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.

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..