Mechatro WeGo

The MechatroWeGo is part of a toy line designed by Kazushi Kobayashi. The backstory of these machines describe them as being developed by CHUBU Mechatronics as personal transportation for children.

I first saw the WeGo models in an exhibit at DCon 2016, but it wasn't until recently that small scale toys of the WeGo became widely available. The Tiny MechatroWeGo first appeared as promotional items in 2015 and 2016, but Sentinel didn't do a standard boxed release until 2018. I didn't get the original set at the time because I felt they were too expensive (among other reasons).

Tiny MechatroWeGo Box 1

Tiny MechatroWeGo Box 2

Tiny MechatroWeGo Box 3

Tiny MechatroWeGo Box 4

The models are typically sold as blind boxes, but I ordered a case of six models for Box 2. This guarantees that there won't be any duplicate models.

I posted my first feeble effort at making somewhat of an unboxing video at my new 1/72 Channel. I hope readers of this blog will also subscribe to 72chan.

In any event, the first set of images show the ISO, 80s, and Hi-Tech HG liveries.

The second set of images show the Taxi, British, and Kappa liveries.

For the price, I was imagining that the models would have been diecast metal, but they are made of ABS and PVC plastic.

The arms and legs can pivot at the shoulders and hips, but the figures don't have good stability due to having a combination of spindly limbs and bulky body.

The models stand about 45mm tall, and are said to be non-scale, but if the machines are supposed to be 2.6m tall, I estimate them to be roughly 1/60 scale. However, if they were to be considered as being scaled for adults instead of children, then they would work for 1/72 scale.

1/20 WeGo with Frame Arms Girl

I was also able to find a couple of individual models from Box 1 and Box 3 to complete my set of Hong Kong taxi liveries.

Urban, New Territories, and Lantau WeGos

A manga by Yūsaku Yamada about Mechatro WeGo was launched by Kodansha last year for their "Magazine Pocket" app, and the first tankōbon volume was released earlier this year.

万能変化メカトロウィーゴ

I would have loved if Arawi Keiichi who did the box art for the Hasegawa WeGo models did the art for the manga.

MechatroWeGo × Nichijou

Shinonome Laboratories × Hasegawa

20 MechatroWeGo No. 01

20 MechatroWeGo No. 02

These aren't the droids you're looking for...

The term "droid" is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd, and is the Star Wars universe equivalent of the word "robot". Star Wars droids come in a wide variety of forms, but most if not all, seem to be installed with some degree of artificial intelligence and personality.

I personally use the term loosely to refer to all cute, quirky, or comic relief robots from popular media. The majority of the various miniature versions of such robots that I've collected are droids from the Star Wars line of MicroMachines made by Galoob.

The first group of figures include four R-series astromech droids – one standalone, and three others on a single base. The fourth droid on the group base is a mining droid, followed by a gonk power droid (a couple of 1/72 resin kit from RetrokiT and Green Strawberry Models are available, but I don't know how they compare in size to the MicroMachines version). The last two figures are a LE-series repair droid and a ASP-series general-purpose labor droid.

R2-D2, R1-G4, R2-D2, R5-D4, LIN-V8K, GNK, LE-BO2D9, ASP-7

The next image has three 3PO humanoid protocol droids and an assassin droid. The 3PO droids are tiny, and seem to be 1/87 scale. I think the E-3PO droid is a custom repaint or factory error of C-3PO since I don't think that there was an actual MicroMachines version of E-3PO.

C-3PO, C-3PO (god mode), E-3PO, IG-88

The droids that I like the most from the MicroMachines line are the B1 battle droids.

The duplicate poses are from the various playsets, and are distinguished from the standard figures by having a small hole through the middle of the base.

The battle droids are most likely 1/76 scale, so may appear somewhat under height, but overall, they still look fine with 1/72 figures.

Larger scale battle droids were made for the Star Wars Action Fleet line, but they don't have the spindly look of the droids from the films. I think that the S.T.A.P. (Single Trooper Aerial Platform) looks okay with the smaller figure riding it, so I'm fine with calling it 1/72 scale.

I have two other Action Fleet droids from the Pod Racer Hangar Bay set. Both are DUM-series pit droids. The tan colored droid has the pivoting hips of the typical Action Fleet figure, while the brown droid is a fixed pose figure.

At 21mm in height, they are about 1 scale foot taller than they should be, but I'm willing to let that pass.

In metal, Ground Zero Games makes a WorkBot pack (SG15-V13), with three small robots who are expys of R2D2, WALL•E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class), and Dewey (or Louie) from Silent Running.

I misplaced the other miniatures, but had WALL•E on the workbench for quite some time awaiting modifications.

