Digital Blend-CL: Hazel TR-1 Primrose

I started this post on a different forum in Autumn of 2007, I decided to publish the various parts of my post for the 1/35 Hazel TR-1 model that I am building here so that it is easier for people to follow, instead of having to read through pages of forum posts.

First Post - November 14, 2007

I know that I have not posted a major in-progress thread in a while, my previous project before was the Tsukasa Bullet 1/6 Heat Blade Resin Figure, I finished that model all the way back in August, but I have not posted any photos of the model on this forum.

It has been a while since I did a major scratchbuild project, so after much deliberation I decided to build a TR-1 Hazel Owsla/Primrose for the AoZ Unlimited Competition. I like the whole modular aspect of the Owsla and the Primrose Unit, there are a large number of possible configurations that are possible. I had already started drawing the plans and looking for photos and information in September, and started to build in mid October after a lot of planning, I am constructing the model now.

Before the contest was announced, I had already been playing with the idea of building a Hazel, I spent time drawing out the plans for the various parts of the Hazel. Below is a plan for the parts of the Primrose unit, I have made lots of progress on the Primrose Escape Unit, as of now.

I have completed the construction of the basic shapes of the various parts of the Hazel.

I have decided to start with the Primrose unit first, the past month I have made stead progress on the primrose unit, I started out with large 12”x24” sheets of Styrene from Walthers Inc. model railroad. I am using .100 to provide support and rigidity, .040 for the outer surfaces, and .010 thickness for all of the exterior details. So, now I am busy cutting, sanding to shape various pieces of styrene into the different parts of the Primrose Unit, right now, I am using 150 grit sandpaper, a exacto knife, pliers and a wire cutter for the construction work

I have been glueing and lamenating the various pieces of scrap styrene from the construction process to ad thick ness and support for the individual parts of the model.

After lots of sanding, filling and covering the floor of my dinning room with white styrene dust, I am done with one the construction of the basic shape of one of the parts

I have finished construction of the rough shapes

Here are the various parts of the Primrose Unit, this is my progress so far.

Update - November 18, 2007

The model will be 1/35 scale.

Here is a photo that I took early in the photo shoot, it will give you a sense of how big the model is.

Update - November 26, 2007

The best advice I can give you is to take a lot of time to draw out the various components of the model you are going to build, the more planning and thinking you do the easier things will go.

Since many of the Titan and TTT MS used similar weapons, you should be able to take weapons from other kits, as for the thruster pack it really is not that hard to build, I bought one of the AOZ books and looked through the images thoroughly before I did any cutting and sanding.

I am out of town right now, I got 1/2 way through construting the rough shapes for the thruster pack before the Thanksgiving holiday, but when I finish building the thruster pack, I will post some progress pictures.

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If you have not done any scratchbuliding before, try scratchbuilding something that is not so demanding like building different turret on a 1/35 armor kit or something that is not so complex. This is how I got my start in scratch building. Look around the major armor building websites, they are good places to read about scratchbuilding, or you can look through some model building books from Osprey or Verlinden.

Update - November 29, 2007

I am back from my Thanksgiving trip, since then I have progress on the construction of the Hazel's thruster pack. So far so good, but before I left, I started to build the side thruster housing for the Hazel's thruster pack, I still have to build the high speed power unit that mounts on the top.

I have finished cutting the .100 thick styrene, all of the pieces have been cut and glued together.

I also completed the preliminary construction of the front and bottom Primrose thruster vents and the cable cutter blades. One note, I had a look through Ninja Science's Flickr gallery, in the drawings of the Primrose Unit the cutter blades were different for each of the units that were illustrated, so I chose the shape that I liked, and went with it.

I know that the two cutter blades fold under each of the Primrose's wings, but since I am building a static model, I am not planning to have the two blades fold in and out.

Now that I am back from my holiday, I started construction of the outer plates of the Hazel's thruster pack. I used the scrap pieces of plastic that I had left over from the construction of the primrose unit for the side thruster housings.

This is a interior shot of one of the thruster housings.

Here are some more shots of the side thruster units.

I have cut out the thruster light housing, and test fitted all of the parts that I have built so far.

I still have a long way to go before I finish the Hazel's thruster pack, I still have to build the Bean Saber storage tubes on each of the thruster units, plus the high speed thruster unit that mounts on top of the thruster pack still has to be built.

