In Progress » Hamster Ball

02.25.2005 » Concepts

WTF? Yes, that’s probably what you’re thinking. The
MG Ball is such a weird design though that it screams for a weird
approach. Basically when I was coming up with ideas for this kit,
hamster-balls came to mind. For those that don’t know, a hamster
ball is a clear plastic ball with air holes that you put your hamster
in so that it can run around outside of its cage without getting
lost or eaten.

So with that I was reminded of Hamtaro. I hated the
Hamtaro TV show, but the hamsters themselves are cute and it is
a Japanese show. So why not merge the two? So I found some “Ham
Ham” images online and traced them. I recolored them as well
to be my own markings since each Ham has a different marking look.
The sunflowers are because the Hams love sunflower seeds.

So the end result is a design that could drive the
most hardened criminals into a diabetic coma. I think it’s fun though
and unusual and will be a fun cute thing to do. As a bonus, my daughter
will probably love this when she’s older.

At any rate, I’ve got to get started on this. Nothing
is cut out and I haven’t even sent the decals to the printer. Been
too busy with the new site design!

03.10.2005 » Let’s get started…

Wow… I heard that this kit was a quick build, but
until you get started, you’ve got no idea just how quick it really
is gonna be. After 1.5 hours of work, I have the kit completely
cut out. I haven’t sanded anything yet, but there’s not a whole
lot to sand anyway. Aside from the sprue stubs, it’s mostly the
arms that need work. I’ve only encountered 2 parts that really need
a seam line fixed. those parts will require some other work as well,
but more on that later.

Now I thought the gun was gonna be the hardest part
of this kit. Normally you have the 2 halves of the gun and a bunch
of parts tacked onto that. Bandai really outdid themselves on this
one thought. First off, the barrel is molded in 1 piece. 1
PIECE! All that needs cleaned on it is a slight flash line
and the sprue stubs. The body of the gun is in 2 halves… surely
that’ll require a ton of sanding. Again, no! It’s molded so that
on the bottom, a cylinder hides most of the seam and on the top,
a third piece covers the seam there and secures a roll-bar. The
only seams on this whole gun are right in front of the ammo cartridge
and the front of the ammo cartridge which is part of the body. That’s
it. Nicely done Bandai!

As for the rest of the kit, since I’m not displaying
the internals ever, I had no need to sand the sprue stubs there.
No one will ever see them once I put the armor on. So all those
parts… no sanding. I’ve essentially built the whole internal “ball”
and will only have 2-8 places that need sprue stubs sanded there.
I’ll just have to sand the outter shell.

Anyways, no pics yet, but I have a couple mods to
make to avoid unnecessary masking. I’ll photograph those later when
I do them.

03.23.2005 » on hold…

Here’s my overdue progress report on this kit. Everything
is cut and sanded and ready for paint. Here’s the problem though…
In less than 2 weeks I’ll be remodeling my bathroom so that means
demolition dust and many trips through my basement work area with
large tools, etc… So rather than risk damaging the kit while it’s
in progress, I’ve put it back into the box until after the bathroom
is complete. As soon as we’re done, I’ll finish it up.

04.18.2005 » Back to work!

Now that the bathroom remodeling is done (and a redecorated
living room to boot) I’m back on the Hamster Ball. Since the kit
was ready for paint when I stopped, all I had to do was skewer and
start painting it.

For the sky/foliage I first sprayed a mixture of Tamiya
Sky Blue and white. THen I sprayed the clouds on using the leftover
transparent white I mixed for the Cloud09. That was IIRC White +
Future. Lastly I sprayed (without a mask) a mixture of Tamiya Greens
along the bottom. My sunflower decals have no green so the flowers
will sit atop this green field.

The internals were painted with a 50/50 mixture of
Tamiya Chrome silver + Gunmetal.

I also had time to finish up the base. The base was
primed black then drybrushed with grays and whites then dusted with
a thick helping of ground light gray pastels. Also if you look closely,
you can see the clear acrylic rod that will be holding the Ball
up. That has a small pin-hole drilled in the top which will match
one drilled in the bottom bell for pinning the kit to the base.

04.20.2005 » Inking

The painting went very quickly so
now I’m onto the inking. As I’m finishing inking
parts, I’m building the main “Ball”.
I’m doing this because I’ll need certain decals
to overlap several panels. This way all those
panels are in place and the decal will be properly
positioned. What’s nice is that I won’t have to
dissassemble this since there’s no moving parts
to deal with here what would need moved to have
an even flat coat.

04.22.2005 » Decals

The decals went on very smoothly.
I took a page from Hasegawa and made “layered”
decals for this kit. Making a large decal with
all the flowers and hamsters would be too hard
to place on this curved surface. Instead I made
small sections of flowers and aligned/cut them
to fit. The hamsters were placed overtop the flowers.
Where the decals overlapped panel-lines, I cut
them with an exacto after they dried and applied
more setting solution to sit them into the lines.

Here’s a few in-progs. The kit is
ready for final assembly and photos so you’ll
have to wait for that to see the hams on the ball.