State of the Union 05/2019

Hey there. Another couple of slow months. My last update was my completed “Nu Banshee” as I’ve come to call it, that I entered for the GBWC.

I’ve worked on and off several projects now, and since I didn’t really make a lot of progress on a particular one, this calls for a new “State of the Union” post !

I don’t like doing them, to be honest. As a blog reader I prefer to read start-to-finish projects rather than some blogger’s rambling. I’m mainly doing these for me, to keep some momentum going and not downright give up on posting. Anyway, let’s get to it.

PROJECT “KAMPFER”

I don’t have a really clear-cut goal in mind with this one. I just really like the Kampfer’s design and wanted to build one for a long time. It’s currently in limbo, with just a leg and the waist missing (update : it’s completly built !) . When it’s done, I’ll probably leave it on a shelf for a bit. The Kampfer’s design would work well with a weathered / battle damaged look, so maybe I’ll practice on it.

Completed work – MG Nu ver Ka

I managed to post my submission to the GBWC before the deadline, so I’m pretty happy.

As for the build itself, I have mixed feelings about it. The build and first paint jobs were very cool and I liked how the colors turned out, but when I got to hand-painting, top-coating and water-decaling, boy was that a roller coaster of emotions. I still can’t get over how awful the decals look when zooming in on the pictures. Fortunatly for me it looks good from a proper view distance, in my display case. Too bad the competition is judged from pictures 🙂

Anyway, here are the pictures I submitted to the competition, and then some. I hope you guys like it.

 

WIP – MG Nu ver Ka – 5

So, decals ! At the same time the best way to add details to your kit, and one of the worst activities in Gunpla building if you ask people on the different Gunpla groups. I don’t usually mind water decals too much myself, but this particular build had me use a new brand of “gold” decals and let’s say things didn’t got too well.

First problem : the gold from the decal isn’t as close to the painted gold as I expected. When using small decals, far from painted gold, it looks fine, but a large decal next to some painted gold just looks out of place :

WIP – MG Nu ver Ka – 4

My last blog post about the NU was almost 6 months ago. I can’t believe how long I’ve been working on that thing (on and off, of course). But now I have concrete things to show, as the painting is almost done !

For the record, I airbrushed Tamiya Light Grey primer on everything. For the armor parts, I sprayed Prince August Blue (go here for the exact reference). The frame is Alclad Gloss Black Base followed with Alclad Dark Aluminium. The red is plain Tamiya red (two coats, the first one ended up being a bit too orangey for my tastes) and the gold is Revell enamel gold. I’m playing with Acrylics (blue), enamel (gold) and laquer (frame / clear coat) here. This will allow for some nice freedom of movement when hand-painting details.

Here are some before / after pics, using every photoshop skill at my disposal :

Pretty happy with the results, here. I had a hell of a hard time painting the eyes and the result is, at best, average. I’m actually glad we can’t see them much more than that. After clear coating, I’ll do a simple wash on the V-Fin, gatlings and some vents on the side.

WIP – Barbatos Lupus Rex – 2

So, the last time I wrote about this project, things weren’t going so well… Indeed, I thought it would be easy to connect Barbatos’ hips to the Saix legs, but the result was less than impressive. If anything, the connection was too stiff and lacked any mobility in several directions, making dynamic poses impossible to do.

To be perfectly honest, that part is the reason why there has been such a large gap between my march and july blog posts. I got “writer’s block” (builder’s block ?) and just couldn’t find a way to make that dang thing work. So I looked at that custom again, and noticed he used Barbatos parts up to the thighs. It’s really hard to see, but when you’ve been staring at the kit on your desk for a month, it just clicks.

Speaking of clicking, I quickly noticed making a connection between the thighs and the Saix legs would be no easy feat. I thought about using magnets, but for a part that will bear weight and be moved around trying to get a good standing position, I knew it wouldn’t hold. So the only logical solution was the tried and true method of drilling holes and using some runner parts. Maybe some glue when all is said and done to help friction do its job.

