Calamity! No paint! スプレー塗料が有りません！

I ran my two cans of Mr. Color Grand Prix White dry this weekend painting the first batch of little parts for the F91.  I figured it would be fairly simple to pick up two or three more cans if I needed them.  However...

There are no more in stock at work.  The Toys 'R' Us near my house does not have any.  The Toys 'R' Us near my work does not have any.  The Yamada Denki near my house does not have any.  There are none listed on Yahoo Auction.   Oh no!

困ったな！Mr。カラーグランプリホワイトスプレー終わった。仕事に有りません。家に近くトイザラスにグランプリホワイトスが無い。会社に近くトイザラスにグランプリホワイトスが無い。山田電機にグランプリホワイトスが無い。Yahooオークションに見つかりません。どうすればいい？

I thought of repainting all the white parts with a cheap white lacquer spray I saw at a Home Center but then discarded that idea as I had already top-coated the pieces I had sprayed.  As a last resort I tried something I had never done before.  I used Yahoo shopping.  I found three people selling it, but only one guy selling it in a quantity greater than 1.  So I ordered 3 from that seller, filled out the order form as best I could using my limited japanese, and will bank transfer the money tonight.  phew.

僕はYahooショッピングに探しました。有った！安心ですね。

In related news, I may be ditching the spray cans for an airbrush.  Go big or go home!

Lafressia pt.2

Had a day off today and spent it painting the white pieces. Well, I only managed to paint about half of the white pieces. I underestimated how the primer would show through one coat and ended up doing two or three coats on several pieces. As a result, I went through both of my cans of Mr. Color Grand Prix White. I will have to get some more on Friday and finish the rest. As I ran out of paint, I spent the evening working on the Lafressia or whatever that thing is called. (I actually just finished watching the Gundam F91 movie so now I know what this strange this is... sorta).

I had previously gloss coated it so tonight I just did a panel wash with my gray enamel. It ran pretty good, and there are some mistakes but as I am not really concerned with how perfect this part becomes I can let some things slide. Note: I have yet to hand-paint any of these little figures that come with the gundams. One day.. one day..

Painting has begun

This weekend I was able to tear the plastic wrapper from the spray cans and start painting. So far I have sprayed the B-club hands black (sorry, no pic) and sprayed the red and blue pieces.
I have also masked off in preparation for the white. The white will be a big undertaking that will probably have to be done in at least three batches.
I have also gloss-coated the 'Lafressia' in preparation for what I expect to be a rather large and messy panel wash.
In other news, it looks like the kind gentleman over at Plamo Addiction is hooking me up with a Sinanju Bazooka! I have already started to plan out my Sinanju and this is just stoking the fire.

Optimal prime

Lame title I know, but it got your attention. I have finished priming of my Gandamu in preparation for painting. The end is in sight. Just have to paint, top coat, panel line, decal, and final topcoat. Well I thought I saw the end, but...

Another function of priming is showing blemishes and areas that need attention. There are a few areas on my panel lines that, after priming, I noticed and am not satisfied with. I will have to putty the panel lines over and scribe again. Anyways, here's the pics.

Pinholes and priming

The construction is nearing an end as I get closer to actually painting this thing. I did the last step before priming; making pinholes. I will be inserting tiny 1.5mm 'rivots' so I took my 1mm diameter drill bit, stuck it in my pinvise and started making holes. Once that first step was completed I changed to the 1.5mm drillbit and widened the opening of the hole slightly so that the rivot will sit flush. Well, the aim is that it sits flush, but who knows how it will go as this is my first time.

After the pinholes I moved onto priming. I took my Tamiya Surface Primer and early in the morning, before my wife and daughter woke up, stepped outside to spray a coat of primer on all the armour parts.

Before:

After:
And so on...
and so forth...

エバグリプラでdetail up!

エバグリプラ (e-ba-gu-ri pu-ra) is how Evergreen Plastic is called here in Japan. Evergreen is a company that sells sheets and rods of styrene for modelling purposes. It cuts, glues, sands, and paints very well. I picked up some at work for this project. I am using .3 millimeter thick sheet plastic and just cut and trim it to size. Luckily I have quite a lot more than I need so I can make mistakess.

Here is the back skirt portion of the F91. I have added depth and/or detail by cutting and gluing the Evergreen plastic.

I then put some more cement along the seam lines to completely fill the gap and then once dry sanded it down using 400 grit paper and then smoothed it out using 1000 and 1500 grit. It turned out much better than I expected.

肩です。
This is the shoulder portion. Both sides have the styrene added. I had to putty the seam along the top and sand that down as well. Seam lines.. boo! Hiss!

And this is part of the weapon system of the F91. I just added a small section of styrene. Most likely you won't be able to see it on the completed model. But I know it's there and that's good enough.

Next up... getting ready for painting. Will I be able to fix that problem with the head?

Hands! special hands.

