1:60 Schaft Enterprises Type-R13EX ‘Phantom’ Robot/Autonomous Labor; Tokyo, 1998

[Dizzyfugu]

Some background:
The Type-R13EX Phantom was an experimental unmanned labor developed by Schaft Enterprises' Planning Section 7. The exact purpose of the labor remains unclear, it might only have been a singular prototype for innovative weapon and A.I. technology, so that it is most possible that the type or its systems were primarily intended for military service, even though the Type-R13EX as such was not adopted for serial production. Its silhouette is reminiscent of the military Brocken labor, which could mean that the Phantom's body was based on the Type 7B/2B. However, the difference lies in mobility, since the Phantom was slower due to having thick armor and carrying on his torso the complex mechanism necessary to carry out his attacks.

The R13EX Phantom measured 8.6 meters in height and was 4.7 meters wide, with a minimum turning radius of 6.2 meters. It weighed 9.5 tons without equipment and 9.85 fully equipped and had an impressive lift capacity of around 4.0 tons. It was revolutionary for being the first labor to be equipped with laser weaponry, against which at the time of its fielding no countermeasure was available for. However, the laser cannons mounted in the Phantom's head were its only active ranged weapons, and they required time to warm up before each shot. While charging up a shot, the Phantom's cooling vents would be exposed to attack, and damage to them would cause the labor to become unable to fire. On his back he carries the necessary instruments to charge the energy of the laser cannons. Before firing, 3 segments of the back armor unfolded, revealing what appeared to be a heat sink. When the laser fired, an intense shock of heat was released backwards from this installation. This major drawback was offset by the sheer power of the lasers, which were capable of easily piercing an AV-98 Ingram's armor; because they fired a sustained beam, the lasers could be used to cut off entire limbs from opposing labors or pierce heavy vehicle armor.








The mechanical systems of the Phantom were state-of-the-art and surpassed those of the mass-produced police and military labors of the time. Its immense strength and dexterity allowed the type to excel at hand-to-hand combat, so while its other offensive systems were offline, the Phantom would remain combat-capable. Aiding its combat effectiveness was the Phantom's thick armor plating made from reinforced carbon fiber. Even the armor covering the machine's forearms was capable of shrugging off a close-range shot from an Ingram's 37mm revolver cannon or deflect rounds from JGSDF Helldivers' machine guns. The Phantom was even capable of limited underwater operation and could fire its main weapons even while submerged. The full extent of its marine capabilities is unknown, though. It can be assumed that the mechanical systems of the Phantom were carried over to the Type J-9 Griffon, on account of the visual similarities of some armor components and the type's immense strength. While the unmanned Phantom was apparently designed to test advanced weapons systems, the Griffon was instead created to rely solely on its strength and dexterity, making it an unparalleled hand-to-hand combat machine.

Despite the advanced weapons and mechanical systems, the most striking advancements brought about by the Phantom were its control and electronics systems. The labor was unmanned (and did not feature a pilot cabin) and remotely controlled, but it was also fully capable of autonomous combat against even skilled labor pilots. The advanced autopilot and its artificial intelligence were even capable of threat-assessment, tactical real-time analysis and could make strategic decisions in battle. Where a traditional labor would house a cockpit, the Phantom contained a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generator, which was capable of completely shutting down a police labor at close range. Like the laser cannons, the EMP generator required significant time to charge before it could be utilized. Additionally, the EMP system not only required the use of the vulnerable cooling vents used by the lasers, but also required armor panels around it be removed/opened so that they would not interfere with its directed pulse radiation. This meant that the EMP generator was exposed during all stages of its operation, and while the charging process could be halted at any time, it was this vulnerability that ultimately led to the defeat of the Phantom in combat. However, as a "last line" defensive measure for the exposed EMP generator the opening was protected with four small extendible rotating blades/wire cutters.








The Type-R13EX Phantom was first deployed in December 1998, on a cold Christmas night, when it attacked Tokyo Teleport, a terrestrial communications station for the retransmission of different television, voice and data services via satellite. It faced off with Patlabors of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Special Vehicles Unit, Division 1 and Division 2. The Phantom was able to quickly defeat the outdated MPL-97S Python labors initially fielded by Division 1, allowing Schaft operatives to capture their pilots and support crew.
When Division 2 arrived at the scene, they quickly deployed their more advanced AV-98 Ingrams to engage the Phantom. Isao Ohta was the first to engage it, sustaining heavy damage to his labor and failing to cause any real damage to the R13EX. Noa Izumi was the second Division 2 pilot to engage the Phantom, and was able to hold her own until the Phantom caught her and prepared to fire its laser cannons directly into her cockpit. Noa was only saved when Kanuka Clancy, piloting Ohta's severely damaged labor, intervened in the fight. The Phantom was thrown into the bay, presumed destroyed.

