MK44H L.D.A.U. BLACK KNIGHT
Possibly one of my favorite mechanical designs of all time - Saito Heel of Love Love Garden really took Kow Yokoyama's original design of the MK44 and took it to the next level with some excellent resin additions. The resin parts were beautifully cast and fit on the plastic Hasegawa parts with almost no modification needed - such a beautiful kit, my only worry was to ensure that my building and painting skills did the design justice!
The entire vignette was laid out before any paint was put down, as the platform (made from a deconstructed cassette), was the key to highlighting the kit in the composition. The figure is based on the pilot figure that is included with the MK44 Ammoknight, with a good deal of scratchbuilt accessories such as the assault rifle and backpack.
The resin cast parts had a built-in cast texture, so a rough application of Mr. Surfacer with an old toothbrush to the plastic parts created a texture to match. The design ends up being quite top heavy with the heavy resin lumps on the body, so it was necessary to pin some of the joints on the feet.
The wonderful resin pilot has such sharp details that painting it was virtually effortless - the original plastic pilot wound up in this project. The hatch is engineered quite cleverly on this kit.
The standard rubber tube of the rifle was swapped with a twisted wire connection, the updated resin weapon barrel is one of the few instances where the plastic kit has to be carefully cut and sanded in order for the resin part to fit, with a little patience, it went on easily.
The kit does not come with decals, surprisingly, not even the original Hasegawa MK44H decals, so the spare decal bin came in handy with a variety of leftover Ma.K markings applied. For the heavy cast texture, liberal use of decal softener was necessary.
The small surface details added by the resin parts made weathering and detailing so much fun, picking out the little bits of mechanical realism on the design.
This kit really is an excellent example of how much a resin add-on set can benefit an existing cool design, by modifying the proportions and heft of the suit enough to almost seem like an original design while keeping enough recognizable. The castings are beautiful and very well sculpted, highly recommend trying one of Love Love Garden's resin kits if you have any interest at all in resin model making!
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