Bandai MG MS-09R Rick-Dom
1st, Singapore Dengeki 2001, Pro-modeler Category

If War is a grim reminder of how ugly Human nature can get, it doesn’t get any uglier than this. Charred remains of buildings burnt to the ground, huge areas of blacken landscape, its might well be mistaken for Hell on Earth. This is the image the Firebat brings.
Armed with a FBR-02 Flamethrower, cracker grenades and reinforced armour, the Firebat is truly a pure-breed close assault mobile suit. The highly flammable concoction produced by the flamethrower is truly state-of-the-art. Not only does it burn at an ultra high temperature, the mixture etches through the enemy armour, devouring metal like hungry bacteria.

Enhanced by advanced material management system, the mixture is kept stable by continuous cycling and is never mixed prior to ignition. Together, the Firebat makes an enemy you don’t want to meet, in the fog of war that often shrouds its appearance…

Construction

Head Unit.
Upon examining the head unit of the kit, I felt that it was such a waste that all those beautiful internal details have to be put to waste after building because they would be totally hidden. I therefore decided to create some opening that act as air vents for the mechanism to cool down, after all, this is a flame throwing MS.

The mono-eye is also replaced with a scratched-built piece consisting of styrene to simulate the mounting for the camera and part of miniature light bulb to replicate the camera itself. Additional details includes adding rivets for the camera mount.

More gimmicks such as Kotobukiya Minus Mold and drillings are finally added.

Arm Units.
The Rick-dom arm has the new clean line and simplistic look that Bandai seems to prefer now. I feel that it is too simple and therefore, plain for a model the size of the Rick-dom. I added many scratch-built details such as the elbow guard and details around the wrist area.

The hand of the model is truly beautiful that is almost as good as the fully posable manipulator of the PG series. There is however a big opening on each join which is perhaps caused by the limitations of injection molding. I filled up the opening simply by using thin styrene strips. The finished hands looks more solid and convincing.

The shoulder modification is perhaps the most obvious of the modifications I did to the model. I first sculpted the original piece using mori-mori using the method described in the Suku-Suku Scratch section of the December 2000 issue of DHM. Apparently, according to some web sources that the writer of the article used Alteco SSP-HG which is not available here. Mori-mori is much more sticky in my opinion and therefore more difficult to work with. I had to apply the material several times to build up the volume follow by filling surface imperfection with further applications.

The original is then casted into 2 duplicates which is used in the model. I added details from a SD Kämpfer and the minus mold is applied only after the parts are casted for fear that such details could not be reproduced by the casting.

Torso Unit.
One of the modifications I like to incorporate into my models is the addition of air vent like parts. I decided to use this idea on the front upper torso armour of the Rick-dom and is immediately faced with a big problem. The area is of a highly irregular shape and worse of all, it is not flat. The piece is of a non-uniform convex shape.

To solve this problem, the piece of styrene to be added to the area had first to reshaped to fit the area. I applied heat to a styrene piece and thermoformed it onto the area. I had to try several times before I had success. Next, the ‘easier’ task is to simply cut out the slots after carefully marking on the curve surface. Finally, the piece is carefully glued to the original piece and all seams are then cleaned up.

Leg Unit.
I did not do any join modifications to the model as it would be pretty pointless as the given the Rick-dom’s size, it would not allow much additional movement.

However, the bulk of the area is huge with little or no details. I therefore decides to spice up the area a bit after going through references of other models and coming up with my own design. The details on the foot parts are inspired by my Nike Shoes!

Weapons.
The flamethrower is actually from the original kit bazooka. However the conventional mounting of the weapon handle below the weapon is somewhat unlike a flamethrower. So, I simply transfer the handle from the top to the bottom and clean up any mess created. The remaining parts actually comes from an old HG Rick-dom kit’s bazooka and the tanks are scavenged from the same kit too. I casted 4 duplicates of the tanks to be used in the cycling unit at the back of the model. Scratched-built parts includes the heat sink arrays and the nozzle from a short styrene tube.

The cycling unit consists of some scratched-built shapes and I also throw in the part which originally fits the side of the model at the waist area. I used 1mm solder to simulate the tubing that is connected to the tanks. The tanks are purposely arranged in that manner to compact the unit.

The crackers are from a MG Zaku II kit with minor modifications to fit it into the polycaps.

Painting
I chose the color scheme as such since it would be more tactical in battle when there is likely to be huge amount of soot and smoke generated from the burning. A secondary reason is because of the Firebat unit in Starcraft also has similar color schemes.
One of the new things I tried out is the use of painting schemes to break apart the monotony of the area around the back of the leg. Although I could have added more gimmicks and gizmo there (actually I did and failed), the use of different color does the job equally well if not better!

Diorama
The base of the diorama consists of mainly rubbles from collapsed building which I made from plaster-of-paris. The tree is actually a piece of $500 ginseng! Just kidding. Its actually from the root of a tree which I collected many years back and had it dried.
The fuel drums makes for a nice touch to the base which gives it a sensation of the scale of the Firebat. I scavenged it from a Bandai Walker kit which incidentally is also 1/100 scale.

Additional Images