Update - December 03, 2007

Question asked to me:

1/35??!! thats gonna be a lot of styrene sheets lol

this is gonna be a monster project for sure!
looking really good so far...makes me want to join the group built..
or even just get back to modeling...
but i'm in midst of exams right now... sigh
anyways seeing your work is very inspiring!

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Yes, the Hazel Owsla is going to be 1/35 scale and big, but not to big, so far I am doing very well with the styrene. The most complicated part of the initial construction was the primrose unit, since has a lot of moving parts that transform (I am not going to make a transforming Primrose Unit), I used a lot of styrene to construct this beast. Otherwise, the construction of the rest of the MS is going well.

I bought styrene in 12" x 24" sheets, so I am doing great on styrene, if you ever do any kind of scratch build, buy the styrene in large sheets, this will save you a ton of money. :shifty:

The more people who join the build the better, don't let me scare you off. :-)
___________________________

Over the weekend, I constructed the Rear Booster for the Thruster Pack.

Like the other parts of the Hazel, the frame of the Booster Unit is made of .100 styrene laminated together, I repeated the process until I had the completed booster unit.

After working on and off through out the weekend, I completed the Booster/High Speed Thruster unit for the Hazel Monday evening. I have a basic shape of the booster completed, I still have to construct the thruster nozzles for the Booster and Thruster pack, and the mounting/support arm for the thruster. I used .40 think styrene to cover the frame that I constructed.

I did a test assemble of the Thruster pack parts, the Booster Unit at the top, looks a lot bigger in the photo than it really is. :ninja:

Update - December 06, 2007

I am using .010, .040, .100 Evergreen Sheet Styrene, I bought the styrene from Walthers.com, it is a great place to buy stuff for modeling, they mainly sell model rail road supplies and kits but the sell a lot of stuff for scratch building. :lol: :-)

.010 for the outside surface details like non moving hatches, doors and levers
.040 for the outer panels, and .100 for the main structural parts, the
.100 styrene will provide structural support for the parts.

Here is the URL for Walther's Styrene page.

Again, the price of the styrene varies according to the thickness.

Update - December 09, 2007

Test Assemble of Primrose Unit and Thruster Pack

A few days ago, I test assembled the Primrose unit, to my relief everthing for the most part everything fit. Right now I my main goal is to construct the pieced of the Hazel, once all of basic components are completed, I will begin filling and sanding all of the seams and rough spots. I included a 1/35 German Panzer Grenadier for comparisons, during the construction process, I switched liquid cement, I am now using Plastruct, so far so good.

I still have all of the small elements left to construct, my next goal after the constuction of the arms is the top High-speed Booster Unit mount, that goes on the top of the thruster.

Here are some photos of the test assemble.

Hazel Arm

Now that I have finished constructing the Primrose Unit, I decided to start construction of the arms, I was going to do the feet or one of the lower leg armor units, but I am running out of styrene, so I settled on constructing the arms, the hands are a different story all together. ^_^

I cut the pieces of styrene just like I constructed the rest of the MS built so far. but since I cut all of the pieces of styrene before I started the assembly of the pieces of the arm. I used a sharpie to label all of the different pieces, as a result, the assembly went much smoother than I expected. :D :lol:

What I ended up doing is scanning the MG RGM-79Q Quel kit plans, and enlarging them to the required scale. I went to Ninja Science's flickr photo gallery and found the images for the necessary parts of the arms and the various pieces of the shoulder armor that I needed.

I decided to construct the low profile shoulder armor instead of using the normal RGM-79Q shoulder armor units. Right now I still have to construct the mounts for the shoulder armor, and cut the beveled edges for the arm.

I have not constructed the hands yet, I am still deciding how to tackle this project, scratch build them, or buy two UC Hardgraph kits and take the hands and use them on the hazel. Yes, I will have to modify them if I do this.

I am not sure yet. :unsure: :doh: :(

Here are the photos for the arm.

Update - January 20, 2008

I am posting a quick status update on this project.

This project is not abandoned or forgotten, because of the Holiday Season, and my Traveling to Europe for New Years, I have not worked on this project for a while.

Before I left, I started work on the Thruster Pack Clamps, Top Booster Unit mount, and the Beam Saber mount on the Thruster pack, but I am out of Styrene, so I am going to have to order some from Walthers before I start on this project again.

I have also created the plans for the Hazel's torso and weapon mounting point.

I traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, Prague, Czech Republic, and Toronto, Canada, but I brought back a unwanted souvenir, I got sick on the way home.

