Last week, I got a call from the local distributor, he needs some work done on the Unicorn statue. It’s been to several cons this past summer and over the travels to the various events, it has gotten a little beaten up here and there. One carrier even opened the sucker up in mid-freight exposing it to sunlight which yellowed a great deal of spots. This time, the beast was delivered to Funaka’s house so that we could work on it. In other news, I’ve been slipping in the last bits and pieces of work needed for the GM squad. It’s been a damn crazy busy week. I didn’t even have time this weekend save Friday to spray on the first layer of clear flat onto the parts.
Last I left the GM team, I had the decals done. After spraying the clear gloss to sandwich and protect the decals, the panel line wash was done with enamel paints thinned with lighter fluid. That was left to dry for a day. The detail painting was done with enamel paints such as piping, small thrusters, and other small places. At this time, I also applied a small amount of paint chips to the GMs. The idea is that they’re new units and so haven’t had the time in service to get all beaten up like the Gouf Custom.
Back to work on the Unicorn. Like I said, the local distributor called Dan(Funaka) and I up to see what we could do. Bandai wants the Unicorn at NYCC/AF, which is Oct 13-16, so that means it needs to be on a truck by Friday the 7th or so. The call was made Friday. Time was definitely not on our side. Several months back, I scheduled a trip to Hong Kong/Taiwan which has me leaving the country the evening of Oct 8 (so I can still make Orangecon this year). Aside from this trip, I also have a business trip that takes me out to the East Coast tomorrow(Tuesday, Sept 27th) – taking the red eye because I have a concert at the Disney Concert Hall tomorrow evening as well. Yeah, fucking busy doesn’t even begin to describe things.
So all this into consideration, I contacted the usual crew that has been working on this bugger here and there all summer long, Dan and Angel. Dan defaulted to me to make the decision, but ultimately we agreed that with the current state of the suit, it would be easiest to just weather the thing and call it a day. I called up Manuel to help us out on the sucker as well. More experienced modelers equates to a quicker work session. So after picking up the crew from the parking lot of my local Home Depot, we got to work…
We grabbed some gray chalk pastels and just started rubbing them against the hard edges then using brushes, paper towels, as well as our fingers, blended things in and created a shaded look that helped make the suit look weathered. I went along the edges and added some paint chipping, trying not to go overboard. The statue actually had real paint chipped areas from all the rough handling. So those areas were painted over to make the paint chipping more noticeable as if it was meant to be presented in such a way.
Once all the pastels were applied and the paint chipping completed, the entire kit was sprayed down with Mr Super Clear Flat to help seal everything. The last thing we want is the pastels coming off on the movers and fun little gray hand prints all over the damn thing. The head was “missing” according to the distributor. It’s in one of their many boxes and they have yet to find it, but Dan should get it and weather it to match the rest of the suit. Hopefully the guys that attend NYCC enjoy our work. Here are some pictures of the various stages we’ve had the sucker…
The rest of the Unicorn weathering session is here: http://gamerabaenre.com/?page_id=2227
Ok, now back to the GMs. Last Friday, I got the first coat of clear flat over everything. The weekend was extremely busy, so I didn’t have any time to get the pastel weathering done. I did that tonight (Monday Sept 26). With the weathering done, I sprayed a final coat of clear flat over the pastels to seal them in and balance everything. Once that dried, I put everything together and had a quick little photo shoot session.
He’s dead GM!
The rest of the GM Squad pictures are here: http://gamerabaenre.com/?page_id=2229
Sick set of GMs. There needs to be more GM kits, especially master grades.