S. L.'s Gunpla Blog

Tamiya Toyota GT One TS020 '98 - F103 15th Anniversary part IV - done

2011-10-11T15:46:00.002+02:00

And here is the done deal:

That's it for now - no plans of driving it for now - on the shelf she goes ;)

edit: actually i missed two stickers on the front nose, they are on now

Tamiya Toyota GT-One part III

2011-10-11T15:43:00.000+02:00

Next up is the chassis.

As I said this was a slightly used one, so i took it apart and cleaned it up thoroughly, thou it was barely used an hence barely dirty.

Starting to re-assemble. Kit came with a Tamiya Super Stock RZ 23T motor. Pretty nice. A good trick to remove small scratches in carbon fibre plates is to paint them with some clear paint. They will magically vanish.

And assembled, the foam tyres are a bit old and hard and show some cracks, have to get new ones later on.

Here is the chassi loaded with all electrics, that i stripped from another car i got from local ebay - trying to keep the costs down ;)

Tamiya Toyota GT-One part II

2011-10-11T15:37:00.000+02:00

The windows are darkened with Tamiya Smoke paint, read some horror stories on the net how difficult it is to spray, so i decanted a bit in my airbrush and sprayed with that. Much easier to get an even finish :)

Here the result! Also as you can see I started decaling. Now the GT One is LOADED with decals - a little nightmare, especially over all the round parts. I litte trick I found on the net which was immensely helpful was to dip the stickers in slightly soapy water before applying, so you can move them around on the kit a bit. The press out the water and let them dry over night.

Next up a diffuser, an aftermarket part from ABC hobby, Type A diffuser. This one looks fairly close to what the original GT One had

Assembled diffuser.

Tamiya Toyota GT-One TS020 '98 - F103 15th Anniversary

2011-10-11T15:30:00.002+02:00

Not a Gundam or a model kit in the classical sense, but i built up a RC car. Browsing through the net I stumbled upon the super awesome looking Toyota GT One Le Mans car from 1998/1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_GT-One

Tamiya made an 1/10 RC kit and i had to have it :)

Now the kit is of course long out of production but i managed to order a body from ebay, it's lexan/polycarbonate - a flexible plastic (good for crashing) that you paint from the inside.

The chassi the body/kit uses is a Tamiya F103, originally a RWD pancar type Formula 1 chassi but it works well for cars as well. Not any F103 but I got the 15th Anniversary edition from yahoo auctions Japan in a fairly mint condition.

The 15th Anniversary edition is pimped out to the max with carbon and aluminum parts :)

First step is cutting out the body, I use a hobby knife and just make thin cuts over the plastic, then i can break/rip the unneeded parts off - this looks much cleaner than cutting it out with scissors.

Drilling holes for the rear wing.

Aaand the cut out body.

You need special Lexan color to paint, which is flexible like the body. Regular color would just splitter off.
Got ahead of myself there and bought a can of the wrong red..., you usually only need one can for a car. The black is for the rearwing.

Pre-marked masking for the windows came with the kit. It's always a good idea to shake the cans long and well. Also if its a bit colder, put them in a warm water bath before spraying, this will result in a finer spray mist!

Voila!

A little bit paint leaked trough the masking tape, but you can easily polish it away with a bit compound.

Plamo Tsukurou SP-19 on youtube

2011-08-16T14:54:00.004+02:00

Took a while, but it's now on youtube. A super nice N-scale Diorama.

Check the video section for all links.

Plamo Tsukurou SP-19 on 6/25

2011-06-08T00:35:00.002+02:00

SP-19 will air on 6/25 and feature a japanese post-war train/tram set in N-scale (1/150) size.
http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10007633

Rumor has it Plamo Tsukurou SP-18 is on youtube now

2011-04-01T17:01:00.000+02:00

Linked in the Video section, enjoy.
Not an april fools joke ;)

Good News Everyone (Plamo SP-18)

2011-03-09T15:42:00.000+01:00

Plamo Tsukurou SP-18 will air on 03/26 and feature a tank.
A Dragon Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.H to be precise:

Plamo CUSTOM SP-17 on youtube

2011-02-06T16:11:00.003+01:00

Plamo Tsukurou Custom SP-17 is on youtube now.
Check the links here
http://sl-blag.blogspot.com/2007/11/gunpla-tutorial-videos.html

STURMDIAS -pics-

2011-01-10T12:53:00.000+01:00

I'm rather short on time at the moment, so just some quick and dirty photos of the 'Dias. If I find a bit more time in the next one or two months I'll do some better pics and more of an writeup.

So here it is, the Silicon-Tribe 1/90 STURMDIAS:

Good news everyone! Plamo CUSTOM SP-17 on 1/22

2011-01-07T23:14:00.001+01:00

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-17 will air on January 22nd and will feature a P-38 Lightning airplane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_P-38_Lightning

STURMDIAS -9- dooooooone!!!!1!

2010-12-22T14:51:00.001+01:00

The Dias is finally done! Luckily it fits in the DETOLF shelf :) A proper photoshoot and a bit more comprehensive writeup of the whole build will follow in the next few days.

Happy Holidays!

STURMDIAS -8- Remaining Parts

2010-12-18T20:38:00.002+01:00

If I keep up this insane :) pace I might even finish the Dias this year. Only a handful of parts remain.

Go go go!

STURMDIAS -7- Current state of affairs

2010-10-29T15:59:00.001+02:00

Started adding some decals to the Dias using mostly leftover decals from the Sinanju, some generic 1/144 ones and a few from the Dias decal sheet. The SMS ones that came with the kit are pre-cut, pretty nifty.

Upper body:

Internal stuff for the feet:

The whole thing, stuff that is finished so far:

Plamo CUSTOM SP-16 on youtube

2010-10-23T19:53:00.000+02:00

The links are on the video page.

unrelated cat picture:

STURMDIAS -6- more stuff again

2010-10-17T22:59:00.002+02:00

Did a test fit of some of the (partially) painted parts so far. Even at this stage the kit is already backheavy :) Also the legs are too heavy for the yellow submarine joints to hold in place (in a flying pose) and I will have to glue them in place later on.

