Thursday, April 14, 2011

Mecha Month: LED Mirage


I'd always loved the tall, graceful designs of Five Star Stories. Unfortunately, the Mortar Hedds, as they were known, were only in garage kit form for the longest time, and prohibitively expensive (as in, they stood around 3 feet high and cost over $700). So, when I found this mini in a hobby store, around 1993-94, I scooped him up immediately. I'm sure he was part of a series, but I've never, ever, seen any of the others, so this one is a rather rare bird indeed. He's barely taller than a Space Marine. 




The actual backpack and cannon assembly were sold as separate upgrade parts, and the entire thing is a weighty little wad of metal. That piece on the end of the cannon was nearly impossible to attach and fell off all the time. Recently I made use of my smallest drill bit (which, while hair-thin, still barely fit) and pinned the damn thing in place. 




Since the Japanese seem to eschew small miniatures in favor of plastic and resin kits (from what I've seen), that makes finding a model like this (or of any mecha, really) doubly rare. I'd always held out hope for finding a Knight of Gold, but oh well.


As you might've guessed, my computer's back with a new hard drive and logic board gratis from Apple, so now the updates will be coming fast and furious. Unfortunately I had backed up after processing photos a day before it crashed, so the photos of my Talos and DE jetbike/Venom converions are lost. I'll be playing some 40k with that client this weekend, though, so the Dark Poofs may yet return. This month, though, is for walking war machines, so you might not see them for a while anyway ;)



2 comments:

ThorMalleuson said...

I have this, the Knight of Gold, and the Black Knight. Never put them together. I ordered them in the early 90's from General Products.

Mark said...

You have more willpower than I do. Those things were awesome.