Maker: Nichimo

Scale: 1/200

Type: Injection Moulded Styrene

Aftermarket: None

Cost: Free – this is a Dave Guertin “Box-o’-Junk” special

When one thinks of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, one usually thinks of Shoji Kawamori’s iconic and distinctive VF-1 Valkyrie series of fighters.  This certainly can be said for the various model makers that have held the rights to kit the mecha of Macross; the Valkyrie has been kitted in so many ways and by so many companies that it has almost worn out its welcome in the form of sprue.

However, there are a lot of other mecha from Macross that are just as interesting and deserving of being made into models.  Not the least of these are the Zentraedi battlepods – the mass-produced, ‘headless ostrich’ Regults and the rarer and more fearsome Glaugs.  Unfortunately, there are far fewer kits of these ‘bad guys’ than there are of the Valkyrie, and finding them can be somewhat difficult and expensive.

One of my favourite mecha of all time is the Glaug, or Zentraedi Officer’s pod.  This is a specialized command pod piloted by Khyron (I’m using his English name here – in Japan he’s known as Kamjin) “the backstabber,” a reckless, ruthless and fearsome Zentraedi commander.  The Glaug shares only a passing similarity with the mass-produced Regult series of pods: its backwards-articulated legs and bulbous ‘fuselage’ being family traits.

Since the very first day I ever saw a Glaug (back in 1985), I wanted one.  As I got into modelling and discovered the vast array of Macross kits available, I started to hope that I would one day get the chance to model my favourite ‘enemy’ mech of all time.  However, I soon discovered that for some reason, Glaug kits are very rare and very expensive, and it is this last trait that convinced me I’d not get the chance to build one any time soon.

Thankfully, my patience was rewarded by none other than IPMS London’s Dave Guertin, owner of Blap Models and keeper of the legendary “Box-o’-Junk.”  If you have read my review of the 1/200 Nichimo Valk that I rebuilt, then you know the story.  For those who are new to it, here’s how it goes:

One meeting, Dave brought in a box full of old anime kits that he had built about 20 years ago.  They were all wrapped in tissue, but were in a rather poor state of repair.  Going through the box, I found all sorts of goodies from Yamato, Macross and even Dougram!  However, there was one kit that caused my heart to skip a beat.  In among all the other stuff I noticed the tell-tale shape of a Glaug’s body.  After digging through the rubble, such as it was, I found the bulk of a very old, pretty beaten Glaug.  Further searching revealed its close-in ‘whisker’ cannon, and I had a complete pod in my hands.  I couldn’t believe it: I finally had a chance to build a Glaug!

Taking Stock:

Unfortunately, the Glaug in question was built long before Dave had acquired his current level of modelling mastery.  The seams weren’t sanded at all, and the body was unpainted – only the red and black parts of the mech had seen paint.  That paint still on the mech was quite well done, and some details, such as the red in the engines, were very nicely done indeed!  At first look, it seemed as though there wouldn’t be much to ‘building’ this thing after all: just a quick tear down and reassembly followed by a coat of paint.

Of course, these things are never as easy as they seem. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a lot of dents in the kit.  I’m not sure if this was supposed to be an attempt to simulate battle damage or what, but the end result was that my beloved Glaug looked like it had been used as a chew toy for a teething tot.  Clearly, there was going to be a lot more involved in restoring my little pod than I had first thought.

In addition, because the kit is so old, it predates polycaps.  Thus, all the plastic-on-plastic build-around joints were loose as heck, and the Glaug could only assume a ‘touch-your-toes’ position.  While this is somewhat impressive, I’m really not into mecha yoga, so I figured I was going to have to do something about this too.  I then decided to try and modify the kit so I could install polycaps.  I had a lot of spares, and it seemed like it could make life a lot easier in the long run…

Undertaking the Restoration:

The first job was to get the kit apart and see what I needed to do to get the polycaps to fit.  Because the glue on it was so old, getting the Glaug to go to pieces really didn’t require much coaxing.  A quick jab of the old knife was all that was required to prep the patient for surgery.

Once I had the kit apart, I began to reconfigure it for polycaps.  I modified the foot attachment points as well as the junction between the gun and arm part of the arm assemblies to use polycaps instead of the old joint systems.  However, this required substantial modifications to the feet, and a lot of plastic had to be cut away to make the system work.  I also put a polycap at the waist, so that the legs could be attached to the fuselage after everything was done.

