With the frame complete, I now turn to preparing the armor.
As I mentioned before, I’m planning on using two different kinds of spray paint on this model. That means the armor has to be painted before I attach it to the frame. In order to keep the pieces from getting lost or mixed up, I’m working on each section one at a time, and putting its putting that section’s pieces in a labeled, resealable bag.
I actually got all of the sections prepared before writing this post, though they are not painted or assembled. Instead of analysis, the rest of this post is going to be wild speculation as we examine loose pieces. If that doesn’t sound very exciting, I don’t blame you, and suggest you stop reading here.
Here’s the head. It’s made of more pieces than I expected. It certainly has a traditional Gundam face, but the V-fin/crest is quite a bit unorthodox.
There’s not a lot of armor for the unit’s chest. The piece on the left covers most of the front, and some of the sides. The piece on the left straps to the back. I’m curious as to how it will look on the finished model.
The right arm is the more boring of the two arms. It’s armor is very standard stuff. The only thing interesting about it is the panel lining marks on the shoulder armor. They’re at a weird angle, and they don’t look right to me.
The left arm is far more interesting. None of it matches the right arm in either shape or color. Also of note is that the left arm uses parts from other mobile suits; the shoulder and forearm armor is from the Spinner Rodi, and the gauntlet/shield thing is from the skirt armor of the Hyakuren (at least I think it is…)
The waist armor is fairly minimal, but I like the way it comes together.
The feet are very simple. So simple that I’m not sure how exactly they’re going to work together to assemble a foot.
Here are all the pieces for both legs. I should have taken pictures of each individual set of leg pieces, since they are not, in fact, identical, but I almost forgot, so this is all I have. Also shown in this photo are the stabilizer fins that are attached to the waist. They’re quite big in relation to the model itself.
Earlier I mentioned how nice and easy it was to sand and trim the frame pieces. Unfortunately, the armor pieces were not quite as compliant, but they weren’t exactly troublesome either. I only managed to mess up a single piece, which I accidentally cut into. A little bit of sandpaper and sharpie marker helped clean it up well enough.
With all these pieces prepared and ready to go, it is time to paint. I can only hope it turns out better than last time.
Side Thoughts
I used a Sharpie marker for panel lining this time, hoping it would not bleed like the Gundam Markers do when exposed to Testor’s top coat. This was an interesting experience; the tip of these Sharpies are thinner than normal, but not nearly as thin as a Gundam Marker. This led to very thick panel lines that I took an eraser to to thin them out. It still looked a little different than usual, but ultimately I think it worked out well.