Learning Lessons

Well I decided yesterday to slip in an hour or two’s work on the good ol Micro dude in-between other projects for my upcoming site and magazine re-launch. It all started so well with fitting the strips of plastic to the chest piece insert to create the side “straps” all that was needed then was to heat them up and gently bend them over.

 

Well from there it went down hill I spent more time singing my fingers with the heat than the plastic, when I got it hot enough to be slighlty flopy I bent it to discover the top curve was too sharp and caused the top strip to split.

The lessons I learned from this? well one don’t use 2.5mm plastic strip for the side “straps” and looking back at it I had done the same thing on the prototype I built ages ago so I guess don’t be stupid and repeat past mistakes well the upside is that plan B can now be put into effect, and with the procurment of some thinner strip styrene I can move on with the project on the weekend, I just hope it goes better or I’ll be running out of Alphabet in a hurry.

Making a Start on The Body

The first task was to split the Body In half this is not too hard a task with a Doc Mego body as they are glued around the edges only. once I have the two halves I can make a JIG to hold the front half of the body, this serves two purposes, the first is to hold the body still while marking it up and also lets me have a set depth to cut too. The second reason is if I need to create a second one I can repeat the process exactly.

as you can see the jig is nothing fancy just some styrene sheet and strip nut it does it’s job.

 

Once marked out I can cut out the section that needs to be removed to accommodate the chest piece, this is done by using a saw and a sharp knife, now begins the process of making the back area of the body where the chest piece will sit, this is done with 1mm Sheet Styrene, cut to size then marked out using the body. The piece is then cut as close to the line as possible, they are then glued into place, I like to use Plasti-Weld glue for this as it is strong and cures in seconds, the panels are then sanded to the perfect fit.

Ok next on the agenda was to begin to make the chest piece, the first step is to make the section that sits in the body I started off with some 6.4 by 6.4 mm Styrene Strip cut to length and glued together, these needed to be sanded in width to fit the cut out section, these are then marked for the shape and are sanded to fit, I use Tamyia’s P180 sandpaper for this job, once it is sanded down to the basic fit I clamp the part in place and sand it to the best fit for the body, This is a bit of a tricky job to get even due to the tapered curve.

 

next I mark a set of alignment morks on the chest piece to make it easy to put in the correct place from here on when it needs to be taken out.

That's all for the moment, I hope to get some more work done on it in the next few days and get the chest piece ready for the front plate to be built.

The Odyssey Begins

A few years ago I came up with the crazy idea to create an 8” Micronaut Time Traveller based on the old 3.75” action Figures from my childhood for those of you who don’t Know them this is what they look like.

I figured the best way to do this was to stay in the Family so to speak so I decided to use an 8” Mego Body I opted to go for the ones produced by Doc Mego as they are Easy to Glue and sturdy to work with. as a result I came up with a prototype for my Time Traveller

		8” Prototype VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Well all This was about 2 years ago and just after I got that far a move was on to a new house, so it was put to one side and left while I helped get the house up and running and got my new workshop up and running plus invested in some new tools and as all this was going on Slowly crept on and with work and other projects that came up, next thing it was about two years later. well with my new shop almost done I decided a few months back that it would be nice to revive the project, along with the even crazier notion of recreating a whole bunch of the other Micronaut Characters as well.

I thought about working on the old one again and decided that there were one or two improvements I could make to it, Plus a lot of the old Scratch Build Projects and Kits were still In a large box in my dungeon Workshop, so I set about making a whole new Time Traveller once again from an 8” mego body. My intention once complete is to cast the body in clear resin and in a coloured resin to represent both versions.

For Those Who Came In Late …… A Brief History Of The Micronauts

The Original Microman/Micronauts

The Micronauts is The English version of the Japanese toy line Called Microman That was made by Takara (TOMY in the UK) since 1974 These were imported into the UK under Airfix (Mego in the US)between 1978 and 1980. The line Consists of a range of 3.75 inch Action Figures, Vehicles and Accessories.

These action figures were know for their high amount of articulation compared to other contemporary 3.75 inch action figures who had on average 5 points of articulation. The original Microman figures were shrunk down from the original Henshin Cyborg line of 8 and 12 “ dolls produced by Takara in 1972, but seeing a market for play sets and vehicles for the line it was shrunk down to a smaller scale and Microman was born. one of the unique features of this line was that the toys were meant to be the actual size of the cyborg creatures they were meant to represent, and were disguised as toys (Marvel would later use this Idea in their version of the Micronauts comic and have them emerging from the Microverse). These figures and vehicles also had parts and Accessories that could be interchanged with each other the most notable of these for may kids was the Mobile Exploration Lab (MEL) and all of the combinations it afforded you to make.

 

 

The New Era

The original Line continued until 1984, and then ended, but in 1998 Takara produced a whole new series of Microman toys, These new Microman Toys were divided into two Distinct lines the Replica Microman Line and The Magne-Powers Line. The Replica Line was distinctly aimed at collectors and Fans of the Original Microman Toys and was made up of reissues of the original line along with exclusive colour variations. The Magne-Powers Line was aimed at kids with all new toys and an all new story line and this also saw the Microman Anime Series.

Micro Man Video

Even with the Animated series The New Microman Line only achieved a Mild success with kids and was even less well received by collectors and older fans, as the line moved into the early 2000’s Takara Found it’s self in Financial Trouble and reduced the new line to a dozen products and cancelled the expensive anime show and the manga, and by 2001 the line had been shelved for the second time.

Although the replica series was still being sold it was in a much more limited scale and mostly through Takara’s E-Hobby Shop. Then in 2003 Takara decided to test the Waters again and released new Microman Figures, this time aimed more squarely at fans and collectors, the “imaginatively” titled Microman 2003. in the late 2000’s Takara did expand the line of Microman figures it include licensed properties Such as batman(Comic and Movie versions). Superman (Comic and Movie versions), Godzilla, Alien vs. Predator, Street Fighter, Evangelion and Kinnikuman

Also In 2004 Takara Released a line of Microman Figures Called Material Force. These Were Blank Microman figures which consisted of both Male and female Bodies moulded in various coloured Plastic and came with a variety of Interchangeable hands and were presumably aimed at the Custom Making Figure sector.

with this brief History Completed those of you who may not have come across the Microman/Micronaut Figures can Have a grasp of where I am coming from with my concept of creating an 8” Micronaut Time Traveller.