Starting The Ammoknight

If you had not already guessed, I am (thankfully) working far ahead in my video work. This past Saturday’s release about applying oils on the Falke was uploaded in late July. I have a little bit left to go on the final video for 2026, a 1/35th MaK Fireball SG. It’s nice to be well ahead of the production “schedule.” And I’m already starting the “2027 season.”

The first YouTube release for 2027 will be focused on the Hasegawa 1/20th MaK Ammoknight. I’m still working on my ideas for how to structure the series, but my primary goal (as of today) is that it will be not just about the Ammoknight specifically, but about Maschinen Krieger modeling in general. Though I enjoy Wave kits more, I chose the Ammoknight because it seems to be more widely available.

Over the years, going back to my airplane only days, I have encountered a lot of odd and often bizarre information about MaK. Or Ma. K. And good grief the pronunciations. Everything from “Mah Kay” to “Mack” to “Mach” to “M A K”.

When I first encountered them must’ve been about the time Wave began producing kits. A fellow told me about someone he called “Cow” (as in “mooo”) making “garage kits” out of hoses and tubes and rubber sleeves. And my thought was… what fresh level of Hades is that? Then I saw a Lundadiver Stingray in the local model shop not too long afterwards. Looking at the boxart, I could not really even determine the actual shape of the thing, let alone understand what it was.

And more disinformation followed. It wasn’t sinister… it was simply the “telephone game” in real life. This fellow told that person who told this other guy and then shared it with this buddy. They MUST be painted with lacquers. They have to be textured. If you don’t know the correct Japanese terms (mispronounced in an American accent) and have never even held an issue of Hobby Japan in your hands then you need not apply.

Yes, that is a bit of an over exaggeration, but it makes the point. There was a great love for the genre. But in many cases this turned into almost a barrier to entry. I felt it,and others did too.

When I finally began building MaK, and started looking at things more closely, I realized it’s just a scifi franchise with a strong core of enthusiasts, and some oddly shaped kits that are fun to paint and weather. And many of the things I’d “heard” were “required” was simply either the typical “elitist modeling crowd” nonsense, or misunderstanding.

Because it is what you make it. Open the kit. Assemble. Paint. Weather. That’s how the creator, Kow Yokoyama (not COW!) intended it. That’s what his designated International Maschinen Krieger Ambassador, Lincoln Wright of Paint on Plastic, who worked in the MaK studio for a number of years, will tell you. “Just build the darn thing.”

This Ammoknight series will be about the model as much as the genre. Each video will be done (I hope) in such a way that someone who has heard of MaK but never really gotten into it will realize that it’s just another genre with its own cool factors and gotchas and caveats and joys. Yes, with a unique history and community. Yet one that really has no “rules” aside from a very loose canon aesthetic. And all of that is negotiable.

So here I am on September 14th, 2026, starting work on the January 2nd, 2027 video. I have no idea how long this series will go. And I’m already fairly certain that the YouTubes collective response will be a hearty yawn and thumbing through to the next dopamine hit for 23 seconds. But I’m OK with that.

Because I’m having fun. And I’ve heard some old guy in some boring videos say that’s what it is all about.

Blog Exclusives

The Hippogriff will be completed soon is done. Look for the last episode in that series in a few weeks… whenever I get around to clicking “Publish”.

I really like the design of this model, which looks remarkably like the JGSDF Type 87 Reconnaissance Vehicle. Although to be fair, I’ve found about half a dozen other six wheeled recon vehicles that may have been inspiration for the design. Still, it looks quite cool.

And saying I’m enjoying it is an understatement. In some ways, I guess my enjoyment of building models is what sunk me from growing much on YouTube. The fun just outweighed the algorithm. And I blame models like this one.

I hope Games Workshop does more like this in coming releases. I’d love to see a Warhammer 40K Sherman!

After I finish that one, I’ll be moving on to a Colonial Viper Mk. II from the rebooted Battlestar Galactica series. This one will be the Moebius 1/32nd scale kit. I can neither confirm nor deny that Moebius is actually my cousin Moe Bius. 🤣

I’d built the original Viper during my blogging days back in 2018, and then a second one for video in 2020. You can check those out here. I’d also done a Viper Mk. II in 2018 as a blog series, but this 2026 effort will be my first video of that particular model. And until I started writing this Newsletter, I’d forgotten that I’d also done the Viper Mk. VII in 2019! So… I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

My favorite will always be the original, not out of any dislike of the reboot (which never really kept my attention) but simply from fond memories of the 1978 series which came out when I was 11 years old. At the time what I really loved was that I could see it every week. I loved Star Wars (which came out in 1977) but I could not afford to go see that movie as much as I wanted on an 11 year olds income, which basically consisted of gathering glass bottles, a $5 bill from Grandma now and again, and an occassional lawn mowing engagement.

When I was looking for a model to do after the Hippogriff, I saw the Viper Mk. II on my stash closet shelf. I remembered what a pain it was in assembly, and initially said “nah, I’ll pass.” But then I went to the Tubes of You to poke around, and ran across a brief video clip, and saw the image to the right.

I looked at that weathering, and said to the kit “OK, we can be friends.”

You may note that there isn’t any chipping on the red stripes. I am quite positive that was an oversight on their part. I will be correcting that error.

YouTube Releases

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve gotten quite far ahead in getting the YouTube video releases ready to go. I’m starting my last one for 2026 – a single episode for a 1/35th Fireball SG. So far the response to being solely focused on MaK on YouTube has gone exactly as I expected.

Yawns galore. 🤣

But that’s OK. They’re easier to do because I keep them shorter and more focused. Most importantly it feeds a niche I enjoy scratching. And hopefully someone finds them useful. The best part is it’s freed me up to pursue other things exactly how I want on the blog website.

Here’s what is coming up for the rest of the year on the YouTube side of things:

9/28/2026 Falke 7 – Chipping
10/10/2026 Falke 8 – Oh please just finish it
10/24/2026 Melusine 1 – Assembly tips
11/7/2026 Melusine 2 – Texturing
11/21/2026 Melusine 3 – Painting
12/5/2026 Melusine 4 – Weathering with AK pencils
12/19/2026 Fireball SG – Whatever I ramble on about for ~20 minutes.

All of these will be here on the blog as well.

Hopefully by the time the Ammoknight wraps up, I’ll have the soon to be released Wave Super Jerry in hand. I’ll do a quicker build of a smaller suit, and then Super Jerry will bound into view. But all of that is for next year.

Thanks, and happy day to you friends!

jon