However, just a few months later, the Phantom appeared once more at a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) training ground at Oshima, where it engaged a number of light military labors in combat. The JGSDF labors were unable to repel the Phantom, and Patlabor units that arrived on scene shortly after were barely able to fend it off. This was the final appearance and known deployment of the Phantom before the debut of the Griffon.








The kit and its assembly:
It has been a while that I built a humanoid mecha, and the mysterious Phantom labor (or better: robot) from the Patlabor anime TV series was still missing in my collection. I have already built this kit, even though as a heavily modified fictional German police labor.

The kit was built almost OOB – it is a rather simple mecha/action figure kit which can probably built without using any glue. As such, the detail level is not very high, but the Phantom Labor is a rather sleek design with a very organic and clean shape. Therefore, I just added some bits and pieces to the "interior", in the opening under the head/face and around the removable EMP generator block in the torso, which can be plugged between the hips and the torso to depict the "open" body. Most details were made from styrene profile, but I also used sprue material, paper tissue dipped in white glue, soft iron wire and plastic-coated steel wire to create the hydraulic pistons under the chin (which can hardly be seen, though, just from certain angles).






Another option is to display the heat exchanger arrangement on the Phantom's back in open and closed position – the open module is well detailed. However, I made a mistake when I assembled the latter, because I did not read the instructions properly (which could be better drawn, some illustrations, e .g,. the assembly of the upper arms, leave you guessing). The kit's designers want you to fix the "reactor" part to the back of the mecha, and then you can alternatively put the closed heat exchanger onto/over it, or mount the three opened covers to it. I found this construction weird and intuitively glued the reactor piece to the open covers, only to find out later that the closed cover section needs the recator piece underneth to hold onto the Phantom's back and cover some gaps. Luckily I had the reactor piece left over from my first Phantom Labor build, thanks to the thorough conversion I did with it, so that I had a suitable donor part to mend the mistake. Phew... O.o'

A unique (if not odd?) design feature of Bandai's Patlabor IP models are the silicone sleeves over an endoskeleton for arms and legs. When you follow the instructions, they are easy to mount, though, just be careful when you want to paint them: only acrylic paint is recommended, since any solvent-based paint might react with the silicone. I have also heard of many builders having problems over time with the silicone, but – with some of these kits that I have built now 20 or more years on display – I never had any issues of problems?

However, on this specific kit (bought as "used" but still NIB; not certain about its production date or age, but I assume it's from the initial 1990 run and not a re-issue from 2014 or later) I found the sleeves to be disturbingly thin and their inside surfaces stuck together. "Opening" them was a tedious and delicate task, even though the silicone/rubber material was still intact and not melded together. The parts were still sealed in their plastic bags, but a single IP sprue (the light purple material) was quite brittle (while the others were fine), too. I can only guess that the kit had been poorly stored before I bought it, probably in an attic where it was exposed to excessive summer heat that vaporized and extracted some of the plastic/silicone softeners?




The kit goes together easily and can be assembled as a snap-fit kit without glue, even though the silicone sleeves require some manual skill to trim them properly. However, apparently design with robustness in mind the extremities' fit is not too good and requires PSR on every seam for a proper finish. Another problem: the shoulder sections with the additional guards are designed in a matryoshka fashion, with three flexible layers of parts over each other, so that you have to finish each layer individually (PSR and paint) before you can add the next. On the other side you can assemble, paint and finish many segments of the model separately, to be completed as final step.


Painting and markings:
I stuck to the mecha's appearance in the TV series, which features quite dark colors and yellow highlights around the hull. The basic color appears to be a little controversial, as it is described as "cobalt blue", but on TV the color rather reminds of a purple tone, and the kit is molded in a similarly colored plastic. Maybe (as often) a translation issue?

