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Unit Name: A.F.S. Archelon
Unit Type: Prototype Fighting Suit
Operator: Mercenary Forces
Accommodation: pilot only
Operational History: The AFS Archelon was a test bed unit for the Mercenary indirect sighting system. Three Archelon units were built from salvaged AFS suits. Research took place at the Spandau College of Engineering in September 2884. The results were so promising, that development for the SAFS series began shortly after the Archelon evaluation phase was complete.

I bought this little conversion kit quite recently off ebay. Although at first I thought this was an original version it became apparent from the casting defects that it was in fact a recast. The original kit was (I believe) only available at Wondefest in Japan, and is therefore something quite rare.

This kit sticks the usual scale of 1:20 for Ma.K. kits, rather than the 1:16 for the Raptor I have recently finished. Unlike that kit though this is a conversion kit.

The Archelon itself is a missing link in the evolution of these fighting suits. The original versions, the Armoured Fighting Suits (AFS) Mark 1 and 2, have little in the way of instrumentation and the pilot fires his weapon by eye. The Super Armoured Fighting Suit (SAFS), of which the Raptor is an extended evolution, has a closed hatch and far greater instrumentation. The Archelon sits between these two and is a test bed for the instrumentation, using mainly AFS components.

The parts consist of those which are not common with the AFS, which forms the donar parts, such as arms and legs for the Archelon.

Onto the parts:

The picture below shows all the bits you get.

One slightly odd part is the small cylindrical part seen in the bottom left, next to the gun part. I have no idea what this is meant to be for and it is not included in the instructions. It appears to be an arm part but the Archelon uses the AFS arm parts which the exception of the gun part.

I'm intending to reuse an AFS I built a while ago for the donar parts as I wasn't happy with how it turned out and this will save starting a fresh kit. And the build will be for an open hatch model. Two reasons for this. Firstly, there is some good internal detail inside the cockpit area and secondly, the fit of the hatch is not great and would require a lot of fiddly trimming and filling to get it to look right.

Next stages will be some assembly and test fitting, as well as some destruction of the donar parts for the assembled AFS. Also need to come up with some ideas for a paint scheme.

I've made some progress with assembly of this model. The hand arm, the top of the gun arm, and the top of the legs are all from a donar AFS. The lower half of the legs, feet, and gun are all resin parts. The body is all resin, as is the lid, with the back being from an AFS donar. (Arms not shown in these picts). The joints have been formed with Milliput. The body looks at an odd angle to the legs because it's just resting on the legs at the moment. The final angle will be more sensible.

One thing that I did find a bit odd is that the Archelon is meant to have been built after the AFS MkII, but every version I've seen uses the back from an AFS Mk1. However, I only had an AFS MkI to spare to use for parts, so I've followed the herd and done the same. It's a minor point but one that niggled at me.

Looks messy at the moment with the numerous different colours and putty in place, but should tidy up quite quickly with some primer.

About time I got this updated.

The paint scheme I am aiming for is one that is featured on the camoflage card that comes with the AFS Mk1 suit. This is the green scheme with the yellow dots shown in the image below:

Overall I have made a little less progress than I would have liked by now, but at least the base colours for the painting are all laid down.

Prior to painting a few of the detail parts were replaced. The resin had a few airbubbles in it and the details were a little soft, so they were carved off, sanded and replaced with Wave Option Parts.

For the painting a little liquid mask was applied over the primer at the corners and edges to give some wear marks. The yellow colour was applied first and then some splodges of liquid mask were applied. Two colours of green (a lighter one all over and then a darker one is certain areas) were applied over the top.

Hopefully I will be able to complete the remaining parts fairly quickly now. Got to finish up the painting (interior parts and detail painting), apply a wash, seal, decal and apply a dull coat yet though.

Some small bits of painting were finished off and the whole thing was given a coat of Klear. The decals were from other Nitto and Wave Ma.K. kits and from the Wave X-Decals from their Option Series. The girlie decal was from Starship Modelers "Cheesecake" decals. Another coat of Klear followed this to seal in the decals and then a wash of oil paints diluted with white spirit was applied into the scribed lines and around raised areas. A heavier wash was applied to the engine vents at the back. Finally a coat of Klear with about 20% Tamiya Base was applied to give a matt finish.

The base was made from a standard wooden base with a circle of textured plastic added to it. A mould of this was made in silicon rubber and then it was cast up in resin. This is so I can use the same base for all the suit models I'm going to do. The accessories are from Verlinden Productions.

Fitting the hatch caused me no end of problems trying to work out a way of doing it. The final solution was to have two curved pieces which are meant to be hydraulic lifts which open the lid up forwards.

And so the Archelon is complete...(although there are couple of little marks of superglue that I hadn't noticed until I took these photos which need to be covered up.