Patlabor Helldiver is an old kit. I  built it over 20 years ago (bought from Timeslip in Newcastle, UK, if anyone remembers that store), and now that I’ve kicked a nasty flu, I can once again get back to modelling.It’s a small box with just a handful of runners and some polycaps, and of course, the strange flexible rubber pieces for the arm and leg joints.   Starting with the arms, these sections need their seam-lines removed. As the kit is a very old design, the left-right fit of such parts isn’t quite perfect and you do need to go in and do a fair bit of sanding to get the parts looking right. Here’s the parts for the gun moulded in different colours. We can’t even take the plastic colour as a guide on this kit! The interior of the leg has some nice detail. The base in Tamiya gunmetal, with some gold Gundam marker on the ends of the hydraulics. And these are all the pieces that go inside the rubber sections. You’ll never see them, but I painted them anyway… The gun got a nice covering of Alclad gloss black. Now to experiment with the Uschi van der Rosten metal powders. I’m not sure if this is the iron or steel, but it’s looking good! And onto the rest of the gun. It looks like a really nice metal effect and was ever so quick and easy to do. Adding more details to the legs with Tamiya clear red for the tubing detail.After sanding the arms got Alclad grey primer, and the pieces painted Alclad gloss black are ready to get Uschi metal powders on them! Here’s the thrusters all chromed up with the Uschi powder. They look great.This backpack was done with the darker powder. It’s nice, but it doesn’t fit quite in with what I want.  Here’s how the rubber sections came out. They’re fiddly, but will be great when painted. Adding a layer of Tamiya smoke on the backpack helped a lot.But once I got the flat coat on it really looks great and much more like what I wanted to achieve. It’s nice how the paint works well with the Uschi powder to produce a very nice metallic effect.