Gunpla Chronicles 2: Topcoating.

At this point, the Gundam is not yet complete, but with so many individual pieces now assembled, I decided it was time to give them some topcoat. When I built the Zaku, I ended up going through an entire can of paint.  In fact, I ran out as I was spraying the last piece, before I could cover it all (thankfully this didn't result in any obvious cosmetic flaws).  I resolved to do better this time by being more accurate and efficient at this process.

My biggest mistake when painting the Zaku was that I held the spray can too far away from the pieces.  After a single spray, the part would look like it had been left out during a light rain.  It took far too many sprays to coat any one section of the model.  This time around, I looked up tips on spraying techiniques, as well as on the best distance for holding the can. Did these techniques help save any paint?  The jury is still out.  I feel like I used less, but I did have to make multiple passes on several pieces. The can feels light, but it felt relatively light when I bought it, so I can't quite gauge how much is in there.  We'll find out sooner or later, since I still have to paint some of the model's biggest pieces.

And how about the results?  Once again, I think I did a better job at this step in the build process than I did with the Zaku, but I still have a lot of room for improvement.  The leg piece and the Core Fighter look gorgeous; in particular, the clear parts of the stickers look entirely invisible on the white and grey armor of the leg.  The feet took well to the paint, but the front sticker on one of them looks nasty. These standard issue decals already stand out against dark colored plastic, but if they suffer any amount of discoloration or warping during application, the topcoat makes them stand out that much more.

Most problematic of all, however, were the accessories.  The Bazooka and Beam Rifle took multiple coats of paint, but still look a bit spotty. With the rifle, this actually resulted in giving it a realistic, gunmetal-type effect.  The bazooka looks fine in all but one area, which I may spray one more time at the end if I have any paint left. Then there is the shield, which took the most amount of work.  The paint just didn't seem to want to stick (This might be the result of the cold weather).  I managed to cover the whole shield eventually, but for some reason one half of it has some weird discoloration.  It isn't foggy, but dark in tone.  You can't see it unless you're right up close, but I'm puzzled as to its cause.

The biggest lesson I learned from this round of painting was to be patient.  My excitement got the better of me, and as a result I tried to do this on a day with less than ideal temperatures.  Futhermore, I originally planned to clean off each piece with a soft cloth before painting, so as to remove fingerprints and sweat.  I forgot to actually use it on all but a few pieces.  I've gotten better at taking it slow and steady with every other step of the process.  Why don't I do the same when painting? If I had to answer, I see it as the one step of the process which has the highest chances of screwing up the look of the model, so I want to get it done and over with before my obsessiveness lets me screw it up.   I need to find a better balance.

Gunpla Chronicles 2: Legs

Finished one of the leg pieces.  This has been my favorite part to work on so far.  The grey and white pieces don't show sprue marks too badly, and the clear plastic sections of the decals become invisible after application.  The leg was another challenge to my panel lining skills.  There are a lot of small panels you can touch up, and they're not all easy to find.  One particular section was difficult to mark at all.  My current panel lining strategy involves filling in all the panels in a particular area of the piece with full, thick marker strokes.  After letting it sit for a few seconds, I then wipe the panel with a cloth or paper towel.  This cleans the outer surface off, but doesn't reach the marker which has settled down into the crease of the panel.  Sometimes this requires multiple applications, but as long as you dry quickly and diligently enough, you can do it all day without discoloring the plastic.

When I began to work on this trouble spot, however, the marker ink kept coming out of the panel crease, leaving the plastic entirely clean. I ended up this section from the leg and working on it in isoloation.  With a bit of extra drying time, and some extra applications of the marker, I finally got it to hold.

Not much else to say about this one.  I imagine the other leg will look just as good.

Gunpla Chronicles 2 - The Lower Body

The feet of the Gundam are quite a bit different than those of the Zaku.  The actual frame is identical, but the surrounding armor is not.  I had a bit of trouble removing some of the sprue marks from the red plastic pieces, but I managed to clear them up quite a bit with some careful use of the hobby knife.

I almost had a near crisis with the second foot. There's a small piece of plastic which must be removed from the foot's frame, and when working on the second foot I dislodged it by applying pressure to the entire piece.  It came out, but when I was done I noticed that there was some discoloration and warping near the back of the piece.  If it were to snap, it could seriously mess up the foot.  I carefully tested it out, and I don't think it is in any danger of it actually breaking.  I'll consider it a lesson in being more careful.

The only other minor problem I had with the feet was the loss of a sticker.  I managed to drive it deep under the sticker sheet, and when I pulled it out it had folded in on itself.  As I tried to fix it up, it flew out of my tweezers.  It was meant to go on the inside of the foot, so its absence shouldn't be as noticeable.  Here are the finished products.  Once again, I'm pretty happy with the panel linings.

Gunpla Chronicles 2: Accessorize

After finishing the Core Fighter, I continued to stay small, working on the Gundam's weapons before getting to the mobile suit itself.  I began with the Beam Rifle, which has a nice two tone look in this kit:

There's not much to say here.  There aren't any nasty marks on the plastic, and I got some nice panel lining on the grey sections of the piece.  I also managed to get the red sticker around the barrel of the rifle to line up nicely.

Next up was the shield.  There's one noticeable flaw on this one - the yellow cross on the front of the shield is uneven at the bottom.  I blame this on overeager sanding.  It isn't hugely glaring, but I'm still disappointed with myself:

On the bright side, I'm happy with how the stickering worked out.  The shield has many stickers which go on its left and right sides, and I think I got them to line up quite well.

