Jumbo Voltes V restoration finally over

Since it's not always about the bad guys, here's a little post about a project I've start years ago.

I've receive from a very good friend and junk body of a Jumbo Voltes V. He actually bought one trashed to use some parts to complete the one he had. And he was really kind to let me use his to cast a repro head and a chest piece.

Here's a picture before/after

 

I've first use some Daimos fists and grey stickers, but it's just recently that I've been able to finalize it properly. The original one come with some special fists, with black hands and blue sleeves. One of the member of the Robot Japan  board is doing some great work with repro fists and I've ask him to make a special version of the Daimos fists with the blue sleeves. I've receive them yesterday and was completely blow away by the quality of his work, they're just perfect. Another member of that board is doing some great work with stickers, I've send him the files I had to get real metallic stickers for the belt, the legs and the ankles. Those stickers came out really perfectly. I've search for years for making stickers like that but never succeeded.

At the end I think that I've a pretty good looking Voltes V that didn't cost me a fortune like an original. Well I still dream to upgrade to an original one but with that one upgraded like that now, I can wait a few more years before trying to get a real one.

Tiny Doublas

Since the super tiny Garada was so sweet, I've decide to do a little Doublas and it turned out pretty well also. I don't think that I'm going to paint that one, I like the clear look of it and I've order another tiny K7 so that I have both in clear version.

Tiny Garada Painted

As a continuity of the multiple posts about my Garada obsession, here's the tiny version painted. As you can see, for that one I went for paintbrush instead of airbrush, it's too small to start playing with masking tape and all that and since it's in one single piece, it's even worst.
I've use the same technique as I used for my little D&D figures that why he's go that little dirty look, but it suits him pretty well I think.
In really close up the texture is a bit grainy, that might be because of the primer that was a spray can, but even with some sanding after, the grainy texture is still there. But that only visible on close shots.

 

Here's a picts with him next the first mini Garada I've done. Colors are off but the first one was really too flashy. Also with his little box but little inserts. Ready to go.

 

And to get a better idea of size, here's a couple images with the full size version, a few family shots. Now that the tiny guy is finish, the main focus will be to finish the big guy, still a lot of work on that one....

Before and after

When I did the little fake Garada commercial, I've done a little side by side movie  with before and after, so that the people who don't know the original commercial can enjoy the joke a bit more.

I wanted to upload it but it never worked out and I just realize right now that it did work out but didn't know.

I should have maybe spend more time on it to be perfect, anyway here it is:

Split and details

Today we have a little "behind the scene" post.

I've disconnect all the parts of the Garada to bring him home to start the post process job on him. I've take some pictures to show all the separate parts. It's actually exactly like on one of the 3D render you can find in a previous post but now it's for real. What I'm really happy is that, except the little plug at the back of the head, everything is connecting properly and stand firmly.
Since all this is prepared virtually and you don't really have real constraints in 3D, it's always a surprise when you launch your print. On previous smaller prints I had to sand a lot some parts and adjust them to make them fit inside each other, but not here.

 

And this last one is the little "attention to detail" picture, as you can see I've push the detail to have the writings under the feet like on the original. The little holes next to that are for a technical purpose. The 3D print technique used to do it is with a bath of epoxy liquid that cure under UV lasers, so the liquid needs to be able to escape and those holes are there for that.

It's funny because I was showing this picture to a friend today and he pointed the fact that it looks like the little holes under the SW figures, maybe I will leave them like that.

 

 Those writings were a total nightmare to model, and the first modeling version was not really clean, I've try to take some shortcut and was hoping that the printing software will be ok with that but it was far from ok and I had to spend a few nights to optimize all that. Anyway, it's a nice detail to get.