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Unit Name: AFS Skinhead
Unit Type: Fighting Suit
Operator: Mercenary Forces
Accommodation: Pilot only
Operational History: The Skinhead is the result of Mercenary forces having captured Shutoral Heinrich suits during a raid and converting them to their own use. The body and legs are from the Heinrich and the arms are from an AFS, with additional sensors added to give an indirect sighting system.

Like several of the Ma.K. models I have been dealing with recently this is one I had originally built a few years ago. At that time I didn't have all the facts about how the model was built, or what parts were used. The original sensor I built was a simple tube on the front, which I know know to be wrong (see below for more information).

The original model was built in a forest green finish and in a muddy envirnoment. The model will be stripped down now and rebuilt using the information I know have.

Here are the pictures of the original model. The model has now been striped apart.

The model was taken apart into the main components and sanded down to remove the original "mud" and decals. You can see some of the parts which have not been reprimed in the tub below. The legs are probably too badly mucked up to salvage unfortunately.

The first alteration I made was to reduce the depth of the hatch. The bottom part was carefully removed with a razor saw and this part was glued into place. The side windows were also reglued in (they came loose in the strip down). Weld beads were added around the edge of the side windows and the removed part of the hatch.

I was working from some guidance doing these welds and I'm not sure I got it quite right, but it's not too bad. The technique I used was to use Milliput, rolled out into a thin sausage. This was put onto the model in the correct location and wetted down to make it stick. I left it about 15 minutes to start to harden and then using a flat edge indented the weld beads.

One obvious feature of the Skinhead is the sensor on the front. This is taken from an Apache helicopter model. I had one of these by chance (bought very cheaply for spares) but it is 1:48 and this looks too big. A 'net search showed that 1:72 is the favoured scale, although some think 1:100 may be closer. I got a 1:72 one very cheaply (£2.99) at Hannants though.

The front of the helicopter was sawn off and the sensor assembled and stuck onto the front as can be seen above. This goes onto the front upside down.

I still need to tidy the seams up on this addition, but have added a couple of Wave hex nuts to detail it up a little bit.

Next stage will be to detail the inside of the hatch and the cockpit area a little. Also I wasn't happy with the angle of the top strut. It's pointing up and should be straight. This is a mistake on my part, and my own fault for doing it too late at night. The little struct part is glued on upside down. Will add some weld around the edge of the sensor as well, because it would obviously have been welded on as a late addition.

Planning on some scratch built instrument panels for the hatch, so we'll see how that works out.

A busy weekend but still got quite a lot done on this kit. The paint scheme I decided on was a yellow and green splinter pattern, which is one that is shown for the Shutoral PKA body. As this is a suit which has been adapted by the Mercenary Forces I thought it really needed to show this. So the body and legs are to be done in the splinter pattern and the arms and other parts which have been added afterwards will be done in tan. Prior to painting I added some liquid mask to the edges and anywhere I wanted chips to show.

The tan parts were painted first and where necessary masked off. The body and legs were then sprayed yellow and allowed to throughly dry. I added some triangles of randomly cut tape over the yellow and sprayed green over the top.

I painted the weld beads in with gunmetal but I've now decided I don't like that and will paint it a much paler colour.

The instrument panel was made inside the hatch from some strips of plastic and some dials I printed out on photo paper.

Next up will be the decals and weathering. This one should get plenty of weathering I feel.

Finally got back to this and some progress. The decals have been added (including one which would have been the suits original emblem but has been painted out by it's new "owners"). This was all sealed with some Klear and an oil wash applied over the top. I've also applied some rust using Mig Pigments (first time using them). The model has been assembled (and the instruments which caused me so much work have been hidden inside the hatch). Will try a little more weathering and finish off the base.

The colours are intentionally a bit of rag-bag because this suit was meant to be assembled from various components.

I need to complete the weathering and the base next.