SD Syukuyuu Gundam WIP Part 1

Finally another progress for my trio box set! This time it's Syukuyu (aka Zhu Rong) and well, I did this last week and was to lazy to post and dragged till today. This is gonna be quick as I did not do much on the kit.

Alright, first off, I painted all the parts need to be gold, gold. Like I said before, I have 3 types of gold paint, but I decided to only use the Mr Hobby Aqueous and Mr Metal Colour ones.

Wanted to try to give off a metallic green effect for the forehead "camera" by giving it a gold base, but it failed. I dunno why, but I succeed before. Maybe it's because I added too much thinner to the gooey clear green.

So yeah, after that epic failure, I'm left with no choice to paint the part metallic green with my Sangoukden Gundam Marker =) Oh and the paper below is my notes for Geography if you guys are wondering. LOL

The green did not turn out really good for the forehead "camera". Anyway, I painted the parts need to be green the same colour. I also tidied and panel lined some parts too.

So yep, the progress is still very sloooowww......... and that's it for now. But before I go, here's a sneak preview of another upcoming model, and the progress is also slooooowwww.... too.

Ta-da! The big baddie from the last episode of Gundam 00 Season 2!

I almost completed everything, lwaving only the weapons. Anyway, after I finished the torso, I realised I got the colour scheme mixed up. The white should be on the upper part of the body while the red should be at the bottom part of the body! I painted it vice-versa! Also, the white should also cover the part surrounding the GN Drive on the chest! Sheesh, what a careless mistake, anyway, I decided to only add the white for the parts around the GN Drive and finish everything up!

So that's it for now, till the next post!

A Series Of Weathering Failure

Finally taking a break after so much Gunpla-ing during the weekends. Well, since there's not much stuff for me to do, I decided to show some of my weathered Gunplas I did last time. Sadly, they don't look good to me.
Lets start with the worst..

Screwed up Keroro!, Really screwed.... Actually I didn't wanted to do this but since it's arms broke off, I think there's no point to display it without arms, which resulted in this. Yeahh... it looks bad, even Gunso-san needs bandage O_O

Heavy weathering = Epic FAIL

SD Stargazer! Looks okay to me, at least it's alot better than Gunso-san up there. Hmm... you can see a hole in at the cockpit and you might think it's already a direct shot to the cockpit and the suit miraculously survived? Yep, I guess Selene and Sol got really lucky to survive that.

Up next is the Ahead! Another broken kit of mine. I don't even know how I broke the leg joint when I was just posing it to stand O_O  Anyways, the first look of it already reveals that it had gone through some serious bad ass battle.

Another look and you can see the left thruster, left side skirt are all gone. The GN-Drive Tau has a scratch, hmm.... not convincing to me..

A big hole at the GN-Drive Tau, GN Particles are seriously leaking!

I wanted to do something like Exia Repair's head but well, I gave up the idea as by doing so, a few pegs might be broken and it's very risky. I decided to just gave it a half-burnt look, somewhat like Seravee's beam shot right pass its face.

Some scratches on the arm. Hmm... I think these two are okay, still have room for improvement.

Light weathering = Passable?

HG Strike Rogue, a unpainted kit that I found lying in one of my boxes. I was quite bored then and decided to try out some weathering. Used some of my own dry brushing method, and made a few scratch marks on it. I also attached a Aile Striker pack that has no wings to it.

Some scratches here and there with a conked-up vent beside the head.

The shield is pretty big and many stuff can be do to it. I did some scratch marks (again) onto it and stopped there. (I'm actually tempted to cut the whole shield into half, O_O)

Some scratches here and there (again). Oops, spotted a seam line on the thighs, how embarrasing D=

Alright, so that's about it for the Rogue! Don't think that it's piloted by Cagalli and is already so worn out means that it's nothing serious. This guy still can pack a punch real hard!

And with that, I've come to an end to this post. Guess I really gotta learn alot from these past failures to do a good job on my Mokaku. That's it for now, gotta go decide what to eat for lunch, Fish Soup or KFC? LOL

Till the next post!

SD Mokaku WIP Part 2

Alright, finally it's part 2 of the WIP. Spent the whole Saturday afternoon on the kit, and sad to say, it's still no completed =P Anyway, I stopped at the gold parts in the previous post, and now, I'd be continuing on some smaller details and weathering (again).
Lets start with some panel-lining first ^^

Mokaku's V-Fin is one of my favourite of all other fins from other kits. Nice monster (monster?) face on the fin and the details are just awesome. I just used a oil-based panel liner and trace out the lines. Looks really good now =D

The clear green orb on the chest is also painted and lined. The clear green just look fantastic on the chest. It'd be even better if HG 00 kits have clear green parts since SDs already have them =P

I also cleaned up the shoulder armours. The one on the left is being cleaned and lined while the one on the right isn't.

