March 14, 2006: This kit came in not too long ago.
It was the first Rio kit I wanted. The 1/5th kit came in back in December
but I sorta lost interest. Too intimidating to work on such a "big"
girl. Well this one is small enough so I should be able to finish this
fairly quickly. Switching between a mecha kit and a figure kit....
Tonight, I drilled her and pinned her:
After pinning her together, I noticed that she wasn't able
to stand up quite well. Possibly the uneven leveling of her pumps. But
to avoid any problems after the build; I drilled a few holes into the
botton of her shoes and placed some NiB magnets. Pulling the SD Dom off
it's base, I drilled corresponding holes into the base and placed some
NiB magnets there. An acrylic sheet that I will be painting will be placed
between the wood base and her shoes. After gluing the magnets into place,
I filled the holes with some epoxy putty. Next up is the ever fun phase
of sanding.
March 16, 2006: Sanded primed, and painted the first layer
of skin tone. Next will be the lighter skin tone for highlighting/shading.
I'm still working out color ideas for her skirt, vest, and shoes.
March 19, 2006: Continued to paint Rio. More experimentation
with another new technique. Funaka from FFoo's forums did a HGUC Zeong
with some ghosted flames. So I tried the same technique to add a little
flaming spade to the back of Rio's vest. I think it looks decently, albeit
a bit dark.
After dull coating the skin tone, I masked off the skin
and went on to paint the other parts. For the back, I painted on Jet exhaust,
then masked with the inner part of the flaming spade. Spraying on Steel
for the flame parts of the flaming spade, I masked the flames. After this,
I sprayed on a layer of base gloss black, polished aluminum, and finally,
clear red.
For the shoes, I wanted a slightly different tone to the
final red, so I used Chrome after the base black, then used the same clear
red as the skirt and vest. There's also a picture of the Chrome vs Polished
aluminum colors.
The sleeves were painted with a layer of neutral gray, followed
by super white; using the gray for pre-shading. The last picture is the
completed base. Just wood, a couple of magnets, and a square plastic card
painted in gloss black.
Update Information:
And a couple of days later... She's completed. Click
here for the completed page.
1/8 Rio Progress