Otherwise the progress is pretty good :D

STURMDIAS -5- Summer is over

2010-10-15T21:49:00.000+02:00

Summer is over :( Started working on the Dias again :)

I semi-gloss coated the orange with "Erdal Glänzer". The internals are flat black with some stuff being Tamiya Gunmetal and other Metallic highlights. I have most of the lower half more or less finished (not all pictured) besides some panel lining and other small part stuff. More to come :D

Good news everyone! Plamo CUSTOM SP-16 on 10/9

2010-09-19T12:36:00.002+02:00

SP-16 will air on October 9th and will apparently feature the Japanese battleship Kongō.
That's all I know so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Kongō

source: the FujiTV website

STURMDIAS -4- Color XXX

2010-07-31T16:38:00.004+02:00

I wasn't overly happy with the red color - it just didn't work well with the silver thrusters. So i did some color testing to find a better color for the armor.

left: Vallejo Orange
middle: Vallejo Yellow + a bit Orange
right: the old red

Went with the orange which looks pretty sick imo :D
(Sprayed a white basecoat first)

I'm gonna make the overall color scheme more similar to the Rick Dias than the all red Nagano Dias.

Thus my dark blue/gray armor parts. They are a mix of Tamiya Nato Black and Tamiya Blue.

The colors go pretty well together i think.

STURMDIAS -3.1- joints

2010-07-30T17:56:00.003+02:00

Forgot to add this to the last post. I used Yellow Submarine/Hobby Base joints for the ankles and the hip. Aside from the shoulder/upper arm joints the others don't really make sense to replace. I'll leave the shoulder pinned static as well since the Dias will hold a pretty big and heavy gun which would be to heavy for the small joints i could use there. Also the gun allows for only one pose anyways.

The T01 set is a PERFECT fit for the kit (like for the Qubeley)

STURMDIAS -3- more stuff

2010-07-29T23:05:00.006+02:00

Hey! Made a bit progress with the Sturmdias. The last month I haven't really been working on it as the weather here was way too good and the World Cup was in progress :)

Pinned leg VS. AA battery:

Pre-mixed some primer to airbrush. 50% Mr Resin Primer, 50% Thinner and a dash Mr. Retarder so the paint dries a bit slower.

Here is the super lovely booster leg assembly. I used magnets to hold the boosters in place.

So they just snap in place, works great.

All the pieces together:

Color testing: Vallejo Italian Red (left) vs. Vallejo Scarlet Red (right).
Will go with Scarlet Red, it more vivid and has more of a pop... whatever that means :)

Next up: Those super-sweet thrusters <3

Some closeup with Tamiya Clear Red highlight.

After some coats of Tamiya Smoke, sumi-ire/washing with flat black and stone gray enamel, some decals, and a bit of roughing them up: Thrusters finished!

Well that's it for now, but I think/hope I will make better progress now :)

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-15 on youtube

2010-07-16T12:20:00.001+02:00

Episode SP-15 featuring a 1/24 Tamiya Fiat 500F mysteriously appeared on youtube.
Links are on the video page.

Ayukawa Madoka Maxfactory 1/7 Kit

2010-07-09T22:00:00.009+02:00

A while ago i did my first figure kit. Ayukawa from my all-time favorite animu show Kimagure Orange Road :)
Got the kit from an ebay Thai caster - so i didn't expect much in casting quality, but it actually was quite decent.

The details in the cast were pretty good and the part fit was okay'ish. It was mainly the skirt that needed hot water rebending, an easy fix.
Where it got tricky was the consistency of the resin. It was REALLY hard and a bit brittle for the thin parts while at the same time it had a bit of a rubbery feel to it. Weird stuff. Also it smelled a bit like strawberry chewing gum.

All in all it was pretty workable thou.
I used neodym magnets for the head/hair connection, otherwise i used brass pins.

Here you can see some parts that broke of while i was sanding. Fixed it with MORI MORI putty, which worked excellent for this.

primer! & after a coat of white it was masking time

Parts painted minus the face:

First I tried to airbrush the eyes with some insane masking, but it didn't work out well so I went with handpainting. Used the scan of a close up cel of Madoka as a sample and painted with enamel and acrylic paint with a tiny 00000 brush. Worked pretty good actually and wasn't that hard.

flickr set with a few more pics here

STURMDIAS -2-

2010-06-15T14:04:00.007+02:00

Already a little update :)

This is the rear booster mount. As you can see on the right side the whole booster is held by a single downward! facing pin. Tricky.

Tried to mount a booster temporarily.

The whole construction gives quite some stress on the mount and pins. This will need a good amount of epoxy glue to avoid any flex and to keep everything safely in place.

Here an example where i use neodyne magnets. Instead of a pin i put magnets in little holes . They hold the parts quite well in place. <3

Also got some new supplies from the HLJ.com free express shipping promo last week. Mr. Resin Primer, Mori Mori putty (AWESOME stuff!) and Hobby Base/Yellow Submarine joints.
I will probably use the joints in the hips, ankles and shoulders.

STURMDIAS LAUNCH!

2010-06-14T22:40:00.005+02:00

Here we go! Got my RMS-099B Sturm Dias (aka Schutzrum Dias) kit.
The Silicon-Tribe kit comes in 1/90 scale, boosts an impressive parts-count (184!) and with the two rear boosters it is absolutely huge. The design is based of the Mamoru Nagano Rick-Dias design (the guy who also designed the Qubeley - see my other ST kit)

The Sturm Dias is the updated version seen in Gundam ZZ..

Overview of the parts:

The casting is stunning and super sharp. All the small infamous Silicon-Tribe details are there.

Rear booster VS Sinanju:

Here the core body with the hinges for the rear boosters. They are relatively filigree and need some solid pinning to hold the weight.

I'm also working with little neodyne magnets to clip some parts into places for better accessibility later on. I'll show some pics of that later on.

A mystery part - it doesn't make any sense to me. I have no idea how to fit it or what the purpose of this is :) - I can't spot it in any reference pics of built kits either lol :)

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-15 on 6/26

2010-06-05T17:24:00.003+02:00

The next episode will air 6/26 and feature a Tamiya Fiat 500F. I'm not sure if it's the only kit in this episode as the info on the FujiTV website is a bit sparse, but at the moment it looks like it.

