Weekly WIP - AGE-2 Normal (Part 2)

Going to be quick this week. Been busy building. 2 kits, 1 week left. I'm on pace to finish on time, so hopefully nothing too major will get in the way. Here's a preview of the AGE-2 Normal.

Here are some other finished parts that can't be attached yet.

Lastly, what's left.

I appear to have lost a part. It's the poly cap that joins the head to the body. Looking for a replacement. Not sure I can get one in time. Might have to make something.

Well that's all for now. I need to get back to work on the HLJ kit.

What else I'm into...

The Walking Dead. First two episodes of the second half of this season have been pretty good. Hopefully tonight's episode will be equally as good. As much as I love the tv show, the comic is much better. If you haven't checked it out, what are you waiting for? I recently finished the ninth TPB and I couldn't put it down. I can't recommend the series enough. Check it out!

Weekly WIP - AGE-2 Normal (Part 1)

Been working like crazy on my kit for the HLJ competition. Only two weeks left. Not sure I'm going to make it but the end is in sight. As if that wasn't enough, I decided to enter the iShop2go AGE-2 Normal competition. Might not have been a good idea given the time constraints (it ends the same day as the HLJ competition).

I got the kit snapped together pretty quickly. Then I started rushing the sanding. Didn't seem to be an issue until I started painting. You can really see some of the scratched that I missed. Anyways, here are some pics of the parts in their current state. Some need a gloss coat for panel lining.

Others are ready for a flat coat.

And others need to be painted.

As for the paint, here are the colors I am using.

 

The dark purple/blue is 2 parts blue, 2 parts black, 3 parts purple.

Right now, I think this is one of my better paint jobs. Unfortunately, my poor prep job is taking away from that. Well hopefully with some clean panel lining and creative posing, I can cover most of that up.

What else I'm into...

Don't have much time for other stuff with these two competitions, but while I've waited for paint or putty to dry, I've returned to playing Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. I know I've mentioned this game a lot, but what can I say. I love it! If you haven't checked it out, do so. And remember, respect the foot dive!

*Check out more tips, tricks, and commentary from Maximilian's youtube channel.

Weekly WIP - Full Armor 00XN Raiser (Part 4)

As I've been focused on my HLJ kit, progress has been slow on this kit. I've been working on the 0 Raiser part of the kit. Nubs are sanded and other areas have been smoothed out. Pretty happy so far. There are a few parts that will need extra work. There are a few noticeable seam line on the 0 Raiser. There is a seam line on the tail end of each binder. I don't expect this to be a big deal. Given the way this attaches, I don't think any modding or masking will be required during painting.

Each of the binders has 2 wings with a seam line going all the way around. In my case, the parts don't align very well. Kind of annoying since this is a 2011 kit, but it's not anything a little glue, putty, and sanding can't fix. Unfortunately, The blue part goes in between the white parts. I think I'm going to mod this part so that it slides in. Since I keep my kits in a fixed pose, I don't really care that I will be reducing the kits articulation.

Lastly, I received my decals from Samuel Decals this week and they look great. Got a lot of them as them are a lot of parts on this kit. First up are the 00 7 Sword/G decals. I got two of these since I have 2 sets of weapons.

Next are the 00 Gundam decals. Samuel has 2 versions of these, so I got one of each. Will probably be using a little from each of these.

Next up are some 1/100 XN Raiser decals. Samuel doesn't actually have these, but he does have some in 1/144 size. He was kind enough to increase the size. Not sure that these will fit, but I'm optimistic.

Lastly, are some 00 Gundam series metal decals. These are pretty cool. Not really sure how to describe these. They are definitely not flat like normal decals. They appear almost like photo etched parts with an adhesive on the back. Samuel does provide instructions on how to apply these. I will be playing around with the non Celestial Being decals to see how these work. I'm very excited to try these out.

What else I'm into...

Getting my gunpla mojo back. After a busy couple of weeks, I had begun to lose my desire to build... well technically sand. I hate sanding. Especially where there's a ton of parts. So to get the juices flowing, I watched a couple of Gundam series.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. This series was ok. The kid was unbelievably annoying, but I think the message of the story is pretty good. The pacing I felt is pretty up and down, but the last 2 episodes I really enjoyed.

  

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memories. The mobile suit designs are pretty awesome in this series. I really like the GP02a. The action is pretty good. Story seemed to tie everything together. Wasn't really happy about the Gato ending, but that's because it seemed a little underwhelming giving his importance and standing. As far as continuity goes, it seems seems to me like GP01Fb, GP02a, and GP03 are all more impressive suits than the Gundam Mark II. I'm sure someone has a logical reason for this, but it doesn't make sense to me. Overall I must say that I really enjoyed this series and I'll be watching this series again in the future.