The next one... 次は...

Having finished the Minelayer a week ago, I finally managed to sit down and spend some time coming up with a design and colour scheme for my next project. The F91. With this one I want to practice filling seams, adding aftermarket parts, scratchbuilding, and priming.


The colours I think I will go with (subject to change).


The box.

The new supplies. Well, not all of them, but the paint and primer anyways.

some poses and a comparison

Took some cellphone pics at work. It looks so sexy standing on my desk.

And here's what it would look like without any alterations. Zaku green... blah!

Minelayer Gallery

Kit: MG MS-06F Zaku Minelayer

Finished! I think it turned out really well. Although I do see places where I made mistakes. It's all part of the process. The above pictures are used on our product page for this item. Yay! Like a proud papa!

Kitbashing a gun

When you take pieces from different kits to construct something else it is referred to as a kit bash. I wanted to have some fun experimenting with constructing the Zaku's gun.


This is what the gun is supposed to look like.

So let's start cutting off the pieces I don't want.


Let's turn the butt of the gun upside down, permanently cement the scope on the side, and replace the barrel with that of the bazooka. Then let's add some leftover sprue pieces on the side.

Now let's spray it all black, then add some grey hosing, then decal, then mask off the parts we want to stay glossy when we spray the flat black.
And there you have it! A custom built gun.
I took this picture to show the difference between the glossy and flat top coat. That flat is sexy!

Glossiness is gone

After the decaling and panel lining I sprayed a top-coat of 'flat' to protect everything and lose the glossiness. The flat on the black looks sexy!

Decalling complete

The decals with the gundam kits come as stickes as well as dry-transfer rub ons. You can buy water transfer decals seperately, but I didn't want to go that far with this kit. Taking it slowly. Here are all the appendages assembled after decals and panel lining. You can notice the reflection from the light. This is due to the gloss coat added before the decals. I will take care of that later.

The chest. It turned out pretty good. The decals stand out in some places.

The head. The dry transfer decal went on well. phew.

The skirt. The silver paint line aligns well.
The legs. Big fat things at that.

Time for the panel wash

With the painting part finished, the next step is the panel lining. But before panel lining and decaling one must apply a gloss top-coat to protect your paint. A gloss top coat also allows you to remove any mistakes with your panel line/decal easily.

I decided I wanted to try a panel wash on this model. To panel wash I took out my black enamel and enamel thinner and mixed them together to get the black a consistency of water. Very runny. Then by taking my brush and touching it to the panel line, the enamel mixture flowed through the creases. Afterward I just took a cotton swab dabbed in enamel thinner to remove the extra run-off.
On the silver on the feet you can see the black circles. This is the result of my panel wash. You can also see my grey panel wash that didn't turn out as well as the black.


Here you can see the black lines on the shoulers. You can also see the decals.