Misc update

2010-05-15T20:53:00.004+02:00

Not dead yet.
Currently working on a figure kit for the E2046 competition, but the rules don't allow me to show pics of the build process before the results. But it's not all that easy and i am really struggling with painting the eyes >_< On the plus side is the low parts count, a Gundam kit is like 10x the parts :) Anyways, my next (big) kit will be a 1/90 Silicon-Tribe Sturmdias kit based on a Nagano Mamoru artwork, should be pretty sweet.

Will probably start around end of the month or early next month.

SD Zaku II - Kimagure Orange Road Custom - Madoka Ayukawa use :)

2010-04-23T14:49:00.010+02:00

Got an SD Zaku along with the HGUC Acguy the other day. It's my first SD kit and all in all it was really enjoyable.

The kit snaps easily but it comes with a fair amount of seams and the cast isn't that sharp as you might be used from HGUC or MG kits. But it doesn't have many parts! (big plus, partsy kits are such a pain)

The weapons are sorta hollow, so I had to fill them up. Used Mori Mori polyester putty here which unlike normal putty doesn't shrink and unlike epoxy putty is a lot more easily sandable.

All the paints i used:

Tamiya Flat Yellow, Clear Red, Clear, Nato Black
Vallejo Model Air Stainless Steel
Revell Email Copper
Revell Email Black thinned for panel lining

Tamiya White, Black, Chrome Silver, Gunmetal

Printed my own decals again and made some Kimagure Orange Road themed ones for my SD Zaku. Probably my favorite anime/manga.
The end result:

flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623915454156/

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-14 on Youtube

2010-03-30T14:55:00.002+02:00

Links to the SP-14 episode on youtube are now in the video section.
The episode has a Tamiya JGSDF Light Armored Vehicle and a Academy UH-60L Black Hawk.

MG Sinanju + Neograde Option Parts - Finished!

2010-03-24T13:08:00.008+01:00

The Sinanju is finished! It's totally yellow :D
With the bazookas it doesn't allow for much posing, but that's something i don't really care about anyways. I overexposed the pics a bit which seems like a popular thing to do on a white background. Turned out pretty good i think.

The "hanging" shield mechanism on the shoulder is pretty cool. Much prefer it over clipping it on the arm.

Paint used is:
Armor:
Mr Primer
Mr Base White
Tamiya Flat Yellow
Tamiya Clear
Awesome Mystery Hardwarestore Clearcoat for gloss finish.
Internal frame:
Mr Metal Color Iron (buffable)
Mr Metal Color Dark Iron (buffable)
Tamiya Gunmetal
Ornaments:
Revell Flat Black email
Alclad2 Pale Gold
Weapons:
Tamiya Flat Nato Black

+ various others for small stuff

A few more pics on my flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623559279459/

シナンジュ painting -5- update again

2010-03-16T18:44:00.007+01:00

Got some more crucial parts finished so i could actually put together some sections.
Here is the result:

Thrusters with Mr Metal Color Dark Iron buffable paint. Looks great imo.

Backpack action

Upper body. How the yellow looks (brighter/darker) really depends on the lighting.

Also it seems like I'm not the only one who is making a yellow Sinanju. Sombody linked me to this one made by Gainjingunpla.
http://gaijingunpla.blogspot.com/2009/10/sinanju-build-project-review-and-theme.html
So make sure to check it out if you are interested.

That's it. Not too many parts left anymore.

Sinanju painting -4- some parts finished

2010-03-13T16:37:00.004+01:00

Over the past week or so, i managed to finish some parts of the Sinanju. The fit of some parts is rather tight, which can be a bit frustrating when paint scratches off and I have to redo things -_-
But what can you do eh? Stay frosty!

some more pics on the flickr.

Not sure if I have already mentioned it, but this thing has WAAAAY to many parts. Makes me miss masking (almost) :)

Silicon-Tribe 1/90 Qubeley Finished!

2010-03-07T15:23:00.012+01:00

Well, here it is. After a very long time i finally finished the Qubeley and took some photos too. Sure took longer than I'd have originally imagined :)

Comparison with my old MG Qubeley:

More pics here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623446927473/

The Silicon-Tribe resin kit is based on a Mamoru Nagano artwork who is also the artist behind the original AMX-004 Qubeley. This one is the MAN-103 Qubeley:

Overall I made more mistakes than I could count during building this kit, but I learned a lot and the end result turned out presentable I'd like to think.
This has definitely been the most fun kit I ever build and I regret nothing :)
Thanks go to Bawoo on the hobbyfanatics forum who created the Nagano logo decal for me and to everybody who left a comment during lengthy building process.

That's it.

Sinanju painting -3- Custom decals and sleeves

2010-03-05T13:51:00.003+01:00

The decalset from samueldecal was a bit sparse, so I made some decals myself. Scanned the original decals from the Sinanju and traced the ones I needed in and filled in black.
Then printed them out on Laser decal paper. (cost like 2€ for an A4 sheet). Worked out great.

Below the decals I made (left) the samueldecal Sinanju set (bottom right) and a generic warning decal set in 1/144 from samuel - I prefer 1/144 decals on 1/100 kits, looks more to scale then man-sized warning decals that 1/100 ones are :)

For the sleeves I primed the plastic with black canned lacquer first, the sprayed Alclad2 Pale Gold over it.

Then I sprayed Revell flat black email color over it.

Then I wiped off the raised areas with lighter fluid and cotton buds. Worked out great but Alclad comes off easier than you'd think -_-
Have to redo a bunch of parts, but generally it works great.

Pics that don't suck - aka Jagd Doga - Quess part2

2010-03-02T17:26:00.008+01:00

Tried to make pictures that don't totally suck and the Jagd Doga was the guinea pig. The lighting still leaves a lot to be desired but I have a pretty good idea how to make things better next time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623416584173/

*sold*

Sinanju painting -2-

2010-03-01T19:23:00.006+01:00

As usual I used Tamiya acrylic paints for painting.
To paint the Sinanju yellow i primed the parts with cheapo Duplicolor canned primer, sprayed Mr. Hobby White Base over it and then Tamiya flat yellow. The white was so i get a more vibrant yellow. It works with directly spraying over the gray primer, but then it takes around 4 layers of yellow to get a good result. Over the flat yellow followed a clearcoat so that I can apply decals.

