Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Unicorn Gundam + Head display project are go! plus some birthday spoils!

Phew work has been keeping me insanely busy. But on the upside of that I've been able to make a lot of money. The downside? not enough time for Gunpla or Borderlands 2 (oh sweet, sweet Borderlands) ...Anyway, the weather has also been kind of meh, AND I somehow managed to get sick. so productivity this week was almost nonexistent. But I got today and tomorrow off and I have spent today/tonight, and plan on spending a large portion of tomorrow hammering out some more of this unicorn gundam project that I decided I wanted to tackle. So far I haven't knocked too much of it out, The base is painted and assembled, and on the actual model, I've done the torso, head, backpack and shoulders. Hopefully I'll finish the arms tonight and then I can focus on the legs tomorrow. another fun thing is I've bought an Airbrush kit! nothing tooooo fancy or expensive, but an airbrush nonetheless. and all the hassle this buying spray-cans has been giving me, and the weird wrist/forearm aches after spraying with the old-school nozzle cans... I think that alone will be worth the investment.

First, the kits I got for my birthday (I feel like I'm 12 again) then the unicorn! Pictures, awayyyyyy!



Since I love the Real Grade line so much, I sat and thought on it, and decided to go with the titans version. you really can't beat that color scheme.


And what a better way to practice up for the MG Sinanju, than with the HG?! plus I've STILL got some parts on the way. waiting on decals as well and a stand for this guy. so hopefully I'll be able to come up with something good looking with all this new stuff on the way. also not pictured I got a HG Jesta. which will likely be one of my last straight builds, unless I decide to use it as an airbrush test. which i doubt will happen because I love the RGM's so much.


















I've still got some cleanup to do on both the display stand as well as the actual kit. I think on the unicorn mode kit, I'm going to attempt a panel wash instead of using the gundam markers. anyway, that's all I've got for now. I hope you guys enjoy. :D see ya next time!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Crossbone Gundam Complete! on to the next!!


Alright so this week with what time i had before work, and on my day off today, I have slaved over this beast of a suit. I didn't paint as much inner detail and hidden stuff on this kit as some of my usual ones, as I don't really mess with them too much once I've finished them. Like I said last time, one of the biggest draws to this kit for me was the amount of weaponry he came with just built in, without him holding anything in his hands, his feet contain swords, he can mount blades to the bottoms of the shoes, the front and back skirts both contain weapons, the shoulders of the full cloth have fist weapons mounted to them. then he comes with a plethora of other weapons on top of that.




 one of the things I did paint was the pistons here in the ankle area of the foot, I thought it would show a little more than it actually does. but oh well.


Just to compare, here's a lined and pre-weathered leg beside a completely unlined leg.


and then a completely weathered leg vs a clean lined leg


after i put the waist together (i hadn't put the side skirts together yet.)


core fighter completed and weathered!




Full cloth assembled and put on. the pieces mounted to the cockpit hatch kept falling off so I just glued them on, I don't plan on taking his armor off anyway, I bought the full-cloth armor version for a reason after all...


an up-close shot


and finally some weapons. I had some weight/holding issues with the hands, so the weapons have been glued into his hands, meaning he will likely be staying in a pose similar to this one. although I may get a base for him and put him in a more dynamic pose, even though I think he looks particularly menacing just like this.



 after all the putting him off I'm really glad I broke down and started working on this. I'm also really glad I decided to try weathering, I think he came out really well, another thing worth noting is I haven't put any decals on, I like the plain look he has, plus you wouldn't see a bunch of them because of the full cloth anyway, so i figure what's the point. And for those of you curious... my next project will be....


BOTH HG Unicorn Gundam + Head display kits. I'm waiting on some decals and some option pieces to arrive in the mail to make them as badass as I want, but I'm going to get started immediately. This project is going to be my second full-spraypaint project, and my birthday is right around the corner (I think thursday/friday) and I've ordered a few kits to celebrate that. My next day off is tuesday, so I'll try to get some work on this done and I'll hopefully be able to do another blog post!



Until next time!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Huzzah, finally got a day off! UPDATE TIME!

Phew it feels good to have a little time to myself. and what a better way to spend it than building Gunpla! Unfortunately I have had no motivation at all to work on the GP-01, so that has me opening yet another one of my kits. fortunately I'm not hand-painting this kit at all, I mean, I'll be painting some of the inner frame details and things of that nature. but as far as a complete paint job, I wanted to take a break. So today I busted open my MG Crossbone Gundam (Full-Cloth ver.) and got to work.

But before I go off on that tangent, I do wanna post some other non-crossbone related stuff first. Including progress pictures of the GP-01 and a shot of something I purchased this week. :D









I have since done some touching-up on the head especially, and I put a couple extra coats on the  shoulder pieces. But I have left that all at home so I'll have to take pictures of it another time. But for now there's my progress on the GP-01. completely hand-painted chaos mayhem nonsense. I can already say after the little progress I've made on this, I'm not so sure I want to hand-paint another kit. But I won't make any final judgements until the whole thing is done and I can properly look at what I've done. so time will tell...

Anywho, My birthday approaches. and with that I decided to treat myself to one of my favorite Gundam-wing mobile suits, as well as something else I've been looking at for a while now (which is still on it's way in the mail)





NOW, back to the meat of this update..
Fairly quickly I knocked out construction for the entire upper half of the main-body. I know nothing of the origins of this suit, or the series it came from. I just fell in love with the design, and after watching a couple of reviews, this suit also has some of the best gimmicks I've seen in my returned gunpla career so far. Virtually every piece of this monster is a weapon, and I love that about it, and I'm going to have a hard time trying to pick a pose when I'm finished building it for that reason. But I'm sure I'll figure something out. another thing I wanted to do more with this kit to make it stand out some is do a little Weathering to it (I blame GundamBeginner) and so far I'm pretty happy with the outcome. ON TO THE PICTURES!











Anyway. I'll probably knock some more of this out tonight, and maybe I'll be able to post some more of this beauty tomorrow, and if that doesn't work out... I'll see you guys sunday ;P

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Red Frame day 1 Progress, GP-01 begin!

Alright. since my Red frame project is more or less going to be a straight build (for the most part) I figure I'll get started on my GP-01. Which I'm very excited for. It's going to be my first hand painting project. This will probably end up being one of my longest projects, up until the sinanju anyway. and I'll probably be making another blog post tonight or sometime tomorrow to detail what progress I've made on the GP-01.


Since this is the non-grade I wanted to do as much panel-lining and try to bring out as much detail as I could. 


Our first session went over the torso, the back thruster...thing? and the head. Panel lines here were pretty simple, and i did some custom paint on some raised areas on the head. as well as painting on the chest details and some custom stuff on the back. i also painted the lower stomach red instead of using the sticker. The only thing I used here is a red and a white gundam paint marker. which when done in 2-3 layers carefully can provide a pretty nice effect, and I used my normal toothpick method for a couple of small details.








I've still got some touching up to do on the head and a couple spots on the torso but i think what i've got so far is coming along nicely. So until the girlfriend wants to do another build session this is on hold. SO NOW I PRESENT...


My first hand-paint project. and hopefully it won't be my last, should the outcome be as grand as I'd like. or even half, that'd be cool too. Well, I'm off to paint spoons and prime the runners. see you next time!