by Fulvio PAGLIETTINI

The subject depicts the famous Motoko KUSANAGI, the female strong and smart character from the special police unit seen in Ghost in the Shell -the Japanese Anime movie- as in the manga with the same title by Masamune Shirow and in the recent OVA series of Stand Alone Complex. The name is just to suggest the idea of a "Soul" or the mind of the character deep buried and protected inside a reinforced metal-carbon- titanium body full accessorized and capable of giving incredible speed and strength to succeed in all the most complicated actions on the field and cover up operations.

Motoko is a real "hero" in the true sense of the word, even if a fictional one, because in the perilous cybernetic and hypertech world of the future she must often face hard missions and operations quite impossible for other common personnel in the most dangeros scenarios in her homeland and abroad. She can sometimes be helped from her well trained team, but mainly all the dangers and the fightings must be handled by her alone!

She can be really cute, but is not flesh at all what glitters on the skin and outside the suit...

Here you can see Motoko just returned from a mission, while she puts aside her special and weathered exo- suit in a back office of an Hong Kong shop along a forgotten alley that she chose for the occasion as a safe base and also as her arms and ammunition depot.

The model is in rubber (!) and has been deeply modified and totally re- painted starting from a figure in scale 1/12 found some time ago in a shop in London. Even if working on this type of material was not easy at all, as every modeller can imagine...The colors are pigments, acrylics and oils, while the scenery all around is entirely scratchbuilt using milliput, plastic and green matter, while the weapons on display are lloosely based on modern and futuristic designs of weapons.

Image: Mural on the outside of the shop

Image: From the street

Image: Side view

Image: Armory

Image: Another look