Verniers and Head Deconstruction

I decided to start this kit with the head. I had some ideas I wanted to try right away. Usually I start with the feet, but what the hell, eh? I changed the shape of the chin, if you want to call it that. It was too long and rectangular before, now it is shorter and sharper.


I also wanted to do something different with the eyes but before I could do that I had to modify some pieces. Here is the main piece for inside the head.And here is my new model saw.

What have I done?!?!

Don't worry, everyone. See it still fits in there nicely.

And the bottom half as well.

The top half is painted with clear orange. The bottom half will be painted black once I add some layers of plastic to make it thicker. I did sand down the tiny bumps that bandai had for eyes. ick.

I picked up some metal verniers to use on this kit.

For the back thrusters:

For the thrusters on the back of the legs:
For the bottom of the feet:
I realized I would have to modify the feet somewhat to make these fit but that is alright because I wanted to make this guy taller. I will be able to kill two birds with one stone.

Let's build something new! 新しいガンダムを作ろう。

Now that the F91 is finished and out of the way it's time to start the next one. "What is next?", you ask. I will let my daughter show you.




It's the Hi Nu Gundam!

Hi-ニューガンダムですよ。








My wife picked this up for me at Toys-backwards 'R'-Us for my birthday. It was an early birthday present because at the end of April, there was a 20% off sale.

妻は僕の誕生日の為に此れを買ってくれました。　よかった！

I intend to extend the legs and skirt to make it taller, expand the shoulders and chest to make it beefier, change the shape of the head slightly to make it fiercer, and to not make huge mistakes!

僕は足とスカートを伸び伸びして、肩と胸を大きく作って、頭の形を変化するつもりです。一生懸命頑張ります。

There are a lot of pieces to this one!

I won't be priming as I felt that was almost a waste of time with the F91 so instead I took some dish soap and a toothbrush and scrubbed the pieces while still on the sprue to take off any excess film that might prevent paint from sticking.







Then I hung them up to dry.


Next I will show you the aftermarket pieces I intend to use. Wish me luck!

F91 complete! 出来ました。

Well, it's finished. This project took my over a month, but I don't know how many hours. I think for the next project I will keep a log. The B-Club hands turned out nicely and, with the beautiful weather this morning, I managed to take some pictures. These will do until I can use the set-up at work. Enjoy (and tell me what I did wrong)

I won't be defeated! (Well, maybe)

Having a couple of days to think about my mistake with the frosty flat top-coat, I decided that I would correct the problem properly and repaint the pieces rather than hand-paint over some spots. So I got out the 400 grit sandpaper and sanded away at those pieces that frosted over.
Then once that was through I masked and repainted just like I did at the beginning. It took 3 coats of paint to almost eradicate my mishap, but it turned out alright.
I waited for a gorgeous morning and then sprayed the flat coat again. HOWEVER, the some of the blue pieces frosted slightly AGAIN! The frosting wasn't enough to make me sand and paint again so I tried to remove the worst parts with my knife.

Now to work on the hands and I am finished!

Decals and a frosty fiasco

The last holiday in the golden week saw me sitting down with the waterslide decal sheet and some Mr. Marksoft. Holy crap there are a lot of decals on the F91! I started with the weapons first and then proceeded to the armour.
The weapons didn't turn out so bad. (just wait...)

I then proceeded to decal the armour and when that was complete (it took hours!) I started to add the metal rivets.

Here's the skirt complete with rivets and featuring my added plastic for detail!

Here's the body unit.
Here are the arms.
And here are what might possibly be my pride and joy from this project. The legs complete with my own panel lines and rivots.
When I finished the weapons and feet first, I set them up and took them outside for a flat top coating. However, because I am still a rookie, I made another rookie mistake and sprayed despite it raining outside. The cooler weather and humidity caused the flat coat to frost and turn large portions of one of the feet and the weapons white!

I panicked.

I took them back inside and used my knife to scrape away the frost but in the process took away too much paint and primer was showing through in some places. So I hand painted over top of that. The foot is salvageable but one of the weapons was a disaster.

Then I had an idea.

I took the weapons apart and switched the problem pieces around so that now the mess is on the inside where it is less likely to be seen.

I am sure a good camera will be able to pick it up though. :(

A Golden Weekend

It is now Golden Week here in Japan and everyone has holidays! As I have several days off, I received 'permission' from my significant other to venture out on my own. I decided to head on down to Akihabara. Gunpla Mecca! I did a lot of browsing and not any major purchasing but I did find some decals I am going to need as well as these:Copic Markers! The word around the Gundam Blogging web is that these are great for panel lines. So I picked up various sizes.

And when I returned home there were a couple of packages waiting for me!
A great weekend!

Tonight I tackle the head.

If you have been following my progress on the F91 from the beginning (It's okay. You can admit that you haven't. No one will know.) you may remember that I wrote earlier about my problems with the head. You can read about it here

Well, tonight I may have conquered!
This piece is what caused me all the problems. The two circles on either side are supposed to be yellow, but I didn't know this when I assembled and glued the head together.

I sawed through the seam I glued on the back of the head to disassemble it and take that piece back out.
I tried masking everything and painting those two circles yellow, but the paint didn't stick. So I primed it and painted it yellow, but again the paint didn't take. So I sprayed it all black.

Then I came up with a plan.

The first step was to paint the front half of the head.

"But what about the yellow", you ask? Well, I thought I would do it one better.Picked myself up some 'vulcans'. There are twenty of these suckers in the bag. This should last me through several 1/100 MG kits. But they were too long, so I had to get to trimming and filing.
Once they were the right length I had to do some modifications to some head pieces. First I had to remove the plastic that would be in the way of my shiny, new, metal vulcans. Then I took my black gundam marker to make it black again.
I also blackened the inside of the head.


Then assembled the head and painstakingly glued in the vulcans.
Sweeeeet! Now I have to reglue the seam at the back and work on removing it before painting. That's for next time.