After 2 to 3 hours of painting, lining and drying, it finally came to weathering. I only weathered some parts as the rest are not completed. I found some tips of dry-brushing on the net and decided to try it out. I don't know if this looks good to others and even if the method I used is correct. but here's the results.

I made a few scratch marks on it and then dry-brush it. For the gold parts, I used grey for the dry-brushing as I thought the gold is already shiny enough to cover up the silver weathering. I then used silver for the dry brushing on the rest of the parts =)

I kinda like the results on the V-Fin and the mask. The mouth was a little screwed as I accidentally smudged the red on the chin, causing the mouth to be so bloody. I tried cleaning it up but there's still a stain there O_o

You can see two obvious scratch marks on the body yeah? I didn't really like the one under the orb, the scratch doesn't look convincing to me. The vent one is okay... but I think it ain't perfect =( Also, i think I overdid the weathering on the shoulder, looks burnt 0.0

After everything, it's finally time to pack up. Spent almost 6 hours on Gunpla-ing today. Having backaches now... too much sitting and bending... Anyway, that's it for now, till the next post!

SD Mokaku WIP Part 1

This is my first ever WIP posting, featuring..... SD Mokaku Gundam! Yep, he is in the All Sangokuden Project which I posted yesterday and well, the progress is slow....

Alright, before any paint jobs, I had to remove the weathering that I did which failed badly, All I did was just dab a cotton bud into a little thinner and wipe off all the stains.

After that, I went to file down some parts and went on with the painting. For now, I only decided to start on gold, and here it goes.

I used Mr. Metal Colour, Brass. It states Brass on the bottle but it's gold, whereas, the bottle which states gold is actually a copper-brass type of colour. I painted the parts I wanted with Brass first, and continued other parts with Mr. Aqueous, Metallic (Gloss) Gold.

Pro modelers are gonna laugh when they see my work place. 3 pieces of paper as my "mat" and that's my workplace. You can even see my school work and notes down under the table >_<

After everything, I left the parts in two recycled paper boxes, seperating the ones that are heavily painted from those that are not. I went to check on the parts just now and found that there's still quite a few touching up to do.

Alright, that's about it, nothing much as the progress is slow due to my laziness..Yawnn....

Till the next post everyone!

The All Sangokuden Project!

It had been sometime since I post about my Gunpla heh? And since the exams are already over, I can finally concentrate everything on my Gunplas. Well, there are still like 8 kits left for me to build and I decided to start on Sangokuden ones first!

Yes! Finally got TaiShiCi Dom. Lucky for him, he doesn't need to wait for like a month like the couple to recieve his snap fit treatment. Oh and if you had notice, I finally used a camera, finally better quality images =)

Meng Huo is already in the progress. However, I try to do some light weathering on him, but gave up the idea. Epic fail in weathering attempts  =(  Guess i need more experience bah.

I filed and sharperend Zhu Rong's swords. I dunno why, but her legs are kinda, uhh, loose 0.0

Taishici is just great. The only complain is that Bandai could have use polycaps to secure his "Crab" armour. Other than that, everything went smoothly, and it is definitely worth the $13.95.

 In progress

Finally a sneak preview to my Shuutai! I didn't follow the original colours due to a few reasons. But well, i kinda like the look of him now. Some more panel lining and light painting and all is done ^^

Meng Huo is already in the process of painting. I had also removed the weathering I did and is all left to dry and wait for it's next round of painting ^^

That's about it, but to kick off the start of this project, I made a custom Ryuubi, more like a burst mode one ^^ He is also the first few kits that recieve Top Coat treatment which gives a little glossy look to it.

It's all bronze =) Lol, I made this just to finish up my bronze paint (it says gold on the bottle though). I tried to recreate the scene where Ryuubi fights Ryofu, but I didn't add Chou-I's and Kan-U's shoulder armours, maybe next time ^^

It's kinda plain, but I'm quite satisfied with the shiny and glossy look. I think I might try this on Emperor Ryuubi, with Mr Hobby colour, Aqueous metallic (gloss) Gold. I think it's gonna look better than this ^^

And finally, My custom gold Shi-Bai Sazabi has a rival! What is he gonna do? Haha, these two will be the mascots for my Sangokuden kits =)

That's pretty much about it for now and well, lets end this post with another picture of Burst Ryuubi!

Till the next post!

Why Gunpla?

Many people asked me what is so fun about Gundams, Gunplas, robot thingies and some say it's childish and lame. Oh well, all I can say that it's my hobby. I just love making those kits and painting them, even though it can get pretty tired sometimes, the end results of a successful kit just puts a smile on your face. And yep, I would sometimes play them (childish?). Well, I guess you guys can say that I buy kits to decorate and play =)

How it started? I started Gundam-ing, or Gunpla-ing in 2006, yeah, not really long ago. And well, it's KF and KL who got me into this! (Blame them for all the money I spent!) LOL JKJK Anyways, my first ever kit was the NG 1/144 scale Freedom Gundam. I was so into the SEED Series back then and I bought a kit or 2(HG SEED Series) every week. I went to the net, dig info about Gundams, Gunplas and I was so excited and happy whenever a new model comes out.