For the bazookas I used Tamiya Nato Black, which has a bit of a grayish tint... also i had that color left over :)

For the internals I am using Mr Metal Color Iron - buffable paint. After airbrushing you buff it a bit to get a great metal effect - which doesn't really photography that well.

As for the ornaments... my current plan is to paint the gold first (Alcald2 Pale Gold) and the spray email black over it. After it dries i wipe the raised gold parts free. Not sure if it will work, heh.

The sheer amount of parts is a bit annoying to paint, but at least, as mentioned before, the parts breakdown is good and most nubs parting-lines are hidden. So there aren't many putty sessions needed.

Good News Everyone! SP-14 on 3/21

2010-02-26T23:41:00.002+01:00

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-14 will air on 3/21 and feature two military kits:

An Academy UH-60L Black Hawk and a Tamiya JGSDF Light Armored Vehicle

Sinanju painting -1-

2010-02-23T21:43:00.004+01:00

After watching the amazing Gundam Unicorn OAV episode 1 I was really motivated to continue working on the Sinanju :) - And with the Qubeley finished (pics to follow) I started working on the S.

Started with the backpack:

After a round of primer:

Overall the parts breakdown is really good and should make it easy to paint.
Over the gray I'm planning to spray a layer of white as I'm not sure if the yellow or orange (that I am planning to paint the Sinanju with) is strong enough to cover the gray...

Also got these sanding stick at a local hobby store for ~12Euro

totally worth the investment, really useful when working with resin. Recommended!

HGUC Hy-Gogg part 2

2010-02-19T20:37:00.004+01:00

Crammed out that Hy-Gogg. Hah!
Painted some parts in Tamiya Royal Blue and gave it a shark mouth, those always looked insanely cool to me :)

The blue paint looks a bit messy below, i think thats from the fumes of the white paint as I used white primer out of a can... yeah.

Need a bit of cleanup now and I'll probably add a black outline around it.

All this I did while listening to Tegan and Sara which are pretty cool!

Qubeley progress again 2

2010-02-14T19:17:00.003+01:00

So I have been rather busy lately, but I managed to squeeze in some Q work this weekend.

Started with painting the Bits in silver, following the advice someone posted in the comments about thinning the (pre thinned!) Vallejo Air color with water. This worked pretty well after thinning it about 3:2 ~ 2:1, but it was still a bit bothersome to clean out of the airbrush. I would have used alcad, but it's too cold for that to spray at the moment.

Used the Vallejo Steel as base color and painted the rest with Yellow, Gunmetal & Smoke as well as black sumi-ire.

Turned out pretty good, but I forgot to paint one of the bits -_-;

Also started masking and painting the reaming flaps and internals.
Some blurry pics

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-13 on Youtube

2010-01-27T17:13:00.002+01:00

SP-13 is up on youtube now.
Direct links here: http://sl-blag.blogspot.com/2007/11/gunpla-tutorial-videos.html

Q Flap

2010-01-14T12:42:00.006+01:00

Finished the first of the four wings/flaps.
Pics galore:

Masking:

Airbrushing Tamiya Gunmetal

Yay:

More masking and Tamiya Black airbrushing:

Screwed up one of the innards with too thik white Primer. Stripped it with acetone which worked really well.

Painted and added the tubes:

Some more innards:

Gloss coated and flat coated black part:

Done:

In other news the decals from samueldecal arrived, so I can finish the Qbeley's right arm. Also it has the black Sinanju decals I needed.

Q Decal screw-up :S

2009-12-23T12:56:00.004+01:00

Eh, screwed up one of those little red decals here and it was the last one I had of this kind. :/

But after some looking around it turns out I had those little caution triangles from samueldecal's Palace Athene set. Ordered another of those sets plus some other including a black decal set for the Sinanju (the standard ones are white).

Sinanju snapped -3-

2009-12-20T00:38:00.004+01:00

It is fu***** freezing cold outside so no more painting for the rest of the year. Finished snapping the Sinanju, quite the badboy with the two bazookas - due to their size and weight they don't allow a whole lot of posing thou.
Due to the nature of a resin parts for plastic injection pieces they are pretty thin and break relatively easy when cutting flashes and stuff. I managed to break a handful of little parts, but they are easy to fix with some epoxy glue so no problem here heh.

A bunch of more pics on my flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623032848834/

Overview of Qubeley kits

2009-12-16T21:08:00.026+01:00

On a whim of boredness I tried (and am still trying) to compile a list of Qubeley kits that are out there in the Wild. I won't be differencing between MK-I and MK-II kits, as they all should be the same aside from coloring (and theoretically a different amount of funnels/bits).
These are the Qubeleys I found so far on the net - the pictures are obviously not mine -

Bandai HGUC Qubeley 1/144

Bandai Master Grade Qubeley 1/100

Bandai Qubeley 1/220

Bandai G-Generation Qubeley SD

B-Club Qubeley MK-II 1/144

B-Club Qubeley Mass Production Type 1/144

B-Club Qubeley 1/100

B-Club Qubeley Mass Production Type - conversion set for the MG 1/100

B-Club Qubeley ver. Ka 1/220

G-System Qubeley 1/100

Silicon Tribe Qubeley (Version 1) 1/90

Silicon Tribe Qubeley (C3 2007 Version) 1/90

Wave Qubeley 1/144

(two different box arts, but i think they are the same) This kit is half Injection Plastic, half Soft Vinyl. There is a video WIP on youtube by japanesesandman on this kit which is absolutely worth checking out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSIfak_B7_E

Wave Qubeley (C3 2006 Version) 1/144

a WIP of this kit can be found at gamerabaenre.com
WIP / finished

Club-M Qubeley 1/100

(some sort of JAFCON special?)
And with different box:

(are they the same?)

Volks Qubeley 1/144

(again two different boxarts... )

Mystery Qubeleys:

It's this one:
http://www.e2046.com/product.php?products_id=2724
1/100 B-Club or the Club-M maybe? no idea.