Another problem: there are no clear painting instructions - you have to refer to the box art illustration (which only shows the front of the mecha in dubious light conditions) and pictures of the finished model on the box' sides, but these are very small and are not truly helpful. The instructions themselves are disappointing, too: the product designers decided to use a poster format, which shows the box art on one side (looks cool, but it's not helpful!) and only a tiny b/w picture of the model with vague color indications. This leaves the builder guessing about many painting details. You can find some screenshots of the Phantom Labor online, or you can try to find videos of the TV series' episodes where it appears, but in the end there's a lot to be guesstimated or made up.

To keep the Phantom mysterious and give it a less comic-esque look I decided to stay true to its impression on TV but add effects like weathering and post-shading – similar to my Dorvack PA models.




For the purplish basic color I used a rather exotic tone: Humbrol's vintage "HJ4" from the brand's long-gone Authentic range, the infamous and highly dubious WWII "Mauve N.9" (a.k.a. "IJN Purple") that some A6M2-Ns were supposed to have carried. This is a kind of purple, but a rather greyish and dull tone that looks more like a military/camouflage tone than decorative/flashy. The mauve tone is less bluish than the Phantom's "authentic" tone on TV, but it looks fine to me and offers enough contrast to the darker sections, which were painted in Humbrol 112 (Tarmac, also sold as Field Blue?), which is a very dark blue-grey, very similar to FS 35042 (USN Dark Sea Blue) but less greenish. The color of some areas, like the "hood" behind the head unit, had to be guessed, and I outlines some surface details on the back with black to add contrasts.






The skull-like head unit was painted in a very light grey instead of pure white, to avoid too much contrast to the rest of the mecha. The silicone sleeves were treated with thinned grey and black artist acrylic paint with very fine pigments to avoid long-term chemical reactions with the softener in the rubber material.
The technical innards, the reactor on the back and the EMP generator in the torso, were painted in a bare metallic finish. I used Humbrol 56 as basis and then layered some washings with black ink and thinned black acrylic paint over it, plus dry-brushing with brighter aluminum and rubbing the parts with graphite, which adds a dark metallic shine and a more natural look.
The lenses on the head and in the torso were laid out with silver and then "filled" with clear acrylic paints in various shades.

The parts also received a black ink washing to emphasize edges and engravings, as well as dry-brushing/post-shading with lightened/dulled-down basic tones to make the model looks less toyish, and the give the Phantom Labor a slightly worn look. Unfortunately, the kit only comes with stickers instead of decals, but since these comprise onyl some small Schaft Enterprises logos and black inserts for louvres on arms and legs, which I had painted, anyway, so that I left the model without markings. Finally, all parts (except for the silicone sleeves) received a coat with matt acrylic varnish, and the model as finally assembled/completed.










It took a long time that I eventuelly tackled and finished the Phantom Labor kit to complete my collection of Patlabor mecha - only the Type Zero police prototype is still missing and a respective kit already waiting in the The Stash. Thanks to me experience with a former build of this kit, I knew what I had to expect, even though the mistake with the optional parts for the heat exchanger on the back bugs me, but I am happy that I had a spare part to save the situation. The dubious IJN purple tone turned out to be lighter than expected, esp. when you see screenshots of the "real" Phantom Labor in direct comparison, but on the other side the color does not look bad or wrong - the overall impression is IMHO O.K., and the bigger contrast to the dark blue-grey sections on the body make the model look more interesting than the orginal all-murky livery.

[NARSES2]

What would we do without toothpicks/cocktail sticks and clothes pegs ? 

I don't understand the genre, but I know a good model 

[Dizzyfugu]

Thank you!    Exotic topic, but after a loss mof modeling mojo I needed "something different" to get back on track. Hope I can start with the F-96B for the Fifties GB soon, so that I get at least one build "ready for the race".

[zenrat]

Looks good Dizz.  Except the feet.  I don 't like the feet.
Apart from them though...
 

[Dizzyfugu]

Looks good Dizz.  Except the feet.  I don 't like the feet.
Apart from them though...
 

Their design, right? Agree - looks a bit like High Heels...?

[zenrat]

Looks good Dizz.  Except the feet.  I don 't like the feet.
Apart from them though...
 

Their design, right? Agree - looks a bit like High Heels...?

Yeah.  Not anything you did, just a design i don't like.

They remind me of the Blue Meanie's boots from Yellow Submarine.

[Dizzyfugu]

 

[Wardukw]

Very very cool 😎
I've had a few Gundam models..my fav is the Hell Custom.
This part of Patlabour was always cool and I did enjoy the cartoons 😊
Epically cool Dizzy