The Hyper Bazooka rounds out our assortment of armements.  If the shield was all about sticker alignment, the bazooka was an exercise in proper panel lining.  This thing has a lot of panels, and its small size means that accidental smudging was all too easy.  I had one fit with the eraser that was so bad I had to call in reinforcements (otherwise known as a Qtip).  I can't complain about the finished product though:

Taken as a whole, the unevenness of the cross was my only major gaffe, which means I did a better overall job with these weapons than I did with the Zaku's.  I had a lot trouble applying the stickers on those, and I left one side of the Heat Hawk with what I can only describe as "battle damage".  I'm really happy with my work so far, but all of this has been a warmup for the real thing.  Time to build the Gundam itself.

Gunpla Chronicles 2 - Core Fighter Update

Before I begin the meat of this post, I have an update on the Core Fighter.  I read on numerous gunpla sites that panel lining marker can be removed with a pencil eraser.  I thought it sounded too good to be true, but take a look at what happened when I took an extra fat eraser to the top of the craft:

Good as new! And in a hilarious twist of fate, I lost one of the two stickers that are supposed to go where I just removed the marker.  Thankfully, I didn't like the look of the stickers anyway, so I don't
mind the loss (and I'm still happy that I removed the marker - it looks perfect the way it is now).

I also looked more thoroughly into how to effectively use sandpaper on model kits.  Call me naive, but I didn't realize that you could actually smooth out the look of plastic by using very high grit sandpaper.  While none of the sheets I have are as fine grit as the ones the super Gunpla builders suggested using, they were good enough to fix up the bottom of the Core Fighter.  The lighting in the picture below isn't quite as good as the previous shot of the underside, but I can vouch for the fact that that huge scratch has been buffed out about as nicely as it looks here.

With my two major crises resolved, it was time to apply the remaining stickers. Here's how it looks as it waits to be sprayed with some clear coat paint:

... those stickers look a hell of a lot worse in the picture than they do in real life.

In my last post, I was far from happy with the way the Core Fighter was shaping up, but after being patient and correctly applying these fixes, I think it looks pretty fantastic.  Perhaps it was a good thing that I faced such a challenge right off the bat.  It helped me prove to myself that I can tackle this kit with a better mindset, and that ultimately, I have what it takes to improve.

Gunpla Chronicles 2 - Building the Core Fighter

One of the coolest things about the Real Grade RX 78-2 is the inclusion of a working Core Fighter.  The tiny aircraft can actually be used to help form the torso of the Gundam just like in the show.  Due to its small size, I decided it was a good place to begin.

Before beginning this build, I told myself that I needed to improve on my skills and make fewer mistakes.  To that end, I got a few additional tools to help me out, most notably a set of hobby sandpaper sheets to use in place of the very coarse grit nail file I abused the Zaku with.  Unfortunately, by the end of the first night of work on the Core Fighter, I feel like I haven't gotten any better, and may have even got worse.  Here's a picture of what I wound up with:

You can't quite see it, but the clear plastic of the windshield is a bit scratched up.  Furthermore, those big black panel markings on the top of the fighter are dreadfully ugly, and it turns out that I placed them in a spot where stickers are supposed to go.  I'm not really sure if I can remove them now that they've dried, but I'm crossing my fingers that I can find a reasonable solution.

Here's a picture of the bottom of the fighter as its in docking mode:

There's a nice big scratch running down the left side.  I think this might have been the result of overly aggressive sanding, which means that my new tools are actually doing me more harm than good at this point.

If there is one thing I did learn from my first build, it is the importance of being able to walk away when things look bad, so you can return to it with an actual gameplan, rather than futzing around with desperate, half assed attempts at a solution.  I left this one alone for now, but rest assured that I'm not done with it yet.

Gunpla Chronicles 2

The first series of Gunpla Chronicles entries detailed my attempts to build the Real Grade Char's Custom Zaku II.  While I didn't do a very good job of updating my progress down the stretch, I did get manage to finish the kit.  I found the experience to be challenging, educational, and ultimately rewarding.  While I made more than a few mistakes (and nearly broke one of the leg pieces permanently), I still think the Zaku came out better than I expected for a first try.  To this day I cannot  work in my office without stopping to admire the thing.

I don't know how much farther I plan to take Gunpla as a hobby (I lack the time, money and space to build kits on a regular basis), but ever since last spring I knew I wanted to build at least one more kit to tide me over for the foreseeable future. Now, almost a year later, it's time.

After doing more research on Gunpla, I decided I wanted to stick with the Real Grade line.  The kits are reasonably priced, their small size is perfect for my office, and they are incredibly detailed and well articulated.  I also knew that the choice of which kit to build would not be easy.  After building the Zaku, there aren't many models in the Real Grade line which I care about, not when it is so heavily represented by mobile suits from Gundam Seed.  But of the remaning options, I still had to decide between two of my favorite mechs of all time - the original RX 78-2 Gundam, and the Gundam Mark II.  I like the look of the Mark II better, but the nostalgia factor of the RX 78 was undeniable.  Ultimately, the choice was driven by an overwhelming feeling of obsessive compulsion; Char's Zaku would look out of place standing next to the more advanced Mark II.  Indeed, it had to be paired with its nemesis, the RX 78.  And so it was done.

It may be old school, but it still can't help but look badass

Wish me luck folks.