If you have any better pics (especially of the "box only" Q's), know any other kits or noticed any mistakes please notify :)

Qubeley progress again

2009-12-15T23:30:00.005+01:00

Not much to tell, but I am making decent progress with the Q.

Lots of tedious masking is now required -_-
Sprayed the silver/smoke part first and then masked it off to paint the rest white. Figured it would be easier this way round.

Sinanju snapping -2-

2009-12-15T23:20:00.005+01:00

Starting snapping the Sinanju - what a motherload of parts! The internal frame is supernice but all the moving parts will give me headaches over paint scratching... oh well.
The resin parts all fit nicely and while most differences are really subtle they are nice.

That's a bloody large bazooka:

And there is two of them!

As for painting I am planning to give it a different color scheme than the usual red :D

MG Sinanju + Neograde Option Parts -1-

2009-12-14T14:53:00.007+01:00

:D

The Neograde/SMS option parts for my MG Sinanju arrived. This time I ordered directly from SMS which was a bit of a hassle, but in the end worked out fine and saved a bit money.

Box arrived:

Well packed:

Oh yeah baby:

The goods:

The resin casting is super sharp and only has some minor flash that needs cleanup. Also it comes with some aluminum thrusters and acrylic tubes for the bazookas like the original as well as a bunch of decals.

Here you can check out some finished pics from the Neograde website:
http://www.neograde.com/shop/step1.php?number=596

Overall I am very pleased.

HGUC Nu Gundam pics

2009-12-06T23:39:00.007+01:00

Made some new pics of the HGUC Nu Gundam

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157623523200719/

*sold*

Base V2

2009-12-04T12:02:00.008+01:00

After some coniderable looking around i found a shop that sells acrylic plates for a price that aren't a total rip-off. Also ordered some aluminum profiles in the hope that they are stiffer than their brass counterpart which is totally not the case :/ ~~Not sure what I will use as the standing rod now.~~ Tried it and it seems to work reasonable well, a tad wiggly, but that's ok.

10 x 120 x 250mm plates.

Also made some decent progress with the Q

Lots of more pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/400882.....

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-13 on 12.19.09

2009-11-29T18:12:00.000+01:00

SP-13 will air on December 19th and will feature two Japanese castles.

The 1/350 Deluxe Kumamoto Castle and the 1/360 Deluxe Azuchi Castle

キュベレイ Progress shots

2009-11-29T11:37:00.000+01:00

Here some progress shots with the Qubeley repainting.

HGUC GAZA C

2009-11-24T22:44:00.000+01:00

What an unpleasant kit! Firstly i still think it is fairly ugly. Generally i really like the off the hook Z and ZZ designs but this one is turd-ish. And secondly the transformation mechanism is really flimsy - not that the GAZA-C looks good in either mode... hah.

Not sure what I am gonna do with it. I am rather uncreative when it comes to scratchbuilding and adding details... but the kit vanilla is a no-go.

Q - first parts re-painted

2009-11-24T22:34:00.000+01:00

First parts are finished now.

Really happy with how the finish turned out :D

Pic of sumi-ire/washing:

The Tamiya flatcoat absolutely devours the glossy clear coat i am using and makes it look like the skin of an elephant, even thou according to the sticker it is acrylic based. Lesson learned, always test first. so back to stripping paint on the main torso again in the ovencleaner hell-bath.

Qubeley - 卡碧尼 - キュベレイ - Progress

2009-11-20T22:37:00.000+01:00

Made pretty good progress with the Qubeley repainting. Essentially the whole main body internals and leg/feet are mostly done.

Masking fun:

Flat coated black internals with metallic highlights. Used Tamiya Gun Metal and Chrome Silver covered with Tamiya Smoke X19 (Totally love that sutff!). Also Alclad2 Aluminum. Before I had those parts painted single color blue-blackish.

For the clearcoat of the white armor parts I am using lacquer from a hardwarestore, read about that brand on some other random forum and i love it. Really easy to work (super easy to clean and not runny also it isn't overly aggressive, so painting over acrylics seems to be no problem) with and it gets really glossy and doesn't coat too thick like the Polyurethane I used before. The only downside is that it needs to dry at least a day before you can handle it.

For panel-lining/wash i use revell Stone gray enamel color btw.

Flat Coat

2009-11-14T18:43:00.000+01:00

Started flatcoating some of the black parts and the Duplicolor flatcoat made didn't really do anything. It's cheap as hell and I tried to carefully mist it as well as decant it and spray trough the airbrush, but the flatness leaves a lot to be desired.

So I picked up a can of Tamiya clear flat (TS-80) and it's awesome, but pretty much exactly 10x as expensive! (Duplicolor 400ml ~ 3.50€, Tamiya 100ml 8.90€)
Something about you get what you pay for...

I guess i'll try to decant the tamiya and airbrush it to save color and money.

Vallejo Model Air Metallic

2009-11-10T14:16:00.000+01:00

Today I bought some acrylic Vallejo Model Air paints (Steel and Arctic Blue) which come pre thinned for aibrush in 17ml bottles and I take back what I said about cleaning the airbrush after Mr Metal Color, cuz this shit is just vile. It leaves some sticky goo in the airbrush that seems somewhat resistant to washing out, so I have to more or less scrape it out. What the fuck! Not recommended, even thou the metallic is kinda nice. Maybe some more thinning will give better results.

I'm using a Harder & Steenback Evolution Silverline with a 0.4mm needle btw.

Alclad 2 metallic colors remain the best imo, great metallic effect and easy to work with. Althou they are a bit on the pricey side.

Mr Metal Color

2009-11-09T14:12:00.000+01:00

Painted the Qubeley's tsuka (not sure what the English word is... sword handle?) with Gunze/GSI Creos Mr Metal Color Chrome Silver. Mr Metal Color are buffable colors, you airbrush them and them buff them with some piece of cotton. They are airbrush only and already pre thinned.
The result is really nice, but WHAT A MESS! It's a pain the clean the airbrush afterward and the metal particles in the paint smear everywhere. So it's imperative to seal them with some clearcoat ofter buffing.

Here the two tsukas, the bottom one is already buffed.

I also have a bunch of other Mr Metal Colors here, but I don't think I will use them, bah.

Qubeley LOL

2009-11-09T02:55:00.000+01:00

Ok, I went insane and decided I want the black/dark parts of the ST Qubeley in flat black and the white parts even glossier/polish them. Also I want to paint more detail to the internals in silver/metal colors. The original artwork has them in unicolor, but i guess a bit detail can't harm, now that I have taken that bastard apart.

I hope this ends well -_-'

In other news I have ordered a Master Grade Sinanju from Rainbow10. Planning to build it with the Neograde Sinanju resin option parts. They look like this:

Nu Gundam Finished

2009-11-09T02:48:00.000+01:00

I finished the Nu kinda in a rush, but at least it's from the table now. Turned out kinda OK i guess.

Used a Dupli Color Flat Clear can to flatcoat it. Worked pretty good and those Dupli Color cans are hella cheap. Also heard good things about their Primer which I also ordered two cans of.

Will make some decent pics when the lights is better.

Nu Gundam ressurrection

2009-10-30T18:58:00.000+01:00

I was cleaning my hobby closet/box a bit and found the half finished Nu Gundam I stopped working on a year ago or so. Turns out only a handful more parts need painting so I figured this one could be finished quickly by me :)

Painted the white parts of the gun and bazooka with alcad II silver, looks pretty cool. (doesn't really show on the crappy cellphone pic)

Whats left is some detail painting and decaling.

HGUC Hy-Gogg Part 1

2009-10-18T22:09:00.000+02:00

Despite not having much time i started working a bit on the HGUC Hy-Gogg. What a lovely design!

Snapfitting was painless and easy, but to putty away some of the seamlines on the main body some cutting around was required.

Before:

After:

and glued together:

like this i can get rid of the seamlines created by the top head shell, while also beeing able to paint the 'eye' separately. The Head/Body part now just slides over the gray inner body part.

Works great! Here the parts after closing the seams and a first round of primer:

Good News Everyone! SP-12 on 09.26

2009-09-14T23:54:00.000+02:00

Plamo Tsukurou Custom SP-12 will air on September 26th and will feature two HGUC Gundams!
Everybodys favorites from Char's Counter Attack, the Nu Gundam and the Sazabi.

http://wwwz.fujitv.co.jp/otn/b_hp/100000023.html

Qubeley finished

2009-08-06T15:39:00.001+02:00

I painted a few of the internal parts now in flat German Gray which gives some nice contrasts, but its pretty hard to photograph. Anyways here are some pics.

More pics in this flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40088241@N03/sets/72157621874035231/

I consider this kit done now, took me long enough :)
In the process of building this kit i learned a LOT about resinkits, and my next build will go much more smoothly for sure. All in all this is a fantastic looking kit and the best Qubeley kit out there. Even thou this was my first resin kit I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else as a first kit, there were plenty of tricky parts and pinning a free-pose kit like the Qubeley is a MAJOR pain in the ass.
I am absolutely happy how the Q turned out and its always a joy to look at it :)

Plamo Tsukurou Custom SP-11 airing 7/11/09

2009-07-06T17:26:00.000+02:00

Plamo Tsukurou Custom SP-11 will air on July 11 and will feature a Ferrari F1 car and a Yamaha motorcycle.

more info on the Japanese FujiTV website here.

Decals and Funnels

2009-05-28T22:28:00.000+02:00

Today I printed out the decal on decal paper. For economy reasons I printed it out on a normal paper sheet first, then i cut out a piece of the decal paper the size of the decal and taped i over the printout. Then I printed again, this way I don't waste huge amounts of decal paper :)
Next the printed decal got misted with a few coats of clear paint it seal it. Done!

Also added some smaller decals here and there, nothing major. Not a big fan of those decal-hell robots.

Next I painted the funnels and put them in the 'beehive'. Now it really payed off that i used neodyne magnets there - would have been a major pain otherwise trying to pin them in there in the fixed pose.

Will make nicer pics when i borrow my parents DSLR :)

Aya Natsume

2009-05-27T19:59:00.000+02:00

I bought this half started figurine kit of Aya Natsume from Tenjo Tenge for cheap from somebody on the E2046 forum. Figures aren't really my thing but what the hell, I'll try, even if i probably never finish it :)

I don't really like the skimpy outfit, but the dragon is rather cool. So I have the overly ambitious idea to scratchbuild/model a hakama and gi on her.
Kinda this style:

So if i EVER finish this there is maaaaaaaaybe a minimalistic chance it will be totally awesome. To start off, I'm removing the gothicy shoes of her. Tedious and makes quite a mess:

Nagano Logo

2009-05-23T16:25:00.000+02:00

Edited the logo a bit, which was surprisingly easy.

And printed it out on paper to get s feel for the size.
Also reattached the flaps/wings of the Qubeley as they were a tad uneven in height.

Here the Q with the logo attached with some masking tape.

All your base are...

2009-04-23T12:47:00.000+02:00

Started building a base. It's made from parts I had laying around and is a bit crude. But it will do for now until I can try to make a fancy one.

Essentially I drilled a hole into a piece of wood and glued an aluminum tube into it. Filled the top with some Milliput epoxy putty and pinned the Qubeley onto it.

All thats left to do now is painting the funnels/bits and adding the 'Nagano decal'. Bawoo on the hobbyfanatics forum was awesome enough to make a clean version of it.
http://www.hobbyfanatics.com/index.php?showtopic=21892

I'll print it out on decal paper (never done that before) and done :D

Standing pose, not very stable - the kit is a bit back heavy:

next to my Master Grade Qubeley:

New kits

2009-04-20T17:10:00.001+02:00

A few little kits i ordered from rainbow10 arrived. As I need something more relaxing once the Qubeley is finished, I got some HGUC 1/144 kits.

HY-GOGG - AWESOME AWESOME design! Totally love it!
Gaza-C - One of the ugliest UC MS ever imo - the whole design with the transformation doesn't make a whole lot sense (if transformation in general makes sense is another story lol) and the weird roundness on some parts doesn't really fit at all. But I do like the legs and feet. Gonna try to mod this one into something that looks good to me.
Jamru Fin (from ZZ) oldschool 1/144 Non-Grade kit. Actually I wanted to get a AMX-104R R-Jarja but I couldn't find the kit. Anyways this one was really cheap and looks kinda cool too. But since it is such an old kit, i probably gonna need some work to look good.

