Lunadiver Stingray
Allegiance: Mercenary Army

To purchase this kit, click here. To see the mastering of the pattern, click here. To see the finished gallery, click here.

An inventory of the parts is always done, followed by a wash in mild detergent to ensure all parts are clean.

Excess flash is removed.

Parts are ready to go!

I like to add Panavise mounts to my models, so they can be positioned dynamically.

The tail is secured to the body with heavy duty screws and super glue.

All the major conponents assembled with joints puttied over.

Ready for sanding and more!

The underside gun is mounted with a solid rod nested into a hollow rod.

Like so.

This allows freedom of movement. To keep the gun from falling off, I slightly kink the smaller solid rod, so that it "bites" the hollow rod - friction fit!

Sanding continues.

Once everything is smooth, wiring is added.

Wiring complete!

From below.

All tie downs are cut from the provided foil, and burnished down.

Rivets are made by dimpling the foil with a special tool.

In this particular build, I added lights!

Made alongside the initial casting build.

Certian modifications are made for lighting - hollow out the front sensor.

The brass grab handles and winch points are added after the wire placement finishes.

The first Lunadiver was painted to represent Kow Yokoyama's original scratchbuild.

Dirty and beautiful! Decals went on like a dream - waterslide decals!!!

Finished!

I love the hatch detailing. For more photos of this particular build, please see the Lunadiver Instruction manual, included in each kit!

Derelict Lunadiver Build

For this build, I decided to make a Lunadiver, abandoned in Space! A Kauz would be coming in to investigate.

I hollowed out and deepend the two side areas, and build a cockpit (not canon to Yokoyama-san).

Since the two side wells were now deeper and hollow, I was able to extend the side "prongs" as well, with brass and putty.

I test fit the cockpit with a pilot, to gauge the height.

This seemed correct.

Voila!

Detailing of the cockpit began, with bits from the spares pile.

The cockpit tub was also expanded greatly, with a more WWII flavor than anything, I suppose.

It fit inside the top section like so.

And everything slotted into the other half.

Here's how big the 1/20 Lunadiver is to the 1/35th! It's a BEAST!

At this point, the Kauz is built and positioned.

Fingers were redone, to better suit the gesture I wanted.

Cockpit was painted first, naturally.

Imagining the final product... I also pierced the upper hull in one area, with extra detail behind it.

The Kauz is held in place with two wires. One extends up the arm and into the suit to provide adequate stability.

Detail of the blast mark.

Fingers primed.

Both wires...

Painting followed, and then major damage and weathering was applied... click here for the finished model gallery!