1:35 Manned Walker

[Photon]

Here's a model that I finished a couple of months ago, a 1:35 scale piloted Mech/Powersuit with the driver in an open roll cage. I built it around a Polish tank crew figure. I didn't really have a clear design in mind, other than I'd like to have exaggerated, cartoon proportions, with large arms and shoulders and small legs. Kind of like Bluto from the Popeye cartoons.


I started by building the seat out of some leftover polystyrene scraps. The joysticks and foot rest are Gundam parts. They're kind of chunky and possibly scale-breakers, but I'm playing this one fast and loose.






Next, I built up a frame to support the huge arms. This was printed in five parts and assembled around the chair. A bit hard to see, but the black textured piece behind the drivers head is from a video cassette. I also filled out the back with sheet styrene and started to add some kit part details.





Under the seat, I've added a piece to attach the legs to, but later realized that it was too wide and was going to make for quite a bow legged stance. So I sawed it off and attached a thinner piece to help bring the legs closer together.







There was a rectangular hole left behind, so I took the opportunity to glue some 1:72 tank tracks in place to suggest some mechanical detail within. I also scratched the leg attachment flanges. I tried to align them in-line with the shoulders.

 

[Photon]

I formed the roll cage from some ⌀1.5mm acrylic rod. It bent reasonably easily with some gentle help from a heat gun. I bent the rod around a form cut from some thin MDF with the profile of the cage. The cross pieces were cut to length and the cage was gently squeezed by hand while the cement dried.




The feet and lower leg are made from some Evergreen styrene and the armor is Gundam. The upper thighs were some unused bits from the Hasegawa Hitachi excavator. They were thin shells, so I filled them with epoxy putty and drilled the hole for the tube. The tube was capped with some 1:72 tank wheels and a polystyrene 1/2 pearl. The pearl seats in a spherical depression in the flange on the main body. This allowed me some flexibility to pose the leg while the glue was drying.

 

[Photon]

Here's a pic of the arms in progress. I used a similar improvised ball and socket joint for the shoulder.


After a lot of fretting over a color scheme, I just went with a simple grey green with some yellow markings. The green is a mix of hellblau and hellgrün acrylics from Mission Model Paint.



For this model, I tried painting the chips with a brush for the first time (rather than my usual go-to hairspray method). I'm a bit crap at it, so it looks cartoonish to my eyes, but I think the later weathering steps toned it down a bit.




These calipers made a very convenient handle for this during painting.

 

[Photon]

and the finished model...

 

[Quaralane]

I like it.
Funny how things work out when you're just playing around some times

 

[Ohm]

Yeah, cool build

 

[ssgteverett]

Nice Build - Thanks for sharing.

 

[stevethefish]

That's very cool. It reminds me of an old '80s anime I never got around to seeing. Dougram? Xabungle? I can't remember. Lots of open cockpits and rollbars.

 

[unclepine]

and the finished model...
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LOVE IT...!!! I would do one tiny update...make the foot plates a little bigger and thicker.

 

[BeebleBrox]

Cool and inspiring!