Here it is. It’s the first pic I snapped, but I had already made several tests with different feet combinations. I’m pretty proud of that one, using the Barbatos ankle guards, Saix feet and some magnets to hold everything together. You can see the Kampfer silently judging me from the corner.

WIP – Barbatos Lupus Rex – 1

Here it is ! My actual first post about this build. I talked about it a bit in a “misc” post, but I never got around to starting a blog post for it. When I started building the Lupus Rex, I had a simple project in mind : a weathered Barbatos, in a lunging position. Ideally with the claws to the ground and some wicked cool scratch marks on the acrylic glass.

Here’s a quick pic mid-build. I really like the Lupus Rex Design and the IBO Full Mechanics series :

Slow progress

Wow. The last post is from 3 months ago. So I’ve officially become that kind of blog.

Well, without wasting any more time, here’s what happened these past weeks months.

FOREST BATTLE

I somehow completly lost interest for that project. I think the overwhelming amount of work in making a competition-worthy diorama killed it for me. That, and from the start I wanted to make one starring frame-arms girl Jinrai. Since that project was supposed to be for the GBWC, I couldn’t very well use a Kotobukiya kit as the main subject. So I half-assed something out of a Dantalion (love that kit) and a Hyakuren, but my heart wasn’t really into it.

And lo ! I received a billing notice from HLJ last week about a product I had forgotten I placed an order for : the elusive Megami Device Asura Ninja. I wrote in a last post how the Dantalion was the best candidate for a “ninja” mobile suit. Scratch that, this one is obviously the best looking ninja available around (it’s not an MS, mind you) :

WIP – MG Nu ver Ka – 3

Another big gap between updates. I’m almost done with Monster Hunter World AND the weather is getting better ! That means I’ll soon be able to paint so there will be more frequent updates ! Yeah, I don’t believe it either.

Quick mention of the “Lupus Rex” project, as is now custom. I was struggling to make him look nice with reverse jointed legs so I kinda lost interest in it. Then I saw a nice custom involving the legs of a Zoid that piqued my interest. I’ve since ordered a “Lightning Saix” and plan on resuming my custom build soon. The chest part looks nice so, who knows ? Maybe I’ll do a full blown kitbash and not simply slap the Saix legs on the Lupus Rex ?

Anyway, let’s not get side tracked, or else that post will end up being another “misc” post, and not a Nu WIP.

As a reminder, for this build I’m focusing on a “simple” paint work (as in, again no shading nor weathering), using gold paint and gold decals to detail an otherwise majorly dark color scheme. That means not a lot of scribing / pla-plating (the Nu is plenty detailed already). I did add some metal parts that I plan to paint in gold. Kind of a shame to cover them with paint, really, since they are naturally metallic (being, well, made of metal), but I’m afraid the silver will look out of place amongst all this gold.

WIP – MG Nu ver Ka – 2

Uh, so almost a month and a half passed since the last update… I blame Monster Hunter World.

With that cold weather I didn’t get a lot of work done, considering most of the customization on this project is done using paint. I worked a bit on the Lupus Rex but since I can’t pose it to save my life I’ve just shelved it for the time being.

I did my (least) favorite thing in plamodeling : seamline fixing. It turned out alright this time after priming. The seamlines are invisible but I did oversand a bit :

Happy new year !

So, what happened during the holidays ?

Nu ver Ka :

Not much here. I’ve tried some paint during the holidays and it didn’t turn out too well. I was really hoping that Tamiya’s Sea Blue would work well for the main color, but unfortunatly it doesn’t :

Smile for the camera ! 🙂 That’s an HG G-Arcane leg part, btw.

Sea Blue turns out to be more green than blue, and while it’s not a bad color per se, it doesn’t suit my immediate needs. Notice the powdery finish too, it’s still too cold to paint