Lunadiver Stingray
Allegiance: Mercenary Army

To see the finished gallery, click here. To see the build diary, click here. To purchase this kit, click here.

In 2006, I was lucky enough to get an audience in front of the original 1/20th Lunadiver, built by Kow (and Sedo-san). At the time, I took a few photos with an eventual replica in mind. Flash forward two years, and the decision to make the Lunadiver in such a way to have it cast as a kit... man, I wish I took more photos back in '06! I had been hoarding all of the kits needed to build the Lunadiver... there are more than what is pictured below as well, as many (expensive and thrifty) discoveries were made along the way!

Work began in dribs and drabs in January of 2009...

Parts were set aside for almost a month, before picking back up in February.

Early on, I had to decide how to handle some of the more complicated shapes, which made some serious undercuts that you cannot mold.

And I thought about how to break the shapes up for ease of molding and casting, as well as box size and kit mail-ability!

I had a lot of false starts on shapes and forms as well... that part above wasn't correct! Nor was this one (not even close):

My first lucky break was courtesy of Linc, who so kindly sent a bunch of capsules my way, courtesy of Tokyu Hands. My first problem was solved with the decision to cut the "Railgun" mount's collar off and wall up the hole, making eveything moldable.

Similar holes were walled off and plugged up in the front.

I switched gears to the Railgun, creating the parts from original donors, the photo reference I had collected, and a little interpretation.

Once again, Dr. TaK hipped me to the radar mount donor, which I cut down to shape... approximately (for now).

By the end of February, the body was starting to look the way it should.

At some point, I realized the red Smit Rotterdam parts angled in too severely... and some surgery was necessary!!

The green part was also incorrect and needed to be swapped out.

Tail work shaped up nicely, walling off many voids and blank cavities.

Once the parts were cut and repositioned correctly, I could then continue to putty and blend shapes.

At this stage, I had thought about including a pilot and cockpit area, but scrapped it for the sake of meeting a deadline for WF.

The tail was now in the proper position and could be permanently attached.

Casts were made from a vintage Revell stand (I would need two for the Lunadiver) and a half-round shape that would become the underside tank endcaps.

Railgun work progressed nicely as well.

Almost done!

Now entering March, Lee from the Star Wars boards helped me with a killer ID on a kit that eluded me!!

Railgun, mostly finished. The "emitter" is wrong... could not ID the correct piece.

The ring mount hasn't been added yet.

No undercuts!

Helicopters were added with a crossbar!

Getting the spacing was tricky. Honestly, it's impossible to nail this stuff from photos, so "close as I can" is all I can do.

Now the putty really started flowing.

Putty, sanding, and seamwork - these are the things I see when I close my eyes these days.

It's a tricky shape to try to break down for rotocasting, which will produce hollow resin parts!

The crossbar solution bugged me, but I liked how the helicopter tails socketed into the dished in areas.

Underside work was addressed as well, with parts well on their way to completion.

The Zeros which flank the LIS Robot piece became separate plant-ons, which solved the undercut problems in that area.

The crossbar kept getting thicker, as the body shape grew.

The tail's root was puttied up further.

As you can see, it's round after round of clean up work.

The Revell stand castings which had been added to the helicopters were blended in as well.

I realized that crossbar was just too big to angle and lock into the main body now, but left it for later.

The next order of business was getting those helicopter risers sculpted and contoured:

Putty... so much putty.

With a deep breath, I cut the tail away from the body, and walled the mating surfaces off with sheet styrene.

After sketching out some of the visual landmarks on the body, I realized I could cut the tail's root from the main body, graft it to the helicopter assembly, and finishing the top would be much easier!

This was done with a razor saw - an added benefiit is that it beefed up the middle of the bar, which will be good news when rotocast as it allows more room for the resin to flow.

The main body now looked like this!

Still very cast-able, and now, the mating surfaces could be flush, as the parts didn't need to angle in and twist to fit!

Top surface work began immediately.

By April first, the tail was done and ready for casting!

Parts (such as the green Quell-Quallie dish shaped piece) were added as the surfaces rose to meet them.

The three main components really started to take their final shape at this point.

The front was looking good, too.

To my relief, everything was still butting up in the correct way, with nothing terribly askew.

Here you can see the aft upper area fleshing itself out. I had the donor plastic for those two white humps, but it was smarter to construct them from Apoxie Sculpt, with the way I was working.

It was looking really good!

More donor bits added...

And the all-important scribe lines were mapped out. These not only helped with the scribing later on, but also helped visually track the curves and bumps when viewed from different angles. Slopes that previously looked fine suddenly jumped out as too steep or shallow once the red line was there as a guide.

A rough parts break down, which of course changed as pieces were combined and modified. I think something like this is never really finished... it's just sent out to be cast!

Those two right-most parts bugged me, because they seemed to add a lot of almost-unnecessary join work... more on them in a moment.

The top's seam was finalized!

Smoothing and clean up work was done.

Parts were continuously test-fit.

The engine hosing were added - a clever detail that many miss when they see the Lunadiver.

The Revell stand dome castings were given their indents. I etched into the resin with my calipers to save time! Sigh...

Checking the fit.

Hello, Mr. Hose.

Lincoln Wright, a freakin' Superstar, sent the correct hemi from Tokyu Hands!! I added the syrene banding around the sides and lip.

So you see that part on the far right? Modifying those pieces I mentioned a few photos back...

Test fit of doors.

They're held on with simple pressure, on the master!

Those two truuble pieces, now cut smaller, click into place on the bottom, and the sides are permanently part of the body!

Still very castable.

And as you can see, the 'ol Rogg-Mack shield makes an appearance.

Cleaning up...

Test fits...

And hey - look at those scribed panel lines and rivets!

Nice!

Finally, here's a few composite shots of all of the pieces, assembled into what the model shoudl look like!

Next up - BUILDING a CAST of the PARTS!

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