by Christopher Condon

The Strahl National Defence Army - F-Boot is a large Artificial Intelligence Combat Hovercraft developed as a possible replacement for the Nutrocker II. It mounted a larger engine that gave it a greater speed, and in addition has additional fuel for a longer operational range. It performed very well across wet surfaces and spawned a naval variant that mounted additional torpedoes to attack sea-based units.

This is a 1/35 kit available at Wonderfest in Japan. I've modified it to include random colored blinking lights in the front lens and scratch built the center fan. It is a resin kit, so I was careful with cutting out the section for the lights. Resin can crack like an egg. I had to re-scribe most of the detail to make it stand out. Washing the kit was important, because resin release doesn't like paint. I did a base coat of light sea grey, then added dark sea grey for the skirt and sea blue for the rest. The ID stripes are yellow-green, which looked better than yellow in a test I did before painting. Added a rust and oil wash, to give it that Naval look. Topped it with Future, for a nice wet look.

Image: Port side

Image: Left/rear view

Image: Closeup, left/front

Image: Rear view