Finished - MSZ-007

So I had a goal: finish my latest model before the launch of Halo: Reach. A fun goal that my wife actually helped me achieve. All was going well. Until I had the final photo shoot. These are the last known pictures of the final configuration of the model... You'll see why.

1/144 MSZ-007 Mass Produced Suit by Studio Reckless (recast kit)


So I had fun building this kit - though there was a lot of prep work that needed to be done (and probably a lot more too, but I was just a bit too lazy with this small kit) - and I think it turned out pretty well. It was my first attempt at pre-shading, and was an awesome learning tool.

Colors:
Custom teal (using light blue, lime green and yellow(?) I believe)
Flat Blue
Model Master Acryl Some sort of hot orange I found at the hobby shop
Flat white

Panel lined with zippo lighter fluid and enamel black





Just as I was about to take some better pictures of the back once I had a lighting setup I was comfortable with, the background sheet had tipped over so I stood up to fix it. The next thing you know, I hear a crash and look down, and cried a little bit on the inside. I picked up the pieces and took a picture of the remains with what was left of my dignity.


C&C always welcome! Critics especially (I need the criticism before beginning my next big resin model (1/100 The-O))

Gundam Building 101: Putty Filling Tutorial (Beginners)

Beginner's Putty filling tutorial

This is made mainly for those who are new to the resin world. Not amazing by any means, but I feel it's useful, and something I wish I had seen when I was getting into resin.

Materials needed:

Resin piece
Putty (Any sandable kind will do, but I've heard Mori Mori is good stuff too)
Sand paper
Gloves (recommended)


So this is a particularly bad molding that I decided to repair and make a quick and dirty tutorial for. I'm using sandable molding putty.


Squeezed some putty parallel (not perpendicular) to the crack along the seam. I let it dry for about an hour, then sanded it down. If you notice, there are still gaps that need to be filled.


So I just run putty over it again! This putty is very sandable, so it makes this process easy.


Once it is dry (in an hour), just sand over it again and you have a smooth piece! I may do this 1 more time to fill in some small gaps I see.

Also: I recommend priming with a gray primer after this to check for imperfections.

Gundam Building 101: Metal Thrusters

A quick semi how-to for thrusters:


I purchased some thrusters from eBay (make sure you measure how big yours are according to the largest diameter at the bottom in millimeters (mm)). Kind of expensive I guess at $10.50 for 4, but that's the nature of gunpla itself haha.



Figure out where you want to put the thruster. Usually there is already a place for you to put the hole in, or you'll have to cut off a nub for the plastic thruster to go on the plastic kits in order to drill.


Make the hole pretty deep. Note: If you have a shallow piece, you can also snip the long pole to be shorter.


Test fit the part that will go in the hole once you're done.


And Voila!

]

Update and MSZ-007 WIP Part 1

So it's been awhile since my last post, but I've been busy!

Summarized events of Gunpla activity for the summer:

1. Bought and received 1/100 Kshatriya resin kit.
2. Upon cleaning parts, realized I had to recast an entire piece
3. Sold Kshatriya (haha)
4. Bought 1/144 MSZ-007 Gundam resin kit.

And so it begins.

Here is a new WIP for you all. Nothing new or crazy major happening with it. Frankly the casting quality is pretty bad and I don't want to deal with the small pieces any longer so I'm going to just paint it and glue it and call it a day.

Reckless released some new 1/144 resin kits last year at C3, and while I loved all of them, I wanted to start with this one. The MSZ-007 Mass Production model.

I ordered this recast from tatsuhobby.com, came safely to my door.


After cleaning the parts (and realizing that there are 158 parts for this 1/144 model!!!) I began to clean the resin off.


And casting quality is terrible yet again on quite a few pieces. This is not even supposed to have a line at all across the surface.

Yeah. Kind of upset, but whatev.

You can see my How-to for putty filling and sanding here: Gundam Building 101: Putty Filling for Beginners


I put in some Yellow Submarine joints for added flexibility. It just takes a lot of drilling and planning where you want it to go. Usually on a resin kit there is already some sort of joint in place so it makes it semi-easy.


I thought they're a bit too high here after taking the picture, so I made the joints a bit shorter. The joint itself will be eventually covered in the final model. Also the great thing about Yellow Submarine joints is that they are paintable, so even if some did poke through, it would be the same color as everything else anyways.

Got some 6mm thrusters from eBay. Kind of expensive for what you get, but I guess that's the nature of gunpla itself...



Pretty Snazzy if I do say so myself.

You can see my How-to for putting thrusters on here: Gundam Building 101: Metal Thrusters


Began painting the base layer of paint on last night for shading. I got too tired in the middle of it so I had to stop painting all of my pieces haha. Has that ever happened to you guys?

I don't really know why, but my camera is off with the color I painted it. It looks blue in this pic - but IRL it's more teal.

I have summarized quite a few days worth of WIP, but there will be more in the coming days.

Completed: Jaguar II Zwei

So I finally finished my first resin kit. I made a ton of mistakes, but in the end was worth it. I went into it knowing I was going to make mistakes, so it was primarily to learn and make my next model a little better. I experimented with magnets as well (the shoulders are magnetized as opposed to glued)

I dry brushed at the end with black, rust and yellow, but as you can tell in the pics, I went a bit crazy with yellow on the left arm :P

I know I could have touched up a few things, but I don't really want to re-paint, I am too excited to start my next kit! This one was a mere stepping stone haha.










Dry brushed this stuff on.



The casting quality of this kit was pretty poor, so it was hard to work with, and because the parts were so small, clean-up was hard to do as well. But overall, it was a fantastic experience and I feel the model is at least somewhat presentable!

As always, C&C are welcome!

Update: I'm going to add some decals to it, so stay tuned!