The front and rear of the model are not really close to the Pixar design, but it's not a big deal to me.

I wanted a little better detail on the models, so I added some eyes and upgraded the arms.

Then I carved out some rudimentary hands from plastic sprue and glued them to the arms, but had to widen them with plastic strip because I went overboard with my file.

I glued some plastic scraps littering the workbench into a rough square as a load of waste for my second robot to carry.

Some plastic strip that I marked with a Sharpie was added to the arms, and an unmarked strip was added to the rear.

The figure on the left fell on the floor, and the head ended up tilted, but it actually looks pretty good that way.

Not as good as the 1:1 version created by Mike McMaster, but close enough for me.

Weekend update (Windows and robots)

So I tried Windoze 10 for a couple of days, and while there were a few nice features, my overall feeling was that the new OS was half-baked shite. Actions were laggy, the ability to customize seemed very limited, and most importantly, trying to transfer to, or access files on external drives was severely impaired.

Long story short, I rolled Microsoft's unwanted install of Windoze 10 back to 7. Here are some more reasons why Windows 10 sucks.

Happily, restoring the old OS was painless so I was able to get quite a bit of modeling done on the weekend. The first thing I worked on was my Comanche Battle Suit with flamethrower. What I noticed about these models was that they seem to have high lead content, and they were slathered in mold release agent.

The softness of the metal made cutting the fuel tank off of the arm very easy. I mounted it to the hip girdle of the battle suit, and re-positioned the hoses. There was a smaller third hose from the center of the fuel tank to the arm, but I just removed it altogether because it would have been too much trouble to sculpt an additional length of hose to cover the increased distance between the two locations.

I thought about making the nozzle of the flamethrower smaller, but then figured why not have a giant over sized nozzle?

I'm going to have to rebuild the upper portion of the right arm, but after that the model will just need painting.

I was also able to complete my conversion of a Robot Soldier to a Robot Gardener. First, I used my heat gun to soften the arms and re-position them.

Then I cut off the spikes from the arms. The left hand was also cut off and then re-attached rotated 180°.

Finally, I used wood glue and Woodland Scenics Fine Turf to create the moss on the robot's shoulders.

Laputa Robot Soldier

The Robot Soldier (ロボット兵) from the film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ) is an iconic mecha design, but it had an earlier incarnation as the [Armored] Robot Soldier Lambda Doll (ロボット兵 ラムダドール) in the final edpsode of the Lupin III TV series.

Lupin III second series (1977-1980), episode 155

In Laputa, the Robot Gardeners are gentle giants covered in moss, who tend the grounds of the castle.

There are also Robot Soliders that defend the castle. They differ from the gardeners in having spines protruding from their arms from which flying membranes can grow, and eye beams that can cut through stone like butter.

A 5m tall life-sized statue of a Robot Soldier stands on the roof of the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka.

The dimensions of the statue were probably not used for the 1/20 scale models of the Robot Gardener and Robot Soldier manufactured by Fine Molds, since the completed model is supposed to stand at 7" tall, which scales out to just over 3.5m in height.

The size of the robot in the film is not always consistent either, but discrepancies like that are common in most forms of media.

The Robot Gardener seems undersized in this scene.

It was one of my wishes that someone would make a 1/72 scale version of the robot, but nothing I found was close in size. At one point, I purchased a very difficult to find key chain set made by Nibariki in the hopes that they would meet my expectations, but the figures turned out to be too small.

The robots in the Nibariki set are about 40mm tall, which would be a mere 2.75m in height in 1/72 scale.

Recently however, ensky has released a set of Robot Soldiers as part of their Tsumu-Tsumu Series (つむつむシリーズ). I'm guessing that tsumu-tsumu (つむつむ) is a diminutive or duplication form of the word 積む (tsumu; to stack), which is how these toys were designed to be played with.

The  Laputa Tsumu-Tsumu set (TMU-31; 天空の城ラピュタ つむつむ) consists of 10 pieces. A couple of single robot sets are also available. There are six robots in four different poses, and four levitation stones (飛行石); three in cube form, and one in crystal form.

The standing robot is about 52mm tall, which would make the model 1/69 scale if going by the dimensions of the Fine Molds kit. However, if the robot is considered 1/72 scale by default, it would be about 3.75m in height. In either case, I think it's the best one can hope for in our scale.

Cube form levitation stones.

Crystal form levitation stone.

I ended up ordering three of the sets so I would have some extras to do conversions on. If I have the energy after dealing with all the issues with the forced Windoze 10 install that Microsoft pushed onto my PC last night, I'll try to do a quick conversion of one of the Robot Soldiers to a Robot Gardener.