Painting the Flea - Part 1

Started painting a Flea tonight. Here's a look-see...

Hatamoto - Work in Progress 2

So here's where I ended up with the Hatamoto this weekend. Kind of a rush job, but good enough to get some photos for the auction.

V-FLASH Chronicles - Part VI

HAL (the V-FLASH) is being a problem child tonight. While I was printing some pickup parts for a Hatamoto and a Vulcan (kits that I plan on selling on E-Bay later this month), HAL coughed up:

Error: Cartridge Pump Failure (or some such)

I reseated the resin cartridge. No go.

I rebooted HAL. No go.

I finally broke down and changed out the resin cartridge, even though it still showed 46% resin left in the tank. The pump error went away, but I have to say it took quite a bit of futzing around to get it up and running again on the new cartridge.

I'm scared. Scared that the estimates that the interface gives for resin left is every bit as accurate as the progress bar on a Windows copy operation (ie. "not very"). Its hard to tell just how much resin is still in the old cartridge because it's so compartmentalized. I tried sticking a dipstick in but I'm not sure that I'm poking anywhere near the main reservoir.

When I got HAL, I realized that he probably wasn't going to get the same kind of mileage that I would get out of an Objet. But I've got a feeling that he's costing me something north of the $9 per cubic inch that I had estimated. More research is needed...

Hatamoto - Work in Progress

I'm finally getting around to making a Hatamoto Chi for myself. Cleaned up a set of parts and started painting this afternoon. He doesn't look like much yet, but I've been practicing my drybrush skills on mini's lately, so I'm hoping I can do some of that.

In other news, Takara is rereleasing a bunch of the Dougram model kits -- I spotted them on HLJ this week. These ones are 1/144, but I'm pretty sure that I read elsewhere that there were 1/72 as well. I can't find the reference now, so I could be wrong.

Hatamoto Assembled

I cleaned up the parts for Jon's Hatamoto last weekend and did a partial assemble. He's going to do the painting and final assembly (what is that thing on the front of the helmet called?). Once again, I'll probably do a little tweaking on the scale before I do one for myself.

Printed Hatamoto Parts

I did a set of parts for the Hatamoto on thursday night. Just curing them now. Just a few problems... such as the perennial problem of building the bayonette mount in the waist 90 degrees off! The gat was a little warped and there was a little bit of delamination happening in the end of one of the leg parts as well. I may have to manually build some support structure into the model for the gat to keep it from wobbling during construction.

You may notice a few extra and non-standard parts in there. He's a specially modified Hatamoto that I'm doing for a commission. (Hatamoto Sobou) I'm hoping to do some cleanup on the parts and do a test fit tomorrow.

Yet Another Hatamoto Update

I got around to adding a few more greebs to the Hatamoto today and finished up the knee joints...

<rant>

What is it with American online merchants and their love of UPS? Do they think Canadians are made of money!!?? What makes them think that I would want to pay UPS over $20 to ship me $17 worth of decal paper? (and probably charge me $20 to $30 worth of customs clearance charges?). Fortunately, I found someone on E-Bay stores that would sell me decal paper and send it by post. The paper was slightly more expensive, but I'll probably still save $40-50 dollars on 25 measly sheets.

No thanks decalpaper.com!!!! UPS sucks!!!

Thanks mynestegg!!!! Postal Service rulez!!!

</rant>