Information update for the BAKUC United States preliminary competition. The first two preliminary competitions were held at Anime Expo in July, Otakon in August, and the next and final preliminary competition will be at New York Anime Fest/Comic Con. Instructions…
This past weekend was spent with VERY little sleep, miles of walking, gambling, and copious amounts of alcohol. This was all in the name of Dave’s bachelor party. Angel, Nicky, and I also hit up the Shark Reef exhibit at the Mandalay Bay and Red Rock Canyon just 10 or so miles north of Las Vegas. It was a damn good trip. I slept for about 11 hours last night just to recover from the weekend.
So after finishing my Gouf in the morning, the afternoon was spent doing a little prep work for the rest of the night. An evening at the Hollywood Bowl with Harry Connick Jr.. We got there around 6, parked in the stacked lot and walked up to the bowl. There was considerably more people here than the last concert. I believe Sergio pulled in about 10k people, and Harry’s Saturday concert pulled in over 17k. The even was sold out. Leaving the bowl will be an interesting experience. The music was good, I knew almost all the songs, although I’m used to hearing it from other singers, but Harry’s personality and little quips with the audience through out the evening just made the show. I have a few snippets and one full song that I captured at the show. Note to self, bring another memory card, one full song was almost 500mb.
Ok, final bits for the progress on the kit and now she’s done. As stated in my previous post, I sprayed the final gloss clear over the parts that morning so that when I got off work, I can get down to applying the panel lines. So I did just that when I got home. The panel lines are done with tamiya enamel black thinned with rosonol lighter fluid. The whole job looks rather messy, but the wash solution is left on the surface to dry for a couple of hours. Angel and I had our little mandate and hit up the local stop for the Kogi Truck that night, then headed off to see The Expendables It was decent as an action movie, cheesy lines, a few finny ones, and decent action; not much to write home about.
A few hours later, the wash solution has dried enough that it’s very simple to wipe away the excess ink using a q-tip and paper towels moistened with lighter fluid.
After wiping everything down, the parts are sprayed with the final flat clear coat and then let to dry and cure over night. Waking up this morning, I got down to the final gluing and assembly of all the parts.
Gator needs his GAT!
And on to the final assembly. Now a little trick I use to avoid the pesky problems of paint scratching while assembling, posing, and positioning the kit is to slide some note card paper into the areas that are prone to rubbing together. This way, I can continue to move and reposition the kit until I find the one I like, without having any paint scratching problems. Once I find the pose and position I like, the note card papers come out, and the surface of the parts are unscathed.
Completed pictures after the jump…