A mixture of Gunpla, Cooking, SCUBA, Corgis, and Life

Read more about the article New resin figure project: Grim Reaper

New resin figure project: Grim Reaper

Towards the end of the Mercedes build, this kit arrived. The sculptor calls her 死神のデス代 or just “Death/God of Death”, I prefer the less final name of Grim Reaper. I picked her up off yahoo!japan auctions right after Winter Wonfest 2018. Unknown to me was that the sculptor: https://twitter.com/chilmirumirumi was already planning on releasing the kit to folks outside Japan through her webshop: http://artfiguegk.theshop.jp/. Yesterday there was a twitter update with two release times: March 17 @ 22:00 Japan time and March 18, 2018 @ 15:00 Japan Time. So for those interested in this kit, keep a watch on her webstore at these times to get it. Her kits sell out, and I don’t think she does multiple runs; so if you want it, get it now. Build her later if you want. I wanted to build her now, so I started a few weeks ago.

The nice thing about resin figure kits are the parts count. The down side to a low parts count is a decent amount of masking when getting around to the painting. The cleanup work is also a sizeable chunk of work. The first thing I usually do is pin together the major parts. The smaller bits are left off so I can get a general idea of what the kit looks like and what I need to do to approach the build. A visual really helps. Plus, pinning is one of the fun things about resin kits, you get a sneak peek into the end of the project.

Turnarounds done, the real work starts after the jump. (more…)

Continue ReadingNew resin figure project: Grim Reaper
Read more about the article Last progress update for the Mercedes

Last progress update for the Mercedes

The body paint is done, or so I had thought.. so on to the fun decal work. The paint for the body is tamiya bright gun metal which is a semi gloss finish. That means I need to clear coat the crap out of the body before getting to the decal stage. I did the gloss coat in the last update so on to decals. This car isn’t too bad for decals, it’s not one of those itasha style cars, but it is a GT car. Luckily, it still isn’t as decal intensive as most race cars. The process is slow, and with how I worked, it should have been even slower.

Once the decals are on the surface, I need to let them dry out completely. Then on goes the decal softening solution. This stuff will help melt the decals into the panel lines and get the decals to curve along the surface as if they were painted. The decal softening solution will wrinkle the decal in the process. It is very important to acknowledge this and leave it the hell alone to dry on its own. It will flatten out. Caveat, it will flatten out if the surface is flat and upright so that the decal and the softening solution don’t pool in any specific direction but flat onto the surface. The spoiler has 3 decals on three sides, and doing the softening solution process really should have taken 3 days – one for each side. But in my haste, I rushed it and did it at the same time. This pooled and shifted the decal so when it wrinkled, it stayed wrinkled. Huge lesson learned here. Paint and surface prep you can mess up on all day long. Those are easy fixes; decals unless you have a bunch of spare copies, is a one shot deal.

More after the jump. (more…)

Continue ReadingLast progress update for the Mercedes
Read more about the article Mercedes AMG GT3 gets some real paint

Mercedes AMG GT3 gets some real paint

I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work in the past month. Hell, 3 out of the last 4 weeks were spent in Eastern Standard Time zone. So work has been pretty slow on the project. Since the last update, I’ve gotten some decent work done when back at home base. Starting off with the suspension. The masking for all the small bits is done and the parts get assembled. A quick test of the untouched car body over the suspension gives me a rough idea of what will be visible once everything is together. So I probably spent too much time painting things that will never be scene. Well, I haven’t built a car in a while, so I’m stumbling through a good number of things.

Next up is the cockpit so to speak. I glued the roll cage together since I needed to putty up some of the attachment points. Again, things that will most likely NOT be seeable once the whole thing is put together. After the test fit, gluing, putty, and sanding, the cage as well as the cockpit tub is primed. Then placed on the recently finished chassis for a quick snap.

More on this update after the jump.

(more…)

Continue ReadingMercedes AMG GT3 gets some real paint
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