Thanks for the reply and the welcome!

 I had to order this from Hong Kong, availability is still a little tight! Was sort of a birthday gift to myself. How did you get an Acguy plush? Awesome icon.

 As for the trim, the decals are no good (too yellow), the stickers are, well, stickers, and it would be an Epic Project to try and use gold BMF. So I'm going to paint all of the trim by hand.

 I don't mind the cable armor rings so much really. It's just like doing the road wheels and track links on a panzer. You kind of get a zen thing going with such a repetetive act. I rarely consider aftermarket parts, simply because they're often so expensive for what you get, and so far the engineering on the Sinanju kit is top notch. (though I've heard a few issues about mounting the shield, we'll see!)

SkullGundam wrote:

First, I'd like to say awesome job on the figure.  I have the MG Strike Freedom and it comes with three figures that size and I want to do them but I'm at a loss on how.  Any tips?

This is one of thoses where I wish I had that lighted magnifier. Which is to say it took a lot of squinting and a steady hand. My head still hurts. I used my 5/0 detail brush for the whole thing and even that felt like trying to paint with a hammer.

SkullGundam wrote:

The cockpit seat looks cool too, who cares if it's tucked away inside, at least you will know its there and awesome looking.  Also, per STV's question, I looked on one of the store sites (can't remember which) and saw the parts.  The gold trim is all a sticker, which I know you probably wont use on a model you just spent tons of time painting.  But can you use the paper the stickers came on as a ready made stencil?  cut out the wax paper backing and tape the paper with the sticker sized openings to the model, then either hand paint, or mask the hell out of everything else and spray it.  Would that work?

 I hadn't thought of using them that way, looking at the sticker sheet, that certainly seems possible. I may have to try that on a few test parts when I start painting the trim. Thanks!

Puma_Adder wrote:

I also picked this kit up in the last week or 2. your build saves me the trouble of having to buy two, thank you! it all looks like it will be a fun build and paint, but I need to finish all of the other Gundam kits, like my Gelgoog and Acguy.........   keep up the good work! also, what space marine chapter is that?

I was wondering if you'd end up on this thread. ^.^ 

My problem with Gundam kits is I end up building them, and then just not getting around to finishing them. I plan to do it right this time!

 Space marine chapter is one of my own, an Iron Hands offshoot called The Unyielding. I've only got the one squad and a character done so far, but I'll be working on those more this year too!

Depends, do you want the pure anime look, or the realistic look?

former, metalic.

latter, flat. 

also, damn, thats one sexy machine... 

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The Acguy is the Tiny Tim of the Gundam Universe, they need the most love of all.

Thanks for the compliments, I could only hope to get a FSM writeup on this!

This is my new standard way to do mono-eyes and I have to say I can't be more pleased with the result. it originally started with putting color on the clear bit and silver on the backing, then mashing them together while still wet, and sort of got refined from there.

 The Kampfer is a great looking kit and has a lot of room for custom paintjobs and modifications, though assembles just a little wobbly.

 I'm down to either masking and airbrushing or simply carefully hand-painting the gold trim. I've been doing Space Marines the last year, and compared to that, the detail painting here is downright chunky. Since there's no harm in it I will start with a test mask-and spray on a smaller part and see how it turns out.

 Right now I'm waiting on some supplies I need before starting my painting, but expect the log to resume within a week, and thanks for watching!

So now I'm prepping for painting. I've got my:

floral foam

coffee stirrers

loctite blue fun-tak

Hopefully polly-s airbrush thinner will work fine with tamiya and model master acrylics. ^.^ Anyone have experience with this?

Additionally, I'm exploring what metallic paints will work best for the trim here. Obviously, Tamiya silver and gold are out of the question, as they're far too grainy. My Reaper master series gold is quite nice, but there's no way it's going through the airbrush. If I were to hand-brush the gold, I'd have a winner. I've got a model master acrylic gold that's okay, but it's fairly brown. What have folks around here used to get a good gold finish? Should I go all out and pick up some SNJ or AlcladII?

 These are the only parts that needed filler work, and the fuel tanks only because I butchered them. I have to hand it to bandai's engineering on this thing. I MAY still need to use putty on the back of the head and the wrist armor plates, but I can't till till after I've painted and assembled. =(

Everything is washed, soon as they're dry I'll re-bag, and butcher a cardboard box to use as a makeshift spray-booth. Stay tuned!