The major assemblies were then glued back together with Ambroid Proweld.  This glue usually doesn’t have much effect on Bandai’s mech plastic, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw how well it worked on the Glaug.  Nichimo’s plastic is much softer, and more like what plane kits are made from, than what one normally finds on a Bandai mech kit.  However, gluing and sanding the seams was only about 1/3 of the battle.  The ‘tooth marks’ had to be filled and the detail on the black-painted parts of the kit had to be rescribed to ensure it would be clear when the Glaug was finished.

To etch the panel lines, I used my trusty ‘pin in an Xacto knife handle’ scribing tool.  I used Tamiya grey putty to do the filling work.  The Tamiya putty sets up fast and is quite easy to sand, two very important properties for this job.  There was a significant amount of filling to be done on the Glaug, and the arms were especially in need of work.  Once the ‘damage’ had been successfully filled, the detail had to be re-etched through it.  Great care was needed here because the slightest mistake would damage the filling, and would require the entire area to be refilled and sanded.

Painting and Finishing:

Once the restoration work was completed, the Glaug had to be painted the proper colours.  Determining exactly what these colours are, however, is not an easy task.  Since the Macross anime is so old, its colour is a bit washed.  Thus, while the pod looks whitish on the show, I know that’s not really the colour it is supposed to be.  Thus, screen captures from the anime are really quite useless, as was my Robotech art book.

This is where I say: “Thank goodness for the old Matchbox toy of the Glaug!”  In the mid 1980’s Matchbox issued a series of Robotech toys.  These were in turn reissued in the early 1990’s as part of Playmates Exosquad-Robotech line.  It is the latter of these issues that I was able to pick up about a decade ago.  At the time, I figured it would be the only way that I would be able to get my hands on a Glaug replica.

The colouring on the toy is most like what I remember the Glaug should be: a blue grey ‘body’, with red accents and dark greyish-bluish-blackish legs.  Thus, for my Glaug, I chose to use Virsago Black for the legs, arm guns and top-mounted particle cannon.  The red parts are second generation Testors Model Master acrylics and the engines are done in MM Jet Exhaust with Badger orange insides and an overall black wash.

The main body colour, however, was more difficult to find.  Eventually, I found the jar of paint I had used for my Captain Tylor Ship of the Line and Deathshadow.  However, these were both too blue for the job.  Thus, I added some white to it and got the exact result I was going for.  Thus, the main body ended up being a mix of Tamiya Flat White and a whole bundle of other colours that started out as a first generation MM Acrylic blue grey.  Unfortunately, I don’t know what blue grey it was, because the paint has been transferred to different jars in the 10 years of its lifetime.

With the paint on and sanded smooth, the surface detail was outlined with a standard black Gundammarker.  While this marker was too wide for the Test VF-1A-0 that I got from the “Box-o’-Junk,” it is perfect for the Glaug, which is a much larger machine.  The model was finished by coating it with many applications of thinned Future floor polish.  The Future was sanded with paper up to 8000 grit, and then two more coats were carefully applied to give a very smooth surface finish.

Originally, this kit is supposed to have come with a set of decals.  Usually, Zentraedi machines are festooned with all sorts of alien script, arrows and other weird markings.  However, given that this kit was 20 years old, I was not surprised by a lack of decal sheet.  Regardless, I really don’t think decals would have added much to the kit anyway, given its size.

Final Assembly and Conclusions:

Once the pieces of the Glaug were finished, I attempted to put them together using the polycap system I had put in place.  However, this was not overly successful.  I learned that trying to adapt a non-polycap kit to use polycaps is much more difficult that it appears.  The biggest problem is getting the ‘posts’ to be the right size to fit in the polycap ‘holes.’

While I was successful with polycapping the arms on my Zaku Heavy Beam Custom, the Glaug turned out to be less forgiving.  The foot polycaps worked well, but the arm and waist polycaps did not.  Thankfully, the Glaug is not really something that looks good in a number of different positions, so preserving poseability wasn’t an issue.  Due to this, I simply ended up using the polycaps on the arms and waist as locators, and then glued the pieces in place.  This did work well, and is something to consider for future kits.  Thus, it appears that polycaps can be used to improve modularity for assembly, but they don’t always improve poseability.

Regardless of the failure of the polycap part of the experiment, I am exceptionally pleased with the results.  I now have a very nice little model of one of my favourite mecha of all time, and I didn’t have to go to EBay and mortgage my spleen to get one.  I also feel good that I was able to rescue this poor little relic from a time long ago, and bring him into the modern age.