PAM-74 Terror Bell

Dorvack is kind of a strange beast in the world of anime mecha model kits - the anime is not remembered that fondly compared to other series of the same era, but there is a very die hard but small following of people who seem to absolutely love the kits. I've only seen clips of the anime online but once I saw the amazing modified kits from the promotional materials that came out with the kit line back in the 80s, I was really inspired to try my hand at modifying one. The kit themselves are quite basic (and honestly kind of bad even when compared to other old kits) so they lend themselves to being modified heavily.

This was without a doubt my most ambitious kitbash at the time and drew on a lot of spare parts from a variety of kits. Here is a (incomplete) listing of what was used in the kitbash:

• Backpack: Ma.K Falke stabilizers, Builder's Parts MS radome, Zaku II head inner frame
• Arms/Weapon: Gasaraki Raiden weapon, SAFS upper arms, Dougram hands
• Head: AFS laser, RX-78 beam sabers, PKA Gustav canopy
• Body: SAFS laser arm, Raccoon sensor pod, Builder's Parts joints

A healthy dose of putty to fill in gaps between parts was necessary and lots of cement and CA glue came into play in attaching disparate sections together.

The base kit is very simple - almost every part is simply two halves and the fit and finish is fairly rough. Compared to it's closet contemporary, the Nitto SF3D kits, these are a far cry in terms of quality.

Based on what I saw in the Hyper Dorvack Document images, a heavily worn finish was appropriate so liberal use of oils for weathering was applied. The kit supplied decals actually went on without issue for being so old (the kit box was actually partially disintegrated when I received the kit!)

The base is actually a small vase stand found at a thrift shop. I find reusing secondhand items for basing can be a fun exercise in coming up with base layouts.

The base kit is actually called the "Tinkle Bell" and I named my version the "Terror Bell" as a pun on how "terrible" the original kit is (at least by modern standards).

This kit was actually gifted to me from a friend as I had almost no knowledge of this kit line at the time outside of a few images I had seen online here and there. I am really thankful to have friends who introduce me to cool tidbits of mecha model history such as this! While the kit itself is kind of bad, it just means it is a great "blank canvas" for you to go wild on - funnily enough these kits had a reissue in the 2000s that seemed to come and go as quickly as the original ones did!