Update - February 03, 2008

It took me a while, but I am back at work on my Hazel, I had to order some more styrene, and wait until Mom flew back home before I could start work on this project.

I am working on the torso right now, I started on the Rear torso maneuvering thruster unit that attaches to the Hazel's rear torso, I have completed the construction of the basic shape, and started construction on the torso it self. I am using .100 styrene for stiffness and support, the outer skin will be .040 styrene, so far I am progressing faster than I had expected.

Eventually I will cut out the six holes in the tail for the maneuvering thrusters, it should not be a problem looking for something to replicate the six thrusters, the two 20mm or so diameter thrusters that sit in between the tail thrusters will be a challenge. I have to find something that looks like rocket thrusters, so far I have not come up with any ideas yet.

Here are a few shots of the construction process.

Here is a shot of all the plates from a test fit after I completed cutting and construction of the frame.

I will post more photos once I finish work on the torso unit, I did on realize how much bigger the Hazel's torso is compared to the GM-Q Quel's torso unit. I still have a lot of work to do, I have to cut and sand the corners of the rear tail, and make the 6 thruster bays.

If you are at all curious, here are some photos from my trip. Click here to check out my photos.

Enjoy

Update - February 06, 2008

To create the plans for my hazel, I started out with the 1/100 MG RGM-79Q Quel plans in the instruction booklet and scanned the plans to the size that I needed, then I went to Ninja Science's weblog and looked through the scans that he had posted, his flickr photo gallery is also a great place to look for AOZ scans from the Dengeki Hobby Mag's AOZ Specials to research the Hazel's mechanical parts, and draw the plans that I needed. :ninja: :geek:

Since I am building the primrose unit, I had to do a lot of extra research, the Hazel and the Quel share common parts externally, but that is where the similarities end. :sweat:

By the time I finished, the original plans looked completely different from my finished plans.

I did not create my hazel's plans based on a model, I wanted to do the research myself.

I am including links to the two sites I am talking about below.

Ninja Science's Flickr Gallery

Mechascientific

Update - February 09, 2008

Ever since I returned from my trip, I have been working on the torso, so far I have made good progress on the construction of the torso. I started out by cutting out the basic shapes of the mobile suit from .100 styrene, per my previous update. To provide support for the waist sections that will support the waist armor and the side ammo storage racks, I have laminated pieces of styrene together so that when I drill holes for the support rods there will be some thing behind the walls of styrene to support everything.

Torso Unit

Torso Unit hole

As I progressed in my construction, I drilled pilot holes to mark where the leg jounts will go, I will make the holes larger and add the needed detail later, once I finish construction of all the mobile suit's major components. In one of the photos below, I drew a red rectangle around the spot where the pilot holes are, there is one on each side. In the other photos, I have stacked up the pieces of styrene to show what I am trying to accomplish, later I will add some kit bashed parts into the spaces to simulate the internals of the waist sections, normally you will not be able to see this since the normal Torso unit will cover the detail. But the Primrose unit is narrower, and sits higher up, so I have decided to add some detail in this area and a few other places.

Right Torso Section

Right waist section

I have made lots of progress with the tail section. I have cut out the holes for the tail thrusters, and started to cut the beveled corners of the tail. I test fitted all of the parts, but I will have to do some sanding and cutting to create the correct corners.

Rear Thruster plates

Tail section rear

rear close up

After the construction on the waist units were completed, I test fitted all of the parts for the torso, below are some photos of the work I have completed so far. I have to build the torso weapons latch and the ring mount that attaches to the latch, eventually I will drill out all of the holes needed to attach the parts. I have decided that I will drill holes and super-glue the metal rods in place to provide the needed support for the other pieces of the model. I still have to add some styrene to the rear and raise the tail higher, plus I have to add the ring mount for the chest unit.

Here are some photos of my progress so far:

front view torso

top view torso

side view torso

Rear view torso

I have to thank everyone for their support in this project, and giving me the encoragement to keep working on this model.

Thanks everyone.

Update - February 11, 2008

Well, Since I spent Sunday waiting for the handy man, and football season is at a end... :(

I had a lot of time on my hands, so I spent the day working on the Hazel, I started to cut the plates for the Hazel's lower leg armor last night, and finally started to trim off the base plates for the 4 parts of the lower leg armor, and the upper leg sections.

I got a far as assembling the front knee Armor for the Hazel's lower leg, here are a few more photos from the construction process.

I still have a long ways to go, but I am making some progress.

