Aero-Kayak (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Howl’s Moving Castle (Japanese: ハウルの動く城 Hepburn: Hauru no Ugoku Shiro) is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The film is loosely based on the 1986 novel of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones. The film was produced by Toshio Suzuki, animated by Studio Ghibli and distributed by Toho.

 

The story is set in a fictional kingdom where both magic and early 20th-century technology are prevalent, against the backdrop of a war with another kingdom. The film tells the story of a young hatter named Sophie after she is turned into an old woman by a witch’s curse. She encounters a wizard named Howl, and gets caught up in his resistance to fighting for the king.

 

– courtesy of Wikipedia

The finished model:

The story:

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) is one of the few Miyazaki’s films that I enjoy equally well in both the original Japanese (with subtitles) and the English dub.  Actually, the only other one that comes close is Ponyo (2008), but I think Howl’s is likely the best, and Billy Crystal’s hilarious performance as the fire demon Calcifer has a lot to do with that.

Whenever I hear someone mention that voice actors aren’t really actors, I always think of the difference between the English dubbing of Howl’s and then compare that to Laputa – which, despite my great love for, I find almost unwatchable in English.

The other thing I really like about Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) is that it combines magic with Miyazaki’s special blend of steampunk technology.  In fact, Howl’s marks a return of the great Miyazaki airships – something that was unnecessary plot-wise but certainly sorely missed all the same in both Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away (2001).  Of course, that’s also good news because it also made it easy to include the Aero-Kayak that Sophie pilots into my Studio Ghibli modelling project.

It looks cool, doesn’t it? Kind of like a cross between a torpedo and a flying electric rowboat.  Of course there’s no commercial kit available, but in 1/72 scale, the size and shape seemed manageable  and I even had some remnants from a spaceship stashed away in the spares box that would be perfect… or almost.

The build:

Much like my first Nausicaä mehve build, I started to let the project fit the parts, instead of the other way around. As such, I got off on the wrong foot and started out building in an overly large (at least for 1/72) scale.  Luckily I realized the mistake more quickly after my issues with the glider and I was able to course correct at the early stage.  It also helped that the problem was mainly in the length, so I basically just had to chop out the middle section.

Once I had the sizing sorted, it was relatively easy going.  The first challenge was getting a smoother surface for the torpedo.  Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the putty from getting small chips in it.  Someone told me I could use cyanoacrylate glue (a.k.a. “Super Glue”) to stiffen up the putty, but I didn’t really believe it… even though I should have.

As luck would have it though, I decided to use the same technique I used on the Laputa Flapter project to create the panel lines – glueing strips of styrene on and sanding one side flush – and it ended up covering up nearly all the issues.

After getting the shape right and the panel lines on (including some hand-punched rivets), it was time to work on the wings. There was really nothing to it, a bit of bent wire and some plastic cut to shape.  The trickiest part was building the two seats out of wire held together with CA glue.  They might be a bit oversized for the scale, but it was really the best out of some poor options.

What I’m most proud of though, is the paint job.  I’m not even quite sure how I did it, but I really did make a lump of plastic seem believable as metal machine.  It was mostly luck, but I did try to get a bit of a gradient going out from the panel lines.

I think it turned out quite well, but feel free to tell me what you think: