WIP: 1/144 NG G Gundam (Part 1)

Here are pics of the results that I'm stuck with till the weekend:

First there was the matter of how to build and color the all-red shoulder armor and feet.

I started by painting the inside of the armor before applying cement to both halves of each foot and clamping them together.

Because the pegs on the shoulders are much bigger, I decided not to trim the sockets in the armor like with Tallgeese.  Instead, I fully assembled the shoulders before applying contour putty on the seams of the armor.  I also masked the shoulders with tape for priming.

To prime certain areas on the chest, I used tape on only 2 areas and covered the rest in masking solution.  But too much curing time made the solution harder to remove, so I would switch back to tape.  I would also fill in the seams of unmasked areas.

Here I'm holding the unused portions of a runner over the kitchen sink to try out a method I learned from Hobbylink Japan's Gunpla TV segment.  In one of their videos, the host dips a paper towel in a dish of soapy water and passes it along a runner of parts before rinsing them with running water.  This would enable paint to better stick to parts without priming.  Taking it a step further, I scrubbed the parts shown with a soapy sponge .  After rinsing the runner I would leave it on a towel to dry overnight.

That's pretty much it for now; I should have a more substantial report by next Sunday.  In the meantime, I've just opened a new page on Twitter, The G2K, where I'll be posting up-to-the-minute tweets on my Gunpla projects, purchases and mishaps.  You can also check my Facebook page for my next work-in-progress.  Until then, I'm gonna watch Episode 4 of Gundam Unicorn again!

WIP: 1/144 NG G Gundam (Intro)

With another Gunpla project hitting an unexpected roadblock (though technically, it's complete), I've moved on to the 1/144 NG God Gundam in order to continue my God Gundam collection.  Released in '94, this kit originally sold for 500 Japanese yen ($7).

The front of the box displays a painted boxart style typical for most Gunpla in the '90's, and it's my favorite next to the boxart for the HGUC/FC/AW line of Gunpla.

This is what the top and bottom side of the box looks like.  According to the bottom left-hand corner, God Gundam's the 8th kit in the 1/144 G Gundam NG series.

This side's supposed to show the actual size of the finished product (minus the V-Fin) if held vertically.  But it's covered with warning labels.

And this side shows 3 of the other kits available in the series along with the retail price and barcode on the right.

These are all the runners holding all the parts to assemble the model.  Most of the parts are molded in the right colors but some areas still need painting.  The A1 runner (upper left) holds all the yellow parts and some of the blue and white parts.  The A2 runner (upper right) holds all the red parts and the rest of the blue parts.  The B1 and B2 runners (lower left), having most of the white parts, could've been a single runner but separate both legs for some reason.  On the lower right is the PC-107 runner with the polycaps.  Lastly is the newest entry in my unused sticker collection.

This seems like your typical NG polycap runner, except there's an extra polycap for holding the lower torso together.  And the polycaps themselves are slightly more durable.

And what plastic model rundown would be complete without viewing the instruction booklet, featuring backstories, technical specs and step-by-step illustrations:

At the bottom of the right page is a special form to order replacement parts (for use in Japan only).

And so ends my overview of the 1/144 NG God Gundam.  Join me later when I summarize my progress with the kit.  Until then, . . .

Guess what I got today!

Actually, I bought this last Friday but you get the point.

WIP: SD G-Gundam (Part 3)

Once again, my completion of the first-edition SD God Gundam has been delayed.  But I have 2 legitimate excuses.  The first is that like many, I'm playing the beta version of the SD Gundam Capsule Fighter online game.  Actually, since its release last Tuesday, I've spent most of the time installing the game, uninstalling it, reinstalling it, freeing up disk space, playing co-op's and deathmatches, sitting through the hour-long delays in between, buying new MS and power-up's, trying and failing to enter quests, and complaining about the consistent lag on my end.  At the very least I got some work done last weekend.

The yellow spikes that go on the forearm guards had holes underneath, so I filled those up with putty and sanded them before painting them.  While I was at it, I also painted the kit's second detachable chestpiece.

Once the spikes dried, I decided to combine the kit's main parts so . . .

Let's go, Gundam Force!

Form feet and . . . oh.

Form arms and torso!

I'll form the head!

Here's where my second excuse for the delay comes in.

Featured with the other runners shown in the first WIP, this has a spare arm and hand for God Gundam's Bakunetsu God Finger (Erupting Burning Finger in G Gundam's English dub).  The parts that were snipped off were the 'core' for the chestpiece (1st pic) and the cockpit for the Core Lander.

As you can see, both parts are hollow, a common drawback to the SD kits of the 90's.  Can't have that.

So I filled in the hand and arm with Testors' contour putty and Tamiya's basic putty respectively.  At the time, the Tamiya putty squeezed out the wrong end of the tube and I threw it away.  I had it since '06 at least, but it was a week later after I discovered that the putty had caused the arm to melt.  And I wound up squeezing it out of shape while sanding!  Until I can fix the arm, I'm not sure if I'll go ahead with reviewing the kit cuz God Gundam without the God Finger is like Superman without the S.  But I've started working on the 1/144 NG God Gundam so expect that in my next post.  Until then, I'm off to the beta battlefield.