Aurora Film Application

Years ago, there were modelers in Japan that had a really cool reflective/rainbow like effect on Gundam eyes, GM Visors, and even mono eyes. I remember one sculpting group names Studio Reckless always had their display kits done with this effect. And they also sold the product they used. For the US market, this was pretty hard to come by until AkoCreation started selling the product. They then further improved on the product by adding an adhesive backing. And unfortunately, their site is no longer up, so we’ll have to find another source for the product. The local crafts store should have a product very similar and probably much cheaper. But the focus of this post is on the application for this particular product.

For over ten years, I’ve been using this film on GM’s and Gundam eyes. The really cool thing about the film is that the different viewing angles get a different color reflection. This is a little difficult to capture in pictures, but here are a few examples from the past ten years of building.

My recent project I’m working on is the Hyaku Shiki and for the most part, it is an out of box build. The head has a clear lense piece that I painted in gloss black. Once that cures, I cut out some of the aurora film and removing the backing, stick the film onto the lens. The film is a little transparent, so you can also back light this with some LEDs. However, since I’m not backlighting this, it’s best to spray a gloss black base first. Once the film is applied, the excess is trimmed and saved. One of sheets will last a very long time with careful use.

Since this looks much better in person, I snapped a few photos from different angles to get a better feel for the effect. Adding in the rest of the head pieces helps round out the eventual finish.

Here’s the Shiki’s head assembled with the aurora film. Once I get the rest of this kit painted, this should look pretty good. And the application of this film is so much easier now with the adhesive backing. When Ako creation first started selling the product, and even Studio Reckless, the film was just a film and needed to be glued to the part surface. I used white glue, and needed to keep the film firmly pressed down to hold the shape against the lens parts.