Hey, guess what, I completed a project! And, as usual, this is technically several years in the making. But before I talk about the build I want to introduce you to Kallamity.
Kallamity (Luca Zampriolo) is an artist and scratch built maestro out of Italy. If you check out his Instagram you’ll find a ton of great artwork and custom work. I forget how/when I was first introduced to his work, but as a big fan of Makoto Kobayashi we share a common connection. SchnabelGun, first designed by Kallamity back in 2002, is an inspired homage to Kobayashi and what got me hooked.
The 1/144 SchnabelGeist is a variant of that first design, and the resin kit I got was back in 2021. I started work on it immediately but ended up moving and the project, like so many in my queue, sat in a box for several years. There’s the usual resin casting issues, which were few and far between compared to other kits I’ve come across. A fair amount of sanding and scribing took place when I first started working on the kit years ago.
Main thing that was new to me was that every joint needed pinning resulting in needing much more up-front consideration of limb placement. That’s not to say that the joints are fixed, but you have one line of rotation and if you need to adjust it (say bending an arm upward) you need to bend the pin itself to get that. I used brass pins, which are strong enough to hold things, but leave something to be desired when it comes to micromanaging limb placement like you can on Gunpla.
There was also a fair amount of writing, for which I used aluminum wire. On one hand, easy to work with. However the strength of the material makes it harder to, again, micro managing posing. It’s also stronger than the resin it self so too much work and the resin of the connection point would break… something that I caused several times.
This is a very long winded way of saying here are my core lessons learned… first, use some sort of flexible cable wire instead of stiff wire. Also, firm in posing and join orientation before painting. I had the positioning like 80% dialed in before painting which wasn’t enough.
Outside of my general inexperience in this area, the kit was super easy to work with and build. The guide was easy to follow. One of the fun things about building kits like this is recognizing greebls alongside the custom designed parts. And, of course, the design is just *chef’s kiss*.
For the painting, of course I’m always going to want to try do something new. This time I used some inspiration from Warhammer mini painting I was on the ol’ interwebs. I primed everything black, then did a super rough dry brush with gray and white paints. On top I with with semi-transparent speedpaints (these colours from Army Painter). The intent was to create a mottled appearance which turned out really well.
Paints include…
- Army Painter Speedpaints…
- Gravelord Gray
- Algea Green
- Gunner Camo
- Camo Cloak
- Hoplite Gold
- Boardsword Silver
- Slaughter Red
- A random assortment of Vallejo model color Panzer Series
On top of that I did some basic weathering: chipping and dirt/rush washes to give a bit of depth. My camera work doesn’t really capture some of the more subtle detailing, which is probably par for the course for me. Maybe it’s time to replace my nearly 20 year-old camera?
I have two more Kallamity kits in the backlog, the 1/35 RDW and 1/100 Garbaldy. Will probably be a while before I get to them, as is tradition, but I’m looking forward to using the opportunity to try out more mini figure model techniques.
