lower legs..yeah that's tons of buffing!

I wasn't sure how he would look with a chromed face, but I took a chance. That's the only way to find out!

I didn't want to leave the leg panels red, so I painted them Charcoal Gray. It has a beautiful metallic flake to it.

At the last second I decided the legs should be glossy to match the rest of the figure. It looked a little of with just colored plastic.

Oh yes, his Rodimus Prime face-swap gimmick still intact!

Again, I used a chrome finish for his Rodimus Prime face.

He still has his teeny Matrix which I will be applying a chrome finish to. The gold outer casing on the Matrix will be painted the same gold color as his wing.

Oh, my bad! Did I forget to mention he now has an LED Gimmick? Oh yeah. The best part is that his Matrix is still removeable. I was proud of this one. It works off a button battery with a micro switch which is conveniently located in the drivers compartment. Unfortunately, to transform him, you would have to remove the gimmick. Hey I'm only human.

I am SOOO happy that I was able to integrate an LED Matrix into this figure. The design does not allow much space to include the power-source, so I had to use a THIN button battery, a micro-switch that I lost about 10 times while putting it together, and the thinnest wire you have ever seen...literally one strand. Again, transformation is possible, but alas, the LED feature has to be removed to accomplish transformation because of the wires.

Overall, it is coming out great. I still have a couple of details here and there to finish so check here for updates. In the next few days I will also be detailing the drivers compartment. I almost don't want to sell it.

Oh and here he is next to Takara's version.

Project Rodimus : Second stab at customizing my Transformers.

So you probably already know if you follow my Chachipower channel that I have taken to dismantling a Hasbro Masterpiece Rodimus Prime.

Here is my 2 week old Rodimus that has never even been transformed. In fact I haven't even posed it. Just like that I decided to paint it...

So far I have taken apart the figure. It is not as easy as one would think. Because of it's design and engineering, a good amount of parts are held on with pins. Small pins. Trying to take those pins out would not only consume all my time but it would probably lead to breakage of things. So I had to mask about 70% of the figure. The problem with masking is that it isn't perfect. However I am pretty happy with the results.

Any good paint job requires good paint and good finishing labor. Well I chose automotive paint because it resists handling. The finishing part requires a good deal of wet sanding to get a glass finish. Normally when you wet sand something, you are wet-sanding smooth contours. Rodimus has a lot of detailing that gets in the way so I can only wet-sand so much.

 So far so good, all the paint is applied and all the misc pieces were clear-coated today. I remasked the rear section of Rodimus so I can apply some metallic yellow to his wings.

By far the most fun part was getting the LED function to work on his Matrix. I figured, hey if I'm crazy enough to take apart and paint an expensive toy, I can at least take the time to get an LED feature to work on it. So I did. I had to drill the Matrix carefully to accept the LED. Then I had clearance issues so I had to shave the back of the Matrix. In the end it looks good.

LED feature is cool but very limited space to figure out wiring and battery placement.

So why did I decide to do this? It seemed like a fun and crazy challenge. I am no customizer by a long shot, but I like painting cars and this is sort of one. I am not one to do crazy weathering on figures. I like to make them like they were just freshened up. Nice on the outside, slight wear on the insides. Just like the WFC Bumblebee I did.

There are obviously cons to this project.
A: Since 95% of the figure is painted, scraping of paint can happen (good thing it's car paint, just touch it up :)
B: Probably not a good Idea to transform him. It's possible, but you would have to have the patience of a saint to avoid scratches.
C: LED feature is not a full-time feature. It would have to be removed for transformation.

End result? It looks like it going to kick ass when I'm done. It's more of a display piece than toy. Which is why toys normally don't come painted. And the ones that do scratch up like crazy.

One more thing, I will probably put this up on eBay sometime. That way I can fund the next project :)