Update - February 18, 2008

Ever since the last update, I have been hard at work on the lower legs, I am going to have to order more styrene for the other leg, the feet and the head. This is the progress that I have made so far on my Hazel, I have finished glueing together the pieces of the left lower leg, I still have to glue the support struts onto the rear exhaust fins for the rear thrusters.

I added a photo of a 1/35 German Soldier to give a sense of scale.

Below are a few shots of the leg generators, I have left the center cover plate open, I still need to ad some detail to the small openings on the front side of each generator unit.

This is what I have done so far, I spent most of the week working on the long box in the center, all of the other pieces will attach to it

Now, I have to go back and work on the knee, I still have to ad the front and rear thruster ports and create the thruster fins that sit below each of the thruster nozzles in the front and back.

Update - February 26, 2008

I am adding a few pictures to this thread, I have been working on the torso and the tail of the Hazel, so far I am making great progress. My next task is to go back and work on the arms, I completely forgot about this part of the project. I also started work on the rear thruster tail fins, started to drill the holes, and build the mounts for the leg thrusters.

Here are a few photos.

I most recently finished work on the tail thruster, I drilled out the mounting holes for the 6 tail thrusters.

Update - March 04, 2008

I am posting some more progress photos, between both updates, I have been working on the arms, drilling the holes that I need to insert the pins and the mounting port that is located on each of the lower arms. To create the hole on each of the arms, I used a ruler and pencil to draw the outline of the port, and then I used a electric drill to drill all of the holes, I cut out the plastic with a modeling knife and filed the sides smooth.

Later, I laminated pieces of styrene scraps to thicken the side walls of the 2 elbow sockets, then the pieces are all test fitted.

I have started work on the two wrist socket guards and connectors, I finished one of them and test fitted the pieces.

Update - March 08, 2008

Hi Funaka, thanks for the compliment.

I am also looking forward to my first test assemble of the pieces, then I will take some size comparison photos. Right now, a educated guess says that the Hazel will be roughly 23 inches tall, when you include the heels, larger abdomen, and different head unit. So far so good, I can't believe I have been working on this project since October. :twitch: I have made more progress than I thought I would, I have completed the torso, back pack, high speed power unit, tail, left leg, and the two arms.

I am still working on the arms, I have been drilling the holes that I need to insert the pins in the arms. The good thing is that everything fits, all of the holes line up.

Update 16 - March 16, 2008

My current project is the Hazel's head, which compared to the rest of the body is going much faster than I expected. I started out by cutting the basic shape of the head, and used the scrap pieces of styrene from the construction of the other parts for the various support struts on the head. I have the basic shape of the head completed, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, my next project is to begin work on the face and the machine gun intake ducts for the head. I still need to build the ammo loading doors on the side of the head.

As of now, I have finished constructing the two Antennas on the head.

I have also been working on the warning and alert decals that will go on to the Hazel. I thought about using aircraft decals, but decided against it, since most of the text is ledgible at 1/32 scale. I don't want to put a warning for the ailerons on to the handles and locking bolts for the Mobile Suit's various panels and access doors. But my biggest problem has been finding a large enough TTT Bunny logo for the Hazel at 1/35 scale, so I bought one of the AOZ books and scanned the logo on the back. I had to create from scratch the other TTT Logos, and the other related Hazel related decals. For the Omecha logo, I used the Greek letter Theta and turned it on it's side, then stretched it out, I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create the needed artwork

I have also been going back to the other parts of the Hazel and adding detail and retest fit all of the parts.

Update - March 21, 2008

Thanks for the compliment, I am guessing that everyone is waiting for the head, well, me to. A Gundam is not a Gundam without the correct head. I started out by creating a set of plans for the head, I used the Gundam Quel's head as a starting point, and enlarged or scanned all of the images I needed to build the plans. I cut small polygon and triangular shaped pieces of styrene, and hand bent them to shape, a little heat helps (there are plenty of threads on this forum that cover the topic); since the pieces are glued to a frame and filled with putty the strips do not have to be exactly curved because the puttied surfaces will be sanded and shaped.

Since the Hazel's head is not a perfect sphere it does not have to be perfect, the shape has to close as possible. At this point in time, I do have the face plate for the head completed.

Hehehe.... I am going to create a great big sample decal on the tail...

FitchtenFoo: Thanks for the bunny logo, I greatly appreciate the help.