After SEED, I went on to Destiny and Astray. I had really crappy skills back then, there are seam lines almost every where and stickers are always not fitted properly. There's once when I got Stargazer and I lost one of it's Volture Lumiere sticker and I didn't care, bad modelling attitude huh? But I just continued to pose it happily and try out all its features. O.O I never dared to try MG but I eventually got 1. I guess a modeler had to at least try a MG once in a lifetime heh?

What's the next level? Gundam 00 and Sangokuden are the series where I got serious about Gunpla-ing. I bought tons of 00 kits and Sango kits. I didnt like the look of unpainted Sango kits and I went on to get markers, which makes the first step of my painting skills last December. No doubt, the first few paint jobs are crap, no Top Coat, no lining, just plain meta colours. Hah, and now I came to bottle paints, sanding and light mods after lining and top coating. It's another level for me, difficult from the start, but I hope I can get as good as the pro modelers one fine day.

Talking about pro modelers, there are many out there. Some are awesome reviewers and some are just modders with skills that I can never imagine of. The reason of this post? Chubbybots inspired me to. He's one awesome modeler, even though he might not know who am I, I just admire his great skills in Gunpla-ing.

Will it end? I guess I will never stop this great hobby. Even if I'm broke, a simple Sango kit in a month or 2 will do, just makes use of simple tools and paints and it just becomes one awesome kit. The upcoming kits are really exciting, just SDs and HGs makes me go crazy for them.

And well that's it for this post, I had already exceed my computer time, AGHH!!!

Sangokuden Gaiden

Sango Gai is quite a nice series, nice designs, cool spin-off of the actual series. At first, I thought Sango Gai would be one real good line of model kits. Just like the actual Sango series, cool features, nice articulations, awesome design. I saw several images of Ryuuho and Shuutai just before it was being released. My first impression was like,"Wow, so small, where's the normal articulations from the actual series??!" and I thought it's gonna be one pathetic line of SD kits. However, I was kinda wrong. I am sure I would not buy the line of kits at first but after seeing how awesome the promotion was at the Gundam Fiesta, I thought that maybe it's worth a try, after all, it just cost a little more than 10 bucks. I was kinda pissed when I saw the price, such a small kit with the same price as usual SDs now, with less articulations, but the box art did really impressed me, and well the box art is one of the reason why I got tempted to get it.

After getting the kit and finsihing it and all that stuff, I had to say I have no regrets. Ryuuho is a really nice add on to the current line. Just by putting more effort on painting, sanding and touching up on them just works wonders. Even though there were some problems like lack of articulation and loose parts, they can be fixed easily.

I also got Shuutai just to follow the trend and see how good it is with Ryuuho, but also to also test out Mr.Hobby bottle paints. I got the paints and they really stink to high heavens but there's no doubt that they give a really good finish to your model. Shuutai is still in the making, got most of the parts done, and well, it's better than Ryuuho! Firstly, it comes with elbow joints (which is a great add in) and secondly, the features it have are just really good. It's not the best kit around but it's worth to get it.

And well, here's what I found out recently. Firstly, Ryuuho doesnt have much articulations and only comes with a couple of armours. Then, Shuutai came with elbow joints, and awesome features. Then, Kyocho came with waist joint but no elbow joints. And Juniku came with the same pathetic articulations as Ryuuho, BUT it comes with a awesome cannon thingy. So well, Bandai is kinda trying to improve this kits by adding new features when each kit are being released.

And I got to say the upcoming kits looks a hell alot better than the ones now. Yue Jin is already in my list of Gaiden kits. Batai and Bashoku looks cool and identical, so I might just get one of them. Guess I would have to skip Kyoco and Juniku. And yeah, I really hope Bandai will continue to improve the Gaiden series kits. I really hope all this improvements and stuff will be all featured in the Turn-X guy. If so, I would definitely get it.

Till then I still got a crap load of Gunplas not done and not yet bought.
Not done: HG Gaddess, HG 0 Gundam, SD Meng Huo Set, HG Arios GNHW/M, SD 0 Gundam, SD Shuutai.
Not bought or not released: HG Reborns Gundam, HG Cherudim GNHW/R, HG Seravee GNGW/B, HG Masurao, SD Chi You, SD Sun Ce, SD Emperor Sonken, SD Yue Jin, SD Kyou-I, SD Taishiji Dom, HG 00 Raiser with GN Sword III.
Yep, that's all, just a random post, gotta study Home-Econs later =)