AFS CD Type Polar Bear

One of my favorite aspects of the mecha genre is environmental-specific variants: desert types, cold climate types, space types, ground types, etc. The Polar Bear, as the name suggests, is a cold weather variant of the standard Mk.II AFS suit. I first saw this design in Ma.K Encyclopedia and Chronicle along with a cold weather AFS scheme and I immediately wanted to combine the two.

The Polar Bear has a few subtle differences from the standard AFS Mk.II - mainly the different laser, feet, and the round bulbous engine cover. The joints were sculpted and a (somewhat convincing) walking pose was created. The kit was painted with Tamiya paints thinned with Leveling Thinner and weathered with a variety of enamel and oil filters and washes. Attention was paid to try and keep a "cold" look to the overall look of the weathering and indicate wear caused by precipitation.

One of the best pilot heads of all the Wave AFS suits comes with this kit - I think this was one of the builds where I first realized how much have a really good sculpt can make figure painting much more enjoyable. The base was created with an artificial snow product from a table top games company, and looks decent, but since this build I feel as though better techniques have been learned.

The Polar Bear is a great AFS variant kit - the cold climate theme allows for a lot of potential when it comes to paint, weathering, and basing options. One thing I would like to revisit from this build in the future is making a walking pose AFS and trying to make it look a bit more natural.