Oh Snap!

2009-04-18T20:20:00.000+02:00

I had the male joints too close to the flap holder which hindered me putting the flaps in the correct pose. Drilled them out which thankfully worked without messing up the paint or the rest of the part and glued in new ones a bit further out.

:O
Getting close to completion. Also added the "angle parts" to the foot tips for a floating pose on the base, so the frontfeed will point downwards.

Getting somewhere

2009-04-14T21:35:00.001+02:00

Oh boy, oh boy! Finally getting somewhere.
Some parts are finished and washing/panel lining is also done on some parts.

Looks so sexy! The pics don't really do it justice. Also have to start thinking how to build a base for the Qubeley.

Also in case you didn't notice, I linked Plame Tsukurou SP-10 on the videos page.

Primer, Gloss & Qubeley

2009-04-03T17:44:00.000+02:00

Bought some "generic" white Modell Primer from a local Fantasy shop called Fantasy-In. Looking at the fine-print it shows that it actually is made by Vallejo Colors. Well it is crap, just like that other white Graupner primer that I bought last time. Waaay too rough and flakey.
Also bought a can of gray Vallejo primer there which is decent, not as fine as the Tamiya gray primer, but alright. But for white primer, the Tamiya one is the only usable i found so far; expensive but really nice. <3

As for the glossy clear coat, I bought a can of floor sealer on PolyUrethane basis from a hardware store. It is water based, thins with alcohol and airbrushes fantastic. Also it gives a hell of a glossy finish, thick and fat with great self leveling without creating drops.

"Renovo Treppen- und Parkettlack" from the German Hagebaumarkt chain. Since it doesn't use solvents it won't eat trough acrylic colors and it's much better than the German Future equivalent (Erdal Glänzer) which is too watery and "droppy" imo.

painting the Qubeley

2009-04-01T00:01:00.000+02:00

Started painting the Qubeley. I read about adding a drop of blue to the white color to make it 'whiter' and I tried that and failed miserably. More like a TINY FRACTION of a drop of blue... else it will be pretty blueish. Painted the whole thing with straight white now, except for a few parts as I ran out of white since i wasted a perfectly good glass of white on that blue drop :/
Anyways I am going for that original Nagano color scheme:

And started painting the purple parts. Tried to do it with masking and airbrush first, but all the curved details are batshit insane to mask and i went with handpainting instead which worked rather good. Only have a little bit of cleanup to do when i get my new white paint which was convineantly sold out at the two hobby stores here and I had to mail order it - Vallejo color recently became pretty popular with the stores here for whatever reason and they have plenty in stock of those, but Tamiya was out of stock. :(

Tenjo Tenge - 天上天下 Pinky:st:

2009-03-23T02:38:00.000+01:00

A little off-topic but I am a huge fan of the Tenjo Tenge manga from Oh! Great. So I saw those chibi Pinky Street Tenjo Tenge figures some time ago and couldn't resist. Imported them from Yahoo! Japan :D. This was the first time that I used a proxy bidding service to buy something from Yahoo! Japan auctions and it worked fairly well, will use it again.

They sure are some cute little bastards:

Emi, Aya, Maya

The boxes also came with some high quality artwork prints/postcards, pretty cool :)

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-10 coming end of the month

2009-03-23T02:35:00.001+01:00

Just a little heads up, Plamo Tsukurou Custom SP-10 will air 03.27 and will feature two military ships.
Some preview pictures are on the FujiTV website: http://www.fujitv.co.jp/cs/program/7215_056.html

Working on the Q again

2009-03-04T17:05:00.001+01:00

So I started working on the Qubeley again. Not much to see except some primed parts.
Still finding lots and lots of little bubble holes. So annoying. :/

Letting some parts dry from the warmth on my amp :)

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-9 coming

2009-02-15T19:11:00.000+01:00

currently encoding and preparing to upload SP-9. It features an open Airbus A380 and the Writght Flyer I.

Also the Qubeley is a bit on hiatus as its too cold to airbrush currently. Have to airbrush with open window and with these cold temperatures at the moment I freeze and the paint gets a weird texture.

Priming the キュベレイ

2008-11-22T16:56:00.001+01:00

So I started priming the Q. Cleaned the parts with oven cleaner spray and soap water and then primed with Gunze/GSI Mr. Resin Primer Surfacer. This is the first time I used airbrush primer instead of canned primer and I must say it is MUCH more economic. Plus with all the tiny little details of the Qubeley there is less chance that they get lost in blobs of Primer.

I is a rather time consuming process as after priming you can see all the parts that needs fixing or aren't evenly sanded. So that means sanding and re-priming.

Qubeley Neodyne Tail

2008-11-06T14:17:00.000+01:00

For the 'tail' i used tiny 3mm neodyne magnets to hold the bottom and top half together.
Makes painting easy and I can open it when its finished to marvel at the internals.

Glued them in with 2 component epoxy glue.

キュベレイ Yellow Submarine ABS Joints

2008-11-06T14:05:00.000+01:00

To get around the free pose pinning, with which I claim i is 'almost' impossible to get all for wing flaps of the Qubeley even, I ordered ABS Joints.

With the pin vise and an old dremel i found i enlarged and deepened the joint holes in the kit a bit. Fairly easy and the joints fit perfectly.

Did that on all major joints.

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-8

2008-10-21T12:25:00.001+02:00

Quick update: I linked SP-8 in the video section.

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-8

2008-09-17T12:30:00.000+02:00

Looks like there will be a new Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM special this month on 9.28.
It will feature two trucks, as seen in the link below.
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/cs/program/7215_056.html

ST Qubeley yay

2008-09-15T16:42:00.000+02:00

yea, i was very busy with exams so not much updates lately.
Here are some pics of the Qubeley kit.

As i mentioned it is an SMS recast. It also features some modifications over the original Silicon Tribe kit that i am not too happy about. You can see them below:

some of them I reverted already with putty.

I got MORI MORI polyester putty which is really awesome. it's a two component putty that is nicely sandable and not too hard like epoxy putty (which has its uses too).

Silicon-Tribe Qubeley

2008-08-02T17:54:00.001+02:00

So I got a Silicon-Tribe Qubeley resin kit.
To build this i ordered a mountain of new tools and other stuff.

Pin Vise, Resin Primer, Surfacer, Liquid mask, Hobby Knife, lots of Compound and polishing wax, tweezers, MORI MORI, gunze metal color, Epoxy Glue and lots more.

Pics of the Qubeley kit and the first few build steps will follow later, camera battery is empty now.

That also means that the Nu-Gundam is on semi-hold for now, but eh.

HGUC RX93 Nu Gundam Progress 1

2008-07-15T23:05:00.000+02:00

As you have probably seen I already snap-fitted the Nu Gundam once (and the other Jagd Doga for that matter). I now took it apart again and started sanding and puttying the seamlines.

Also the head antennas come with some rather big nubs at the end (probably so that little children don't poke their eyes out). I sanded those away and also already primed some parts.

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP-7

2008-06-28T23:16:00.001+02:00

The latest special episode of Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM, SP-7 is in the video links section now. It features two Japanese tanks.
The WWII Type 97 Chi-Ha and the modern time Type 90.

:O

Quess's Jagd Doga finished

2008-06-26T12:49:00.002+02:00

The last finishing touches are added to the Jagd Doga, like decals and the shield details and sumi-ire.

The finished Jagd Doga:

Turned out pretty good I think. But I need to work on my photographing skills.

Alpha-Azieru Gundam Collection 1/400

2008-06-24T01:38:00.000+02:00

So I got the Alpha Azieru kit I orderd from HLJ and built it right away :) It comes pre-painted and with a diorama base as well as a Sazabi and a Nu in 1/400 scale.

The whole thing comes in a fairly large box, larger than a MG kit I think. Building is Bandai typical straightforward. Quite a lot for parts are made of elastic plastic, like the head unit.

1:144 HGUC Nu Gundam VS 1:400 Gundam Collection Nu Gundam

Finished Alpha Azieru. Next I'll add some sumi-ire/washing.

Finished kit with sumi-ire. Looks awesome!

Quess Air Jagd Doga progress

2008-06-20T21:04:00.000+02:00

Primed some of the parts and started airbrushing. I tried extracting primer from the can and airbrushing it for a more economic use, as described in this tutorial: http://www.ghostofzeon.com/diy/paintxtract/xtract.html . The extracting worked great, but the airbrushing only so-so. The extracted primer seems to dry to fast for me, leaving a rough surface when airbrushing it. So it needed sanding again. Not sure if I will do this again.

For the silver parts i used AlcladII Aluminum.
Looks really nice and smooth.

The red parts are painted with a red-pink mix and a coat of clear red over that.

Also I orderd a bunch of waterslide decals from http://www.samueldecal.com/ in 1/144 scale as the stickers that come with the HGUC kits are unusable. The website is superslow loading, but it has a nice selection and isn't too expensive. I orderd a bunch of them, so I can put some little warning decals on the Jagd Dogas. Also orderd some for the Nu, Re-GZ and the upcoming Sazabi.

Jagd Doga Quess Progress

2008-06-15T16:41:00.000+02:00

I started building Quess's Jagd Doga. Snap fitted it, then lots of sanding and putty.

The parts after washing them in soap water:

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM SP - new episode this month

2008-06-11T01:18:00.001+02:00

From my understanding a new plamo tsukurou custom SP episode will air later this month on 21.06. This would be the seventh special episode (SP-7).
Here is the link to the fujitv website.
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/cs/program/7215_056.html
Looks like the episode will feature two tanks.

HGUC Char's Counter Attack Launch!

2008-06-11T00:43:00.000+02:00

The CCA HGUC kits finally arrived. Got the two Jagd Dogas (Quess and Gyunei) and the Nu Gundam. The Alpha-Azieru mobile armor in 1/400 scale from the Gundam Collection line is still in the mail. HLJ has a sale on the Azieru, selling it for around 10Euro/USD15! The HGUC Sazabi will be released later this month, which I will order then together with the HGUC RE-GZ. CCA gallore!

RX-178 Gundam MK-II FINISHED!

2008-06-01T15:50:00.001+02:00

I am really happy with the sumi ire/washing which turned out quite good. The weapons (Beam rifle & Bazooka) still have to be painted, but I'll leave that for another time.

For my next kits i ordered a bunch CCA HGUC kits (Quess and Gyunei Jagd Dogas and a Nu Gundam). The Re-GZ and Sazabi will follow once the Sazabi is released.

Gundam MK-II Progress

2008-05-30T16:03:00.000+02:00

So I made so pretty good progress with the MK-II. All left to do is painting the white armor and sumi-ire & decals. Looks pretty good imo :)

MK-II Inner Frame

2008-05-23T20:19:00.000+02:00

Painted the inner frame now with a mix between Tamiya Gun Metal, Royal Blue and White. While the 2.0 frame is nice and all, they have a shitload of parts to paint.

I'm not too convinced with the golden parts, will probably change them back to yellow later.

MK-II progress

2008-05-21T15:38:00.000+02:00

So I started working on the MK-II again. Bought some german brand primer (Graupner Haft-Grund) which costs about 1/4th of the Tamiya one, but the color pigments and finish are a bit too rough :/
For the next batch of parts I'll maybe try to extract the color from the can and spray it with the airbrush.

nothing

2008-04-18T21:45:00.001+02:00

As you probably have noticed, the Plamo Tsukurou Specials are complete. Also my Gundam building is a bit on hiatus, waiting for the weather to get a bit better so i can airbrush outside. Makes less of a mess in my room :P

Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM -complete-

2008-02-27T16:30:00.000+01:00

Ok, i finished uploading all 20 episodes of Plamo Tsukurou CUSTOM. Check the video tutorials post for them. Coming next will be the 6 CUSTOM specials (SP-1, .., SP-5) that aired so far. SP-6 only aired recently but I hope I'll get that episode too.

MK-II Snapfit

2008-02-22T15:01:00.000+01:00

I snapfitted the Mk-II now. It has excellent detail, poseability and still was relatively easy and straightforward to build. As I am a bit short on time at the moment, painting will probably have to wait till next month.
Oh, and i updated the videos with a bunch of new episodes.