Studio Ghibli Mystery Project(s)!

[zenrat]

Ah, a gardener.

I was joking about knitting a Totoro but as is often the case it turns out the joke is on me as there are many Totoro knitting patterns on the interweb.
I shall be requesting my mother to make me one.

[strobez]

Oooh... I have a mother who knits too!

[NARSES2]

How big are those tweezers ? 

[strobez]

Heh... well each of those squares on my green cutting mat is 1cm... so... regular sized!

[NARSES2]

I'm just amazed that you can produce work of such quality and detail, from scratch at that size 

[strobez]

Thanks for the kind words. Now if only I really could build a 1/72 scale teapot ship from the Ghibli film Arietty. THEN I'd be satisfied. 

Heh, that just gave me an idea though... stay tuned!

Anyway, last night I put the finishing touches on the Aero-Kayak from Howl's Moving Castle.  I find that it's become a bit of a race between several of the mini-projects as they near fruition.  As it becomes clear which one is going to be the "winner", I slowly set aside the other WIP builds and focus on getting the chosen one over the finish line.  That helps with making sure I don't forget any of the final touch details.

Luckily, given that I'm redoing the Mehve from Nausicaa, I gave the stand I built for it the first time over to the Laputa Flapter. It seemed a better fit, so I was able to just repurpose the original Flapter stand for the Aero-Kayak with very little modification. I basically just snapped the end off and touched up the paint.

Despite the u-turn for a scale adjustment in the middle of this build, I'm quite happy with the result. The paint was a bit darker than I was aiming for, but not enough for me to want to redo it. I also might have toned down the rivets, but once you start putting them at 1mm intervals, you're pretty much committed.

[TheChronicOne]

Hell yeah!! This keeps getting better. 

[Old Wombat]

Really good metal effects on that one!

[NARSES2]

Really good metal effects on that one!

Yup  I'm running out of superlatives on this one 

[Spey_Phantom]

i like what im seeing, looking forward to more 

[strobez]

Right now it looks like the Nausicaa Mehve do-over will take over the pole position.  That should be easy to do since it's basically just... white.

Jiro's birdplane is coming in for a landing as well, and work is finally progressing again (after another long bout of sanding) on the Ponyo submarine.

There's still a few more kits on the work-bench to fil in after that though... including the car from Laputa (although I'm deciding what to do about the wheels... 1/72 spoked wheels are tough to come by).  The Laputa Gardner robot is shaping up as well... and I'm hoping my small eBay purchase shows up soon.

[strobez]

If Nils likes it, then it HAS to be good! 

As predicted, the Nausicaa Mehve is across the finish line (although I'm still working on the stand).

It was a bit of work, but in the end, I'm glad I did a do-over on this one.  It's iconic to Miyazaki fans, and a central showpiece in my growing collection of mini-builds.



Besides a bit of shading on the paint job, the only thing really new was the "seat" belt.  I used a bit of tape and some silver wire to get that job done.  I was feeling reckless (and the tape was a bit too long) so I added a buckle too. 


The bottom vents are just solid and painted. I tried all sorts of things to create a vent-like shape, but it was just to small.  I was able to origami up some plastic paper, but it was so thin that even a tiny amount of glue would make it melt. Oh, well.  You can't really tell anyway... right!?


At least I got the engine to sit straight without reducing everything into a gluey mess while trying to wrestle it into place.


Meanwhile, My (very) little package from eBay arrived, so I couldn't resist getting started. So I grabbed this kit out of my stash...


...and then pulled out the motorcycle sprue and plunked it down next to the eBay arrival.  I originally bought the kit just for the motorcycle bits, intended for my Totoro mini-truck, but when I saw the sprue I didn't have the heart to chop it up.  Luckily I had an idea to use it for it's intended purpose - building a motorcycle!

What arrived from eBay was a 1/72 scale (and spot on I might add!) Fiat 500.  It's supposed to be a throw-away "pull back" toy from the 1970s/80s I think.  Regardless, the moulding is quite finely detailed, so for $3 I had o have it.  It solved my problem of how to scratchbuild a Fiat 500 in 1/72 nearly perfectly. The ONLY tiny problem is that the doors are backwards on this model, so I'm debating if I want to try and remove the handle/hinge and swap them or not.


I also happened to have stumbled across a small snap kit from Bandai that's helpful.  The kit is originally from a Kamen Rider (like) series, but I thought I might be able to use the wheels from it.  I certainly can, and even though the upper body is basically solid (with stickers for windows), the bonus was the chassis.


Obviously too long and a bit too wide, but snip snip glue glue... and we have a top, a bottom and four wheels... I call that a car!


Now the only question, dear friends... is which car? 

[nighthunter]

strobez, any plans for the Half-track?

[strobez]

strobez, any plans for the Half-track?

Nope... well, besides "leave it in the box until some future time where I find I need it". 

[NARSES2]

Just added a buckle ? 

My admiration for your skills and eyesight just continues to grow