As you saw in my previous entry, I haven't yet done anything about the hands. This is because I wanted to try out a set of 'special hands'. These hands are made by a seperate company called 'B-Club' and are much more detailed. However, that detail means that the hands come in fixed position and need to be assembled.
The set includes 6 hands in different positions. Clenched fist, holding gun, holding beam sword, pointing, etc. You can just change them as you pose your Gundam. They require quite a bit of clean up for assembly and the plastic they are made from is very soft, so if you are not careful you can sand off too much too fast.
And here they are all assembled. Well, almost. It seems that the hands that hold the weapons may need some glue. I think this will mean that I have to insert the weapon, then glue the hands together. Which will result in the weapon being permanently clutched in that hand.

Linkage

Minelayer Gallery

Shin Matsunaga

I have been playing with my blog set-up and have added a couple of galleries for my completed Gundams.  Check the links on the right.  For now, here's a sneak peak.

On the inside

此れは内部フレームです。


So I have finished assembly of the frame. All innards have been pieced together so I assembled it to take some pics. I am moving along at a pretty good clip. Still lots of work to be done.
Looking at it standing up, I am pondering extending the legs. Depending on where I put the extension I could show off more detail under the armour. If I put the extension in the thigh area then it will make the mecha look taller or more menacing. If I put the entension around the ankle it will allow you to see the piston at the ankle. hmmm..
And some pics of the inside, or frame I guess, of some of the weapons. I used some Gundam paint marker to add color here.
"But where are the hands?", you ask. Well, you'll have to wait til next time.

手が無い。　　心配しないで下さい。

Modifications!

This is the part I really wanted to try. Adding or removing plastic to change the definition and geometry of a piece and the project overall. Not to get too carried away, I started simple with my original design.

With these pieces that will be on top of the shoulder, I added only a couple of small pieces of plastic. I don't too many large smooth surfaces.



This is the piece that I will refer to as the groin. Haha.. Anyways, this piece is rather plain and flat. I wanted to buff it up a bit.

Taking my PIA plate sheet plastic, or styrene, and cutting some small, very small, pieces and cementing them together I was able to come up with this.
This also widens the groin area so that less of the frame shows through at that point. This is only the start of it. I will add some pieces to the guns as well and probably some more on the armour, especially the shoulder area.

Well, someone thinks it's cool.

Pondering problems.. kids, read the instructions first!

間違いました。　だめだ！
So I committed one of the largest blunders you can when building a model kit. I failed to fully read and understand the instructions. Now I have at least one problem. See image below. More specifically, see the red circles on the image below.

説明書を読みませんでしたから、問題が有ります。


First, and foremost, (and the biggest,) is the side of the head. (see red circle). This is supposed to be yellow! When I was glancing at the instruction booklet, I thought this was a separate piece, and because I would be painting I thought I would put it on later. No! The worst part is that I cemented the head pieces together. So.. to make this yellow I have four options I am considering.

この丸の中パーツは黄色ではなくて、黒です。黄色だったほうがいいです。

1) Cut through the cement and seperate the pieces again. I don't really want to do it this way.

2) Mask off the entire head, except for that tiny piece and spray paint it yellow, then mask the yellow when painting the rest of the head. This seems painstaking.

3) Spray paint the entire head and then paint this piece yellow with a brush. I don't think I can get a good coat with just a brush.

4) Cut out that piece, paint it yellow, paint the head, and then try to glue the piece back in.

I think I will go for option 2, and if that doesn't work, then go to option 3. If worse comes to worst, I will try option 4. Oh, but that's not all..


If you look at the picture above, these pieces are supposed to be white with yellow on the inside edge, but the kit comes with it the same colour as the frame. Hmm.. I will mask off the tiny piece in the middle and spray it yellow I think.

此れも！

Again, according to the photo on the kit (which is always a prototype and not necessarily a production) the inside edge is suppsed to be yellow, with black panel lines. I think I could mask off everything except the panel edge leaving these two pieces together and paint it followed by a panel wash. hmmmmmm.
And this was the first problem I noticed and am attempting to correct. If you look at the red-circled diagram above you can see that this piece is white with black on the outside 'frames'. However, the kits has them in just white with no decals. So I went through the time-consuming process of masking off the white leaving the exposed parts to be painted black.
Then when the daughter was asleep rushed outside and gave them a coat of black.
After removing the masking tape, the result is not too bad. I will use my knife to scrape off some of the black that isn't supposed to be there. Then I will pull this piece apart (it originally is two pieces) and colour the inside yellow. Once that is finished, I plan to put it back together, mask off the black/yellow and spray it white.
Ahh. The joy of Gunpla

脚 detail up!

With the torso and arms out of the way I moved on to the legs and feet. Assembly is pretty simple as this kit doesn't have the complexity and level of detail of the newer kits. It also feels very fragile so I need to be very careful.

I tried to add some detail with my gundam markers. It was more for fun as these details will be covered by the armour.

This is the armour for the legs. I wanted to create more panel lines on this kit to give the impression that a lot of pieces of metal were used to cover it. So I grabbed my mechanical pencil, my ruler, and my masking tape and proceeded to measure, mark, and line.

The legs with the panel lines drawn.
I will need to carve these lines in and if I make a mistake will need to use putty to fix it. Please no mistakes...