FM Barbatos + Moon WIP & general update

Things sure are different now! Picked up a few supplies over the last month.

The eye shadow applicators were from Target and only cost 2$- I got them with the intent of using them to clean up panel line wash easily. It mostly works! It’s definitely better than using a q-tip even though I still plan on picking up some of the Gaia finish master swabs for cleaning washes up. Another handy purchase was some Tamiya measuring jars! 40ml of paint is overkill for most kits but the main goal here is just making sure I can measure my mixes. I can’t see myself mixing more than about 10-15ml of any given color at a time but in the cases of primers being able to mix a large batch consistently will be nice.

Last thing on the ‘different’ list is…paint!

After using Mr. Color reliably for…what, nine years? It’s time we branch out! Despite problems with their webstore, I managed to place an order with Volks and got a whole mess of new paints that I can’t wait to try. The coolest of all of them is a definite toss-up between the NAZCA primers and the metallic paint + metallic master thinner. The Nazca primers allegedly have better coverage to the point that only one coat is needed before painting. The mechanical surfacer primer also comes in four colors- light, heavy, super heavy and pink (for reds and yellows!)- which can be used as the internal frame colors of the mecha as well. The metallic master thinner is allegedly formulated to better break down the metal flakes that make metallic paint metallic so the finish is much smoother and shinier and I love shiny things.

These all just got here today so next update you’ll probably hear about how well these worked out.

Gunpla progress has been going good too! Progress is slow but the Moon Gundam’s main body is almost complete!

I have to redo all of the psycho plates though. I think I overthinned the Mr Color Iron because it dries too quickly and doesn’t have a glossy finish, even on a glossy black base. There’s some details on the upper thigh to do and general refining to do but I need a break from this one for minute while I rip all that old paint off of the titular parts of this kit.

What better for a break kit than the one I’ve been working on since February already? Bluefin recently announced their Bandai hobby open and while my first foray in to gunpla contests all the way back in 2009 left a sour taste in my mouth I think it’s high time to get over it and give it another shot. So, step one: No more waiting for these replacement parts. I bought a FM 1/100 Barbatos Lupus from across the street and swapped out a few bits to get started.

Finally did the detailing on the knees and tail blade. I was holding off on them for awhile because I wasn’t confident in my ability to paint them cleanly but it looks like I should believe in myself a little more.

One solid weekend of work later! The changes to the silhouette with the Lupus parts swapped in looks WAY better and really evokes the knightly vibe I was going for when I set out to theme this kit after my Monster Hunter character. I also picked up some black panel line wash and went over the blue parts with that instead of the dark gray. That change also looks a lot better which really doesn’t surprise anyone. But if I’m thinking of Monster Hunter, it’s not just monsters and hunters that define that game- the weapons do as well.

Pardon the rough cuts and bigtime WIP status of these changes! Things are still in the really early stages for creating a charge blade for the Miria Rex. For the uninitiated, the CB is a weapon in monster hunter that has two modes- a sword and shield mode that boasts high mobility or, by combining the sword and shield, an axe mode that has limited mobility but unleashes devastating attacks. If you’re curious about the weapon or what feeling I’m trying to evoke maybe I’ll make and post some clips from MHW: Iceborne or MHGU to explain it better. In any case the sword is turning out fantastic and I’m really excited to put more work in on it turning it in to a proper weapon.

The other big change is modifying the Rex’s backpack so it can still house the tail blade but has the left/right side’s from the Lupus’ backpack instead. Why? Well, initially I wanted to have it so the sub-arm from the Lupus could be used to hold the sword on the back of the kit with it’s new giant fuck-you sized handguard but the parts that are there for the tail blade get in the way and you know what? I just chopped apart a finished backpack for a last minute idea and sometimes you have to draw the line somewhere. So the subarms won’t function, but the aesthetics will still look great! The backpack still has a really look way to go because I need to figure out how to keep the center ‘wheel’ part that holds the tail blade where it goes and also to cover up the obvious gaps and such that are left by uh…totally obliterating the majority of the original backpack.

That’s all for today’s post! I wish I could say I’ll have another post before the month is out but who knows? Life is so crazy. To that end, I’m thinking about adding some sections to the blog that aren’t gunpla related so that way I have more things to update with. We’ll see what happens with any of that since I’d need to actually sit down and commit to typing them up.

Til next time!

FM 1/100 Barbatos Lupus Rex wip: Frame 2

There’s still a good degree of cleanup work to do on the frame but the groundwork is looking pretty good. I tried to practice preshading…post shading? highlighting? one of those three on the main parts of the frame. I started off by priming the part with Mr Finishing surfacer 1500, then going over the edges and countour areas of the part with Alclad II gunmetal. After that, I filled in the main parts of the frame with my usual Mr. Color 301 Dark Gray.

I think the end result works? I feel like the frame as I’ve finished it on this kit looks like it has a little more depth to it that other frames I’ve worked on in the past. You can also see the claws as I’ve gotten them done so far but let’s take a closer look at those:

I tried a few things with these parts. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t! I sharped the claws and that worked pretty well! The thumbs turned out a little short and I realized after painting them that there was some space under the backs of the claws that I coulda trimmed off too to make them look meaner.

Paint wise, the claws were also a testbed for new paints: Gaianotes Ultimate Black and Mr. Color super metallic 2 Super Chrome Silver 2. Both of those paints are a mouthful but the results are phenomenal. I’m a huge fan of both paints- the pigments and metal flakes respectively are finer or something that makes them spray and clean up much nicer. I used Mr. Color’s leveling thinner with both and can’t wait to experiment more with them. More Gaianotes metallics are absolutely coming in the future as well. Polishing the parts with 2000 grit sandpaper before painting them really helped the chrome finish turn out nicely as well.

What absolutely didn’t work is using liquid mask for the claws. I didn’t put enough of it down and as a result getting it off of the underside of the claws was miserable which caused a fair amount of damage to the underside of the hands and messed up paint abound. I also stupidly forgot to spray the chrome on the claws with Aclad II’s aquad gloss clearcoat to protect the chrome finish on the claws so I don’t really expect them to stay nice. I’ll probably redo them if they look bad by the end of everything.

Working on the outer armor for the sections I’ve got finished now so the next post will be “look, it looks like a gundam now” instead of gazing in awe at the chickenlegs of the frame.

Til next time!