Objective
To create a personal master piece.
Side story:
This is a very sentimental Gunpla kit I received from my wife when we were starting out as a married couple.
Time was extremely tough (9-11 terrorist attack... SARS virus outbreak... Asia economic crisis and subsequently I lost my job through unfair retrenchment) for the both of us but somehow she still managed to take the effort and budget to buy this expensive gift to cheer me up! It is definitely worth every juice I have to build this.
Duration: est. 6 Month.
The Box
The Build Process
It will be quite a breeze for anyone who wants to snap fit this or even painted build on this kit. The parts and instructions are very straightforward and clear for any level of modelling skill. However, I do find the parts were not as well manufactured as compared to PG Zaku 2.
The panel lines were substantially absence on some big parts (e.g. legs) which will make the Gundam look rather dated. So I decided to create some panel lines.
The Painting Process
After the panel lining process, I was totally exhausted. And left the parts in this state for a couple of days maybe weeks...
Managed to regain some energy after a holiday break. And spent about 1.5 weeks to complete the kit to this state.
Double checked on the panel linings to see if it is symmetrical and and ensuring the shading tone is even for all the parts
Then went on to do more detail painting
Done!
Lesson learnt:
1) When shading white colour on a dark base, it must be thinned sufficiently. Roughly 1 part paint, 3 parts thinner. Pressure from the compressor must be kept low. Roughly less than 0.15MPa. Otherwise, it will have a snow like effect when airbrushed.
2) Never admire / inspect a painted part with exposed thinner lying around. The holding clip snapped and the part went flying into the exposed thinner! Luckily, there were still some paints left for the part. But time was wasted and its already 4 am ...
Completion
Sleepless nights and dehydration is finally over...
Will be posting more pictures in the Completed Project in next few days. Stay tune!