Update 18 - March 29, 2008

Hi Everyone, it is time for another update. I have been busy puttying, filling and sanding all of the seams for the parts that I have created thus far. I am using Milliput Putty for the job, I have a box of putty for over 1.5 years, I knew that I had to find a way to get some use out of the stuff so that it does not get waisted. So I had to use the putty before it hardened and became unusable, a knife was needed to cut the putty into small pieces and lots of muscle was needed to kneed and soften up the putty, it was already starting to harden.

None the less, I did get the job done.

I am now working on the two armored hip sockets, I started out by using a 1/35 late WW2 German Steel road wheel, and heat formed the strips of styrene into the round shape that I needed before I glued them on to the road wheel. This is my first serious attempt at using heat formed plastic on a model project, it was much easier than first thought. I used a Socket wrench bolt socket to wrap the plastic strips around, then I clamped everything down with a pair of plyers. After a few minutes in hot water, I cooled the plastic down with cold tap water.

In the photo below, you can see the socket that I used to wrap the plastic around, in the middle is the finished heat formed plastic, and on the right is a piece of the plastic I used to wrap the plastic around. Now, you see the finished part, I have already cut out the round discs that go on top, glued, puttied and and sanded the part down.

Now I have started on the armored plates for the thighs.

Update

I am amending this post, over the weekend, I spent a lot of time working on the upper legs of the Hazel.

This is what I accomplished., there are two of them, one for the left leg and another for the right leg

I have more photos and comments on flickr.

Update - April 02, 2008

I puttied the seams and the cracks in the plastic plates with Squadron White putty and Milliput Putty, after I cut the plates and assembled the support struts, then used Milliput to make the plates look thicker than they really are.

This is what the thigh looks like after I finished glueing the plates together.

I did not realize myself how big the thing is until I test built the primrose unit. I was not prepared for how big this sucker is until I built the Abdomen and tail.

Update - April 06, 2008

Since my last update, I have been working hard on the neck and mount for the neck, I have completed most of the work, I spent quite a lot of time going through my scrap model parts containers. I found the pig snout mantle from a WW2 King Tiger Tank, and a German All steel road wheel as the base for the neck, I used the various pieces of scrap plastic that I saved, to construct the parts for the neck and mount for the Hazel.

Then I test fitted the head along with all of the pieces I finished, I know that the neck looks like it is suppose to be. After I took the photo, I cut out some of the extra plastic in the head, and now it is about 1/3 of a inch or about 7cm lower than before, and sanded down the other parts of the base so that the neck is now much shorter and looks more natural.

Before I started construction of the neck, I added some detail to the arm mounts, I had to add a groove to the two blocks that I built early on in the project. Adding thin plastic to the already built parts was easier than cutting a square groove into the existing plastic.

I am now in the process of thickening the side walls of the neck mount, I still have a long ways to go.

Update:
Here is a better shot, I spent most of the day working on the side walls, of the mounting plate, I lowered the height of the base, and removed more material from the head, it now looks more like the real thing.

Update - April 07, 2008

Thanks for the compliment, I am happy to hear that you both like the head. I have to thank Ninjascience for all the scans of the head, I would not have been able to build the correct shape with out all of the pics on the Flickr account.

@Mrex-sgundam: I am also very happy that I took the time to plan things out the way I did. I under took this project to channel all of the stress and craziness in my life right now, this is how I am relieving my stress. If anyone wants to attempt a build like this, I encourage you to do as much reading and research as you can, especially a AOZ MS.

@FichtenFoo: I am going to get as close to G-System as I can, I am going to give the external surfaces as much detail as I can without going over board, like the vicious project kits. I am not going to super detail everything, and build a full internal skeleton, right now I am focused on building the exterior it will be very detailed; but super detail the parts of the internals that will be visible, like the leg joints, abdomen, knees, ankles, neck (I am working on now...), cockpit. :ninja:

About the resin kit idea...

I have thought about making a kit, but I have no experience with resin casting, I can only imagine how much resin would be required. If I do make the resin masters for casting, my neighbors would get high and then angry at me from all of the resin fumes I would create.

I have not ruled anything out, I am getting way ahead of myself with the model kit idea...

We will cross that bridge when we get there. :sweat:

Update - April 08, 2008

After working all weekend on the neck and mounting plate, I could not resist assembling all of the pieces of the torso to see if the bust of the hazel will fit. Wow, I am amazed and relieved at how well everything fits together.

I used some of the figures for a long abandoned WW2 model project as size references.