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<\/a><\/p>\nI really like the look of the Germanesque military helmet\/gas mask look. I like this kit so much that I snuck it into the design of this year’s SCGMC T-Shirt we’ll have at the show on Sat.<\/p>\n
Now to get to snapping and sanding the kit. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The kit came with options for a deployed shield or non deployed shied. But you’d have to take the two parts holding the shield and shield internals to swap them out. More on that solution later in this post.<\/p>\n All sanded and snapped together to get an idea on what I want to do with the kit. The Formula kits were always scaled down in size in the anime and manga material, so while 1\/100 in size, the kits are actually about the size of typical One Year War 1\/144 scale kits. Here’s a comparison with the HGUC GM Moroccan Front. Here’s also a comparison with the OG Den’an-Zon 1\/100 kit from the 90’s that I build over 20 years ago. Back then I was experimenting with color shifting paints from Alclad and dust and age has does its work on the old kit. Still, it’s a good comparison between the new and old. Considerable advances in technology with 30+ years between the two releases.<\/p>\n Back to the problem of wanting to swap between shield deployment. Take the original, make a mold, and cast it. Since one of the parts has a hole running through it, I decided to make a two part mold. Hence the playdough half. I also glued plastic rods to the parts for venting when I eventually go to cast the parts. Venting will help minimize bubble formation in the casting process.<\/p>\n Part one made, Vaseline is applied to keep the second part of silicone from sticking to the first part. Once cured, I can mix some resin and start making copies.<\/p>\n With a decent copy made, I can now easily swap between two shield options without having the mess with disassembly. Note to self, I should glue the damn finished parts together.<\/p>\n Once the copied parts are done I can finally look at the whole snapped together kit and decide on what I want to do. Time to play with the kit a little as well. Cue pewpewpew sounds.<\/p>\n Paint scheme. I’m going default paint scheme this time around. Grabbing the paint ratios off the back of the instruction manual… who the hell uses Lime Green? I only have a few of the colors, so I hit up some local hobby shops and grab exact colors and for some, some thing close enough.<\/p>\n Using some small paint bottles, I mixed up the three main colors for the kit. Labels are important when you stash unused mixed paints and have no memory of what the hell you mixed and for what sometime in the future.<\/p>\n I didn’t want to do a completely clean build, but I also didn’t want to go overboard with extreme damages and weathering. Just something that’s seen some usage and not completely obliterated. Which is fairly contrary to most grunt suits in any Gundam series, they’re even completely destroyed, or just rolling off to be destroyed.<\/p>\n For this, I marked up some areas I wanted to apply some armor damage and maybe some roughed up armor patches. The hobby knife took some plastic out and the combo of styrene cement and a toothbrush took care of the other bits.<\/p>\n Once that was done, the parts are primed. Most of the parts are primed. I painted in small subsections so some of the internals will need to be addressed later in the painting process.<\/p>\n A base dark grey is used over the primer for some shading effects.<\/p>\n Adding a new airbrush to my tool set. A Harder and Steenbeck Infinity ver Gridley to be exact. A quick test of the brush and how fine I can get things and it’s off to the races and joining the rack of airbrushes in the booth.<\/p>\n Main color goes on and I’m using basic color lift techniques to get some slight shading on the parts. I generally don’t like heavily shaded things because it’s not overly realistic… as if Gundams are real anyways; but giant pieces of metal armor are usually solid colors and shading comes from general daylight.<\/p>\n The head is assembled with a black painted back plate behind the goggles. I placed some color shifting tape to the black piece and the goggles go over this, so in person, they kind of shift colors depending on the angle. Here are two angles I was hoping to capture an example. I don’t think I was successful. You’ll just have to come to SCGMC next week to check it out.<\/p>\n Major sub assemblies are put together for the next phase, the gloss coats, the decals (which arrived a full week before I could get to the application), another gloss coat, some panel lining, and a final clear flat. Also the small bits of weathering and a final clear flat to seal up everything.<\/p>\n While trying to speed up work, I use a dehydrator on a low temp setting to fast dry parts at each step. After doing the panel lines and cleaning them up, the parts again go into the dehydrator; but this time, the guard to the spear gun cracked in two spots. The enamel thinner tends to weaken the plastic, and combined with the heat most likely caused this tightly fit piece to crack. A quick check on all the other parts that were in the dehydrator and everything was fine; only this one part cracked. So the only thing to do is to apply styrene glue to the cracks and press the parts together. OR, I can hobby knife it a little more and say, tada, battle damage… but that negates the original idea I had, minimal use with no major damages. So glue, then sanding the cracked seams a day later.<\/p>\n Prime to check the fix; then run through the entire paint and shading process. All in all, the fix didn’t take too much time, just a side part that needed its own work schedule – along with all the other parts on their own work schedules too. Regardless, it is fixed.<\/p>\n The parts need to be flat coated, so the eyes needed to be masked as I didn’t want to frost and completely remove the color shifting effect I wanted with the “eyes”. A quick picture of Flat vs Gloss, the gloss will darken the tone while flat coating will lighten the tone. It’s a pretty cool effect if you want to use a high shine color and do some masking to get different tones with the same color.<\/p>\n The display stand. I was originally just going to stand the kit on a standard display base, but I went to the trouble of masking, painting, more masking, more painting, and yet more masking and more painting for the bottoms of the feet. So I found a round wood display base, some brick styrene sheet and an acrylic rod.<\/p>\n Measure and cut out a circle of the brick styrene. Drill a hole, and the base is there. The wood base is sanded and stained.<\/p>\n I drilled out a hole in the acrylic stand so I can stick the Bandai display stand connection point into the acrylic base. The problem is that this connection piece is the same color as the kit’s internal parts. Time to make another quick one piece mold for the part so I can make a clear resin cast.<\/p>\n The brick styrene is primed, painted, gloss coated, panel line washed, clear glossed again to protect the black lines and then a filter of rust, white, and yellow ocher is applied to create a weathered look to the bricks. Clear flat coated and glued to the wood base. <\/p>\n And with that, the kit is completed with 6 days to spare.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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