Wave 1/144 LED Mirage done

Looks great 

very nice finish!!!!!!

now you're ready to start a weathered zock!

Complete: Added the rest of bits and pieces like the reflectors on chest piece etc. Posability of the kit is about 4 degrees from the standing pose or risk paint chipping, and a coat of flat to tone down the gloss on the inner frame a bit. 

So, here's the classical, hold Veil (shield) in hand at ready pose. Except, there's no physical sword included in this kit to rest the other hand on. What's included is a laser sword, which, doesn't work in this pose for obvious reasons. 

ahah that's great

i only see kits from this series and some piece on youtube but like the desing of these machines. on sci-fi actually build gunpla kits... lots of rust and mud there

waiting for finished mirage

Weathering a LED Mirage? Totally Sacrilege As the setting goes, the semi-transparent, chitinous armour on LED Mirages self repairs, is not metal therefore will not rust, is more or less some kind of organic living compound, and probably self cleans and cooks dinner for the headliner, too! The MH itself is powered by some laser engine that uses light to generate power so is totally emission free (wow, solution to today's environmental and energy needs, if only such thing exists) Besides, other than mercenary knights any MH representing a country would be maintained and maintained and maintained, afterall they are the symbol of the ruling elite...A dirty LED Mirage might be the death sentence of a Mirage Knight, they report directly to Amaterasu - the gangster emperor of the Joker Star Cluster after all...

Enough of my rambling.

never built one but i like this series! 

nice work on

in mind to weather it?

~90%

Sped up the body build, Veil will have to wait for a coat of dark grey underside that I missed, same applies for the reflectors on the chest piece. 

All washed up. Actually there are quite a few places that need some detail painting in silver etc. I'm undecided on whether to have the veil rack on the arm or rather have it holding the veil on the ground (which is a more typical FSS pose) 

Lots of small imperfections that I can see, not necessarily evident in the photo due to the smallish size. Due to the coarse paint job, the wash didn't get cleanly wiped off, so ended up with a slightly dirty look which is annoying. Now that wave kits have a pass mark in my books, I've got an Engage SR-1, SR-3 and LED Ver 3 on order.

Kit review:

This is not a resin kit so there's minimal masking (in comparison) due to decent parts break-up:

Some armour undersides (shoulder, skirt) and legs

The skirt armour assembly is bad - side skirts do not fit into the sockets - need correction to fit and in general I believe the parts should be trimmed/modified to improve movement. I highly recommend test-fit these bits before painting, or better yet, assemble then paint but mask if your silver paint is maskable. The legs also interferes with back curve of the side skirt armour, and I think future build should move the main hip joint about 1.5 mm forward.

In general the kit is flimsy at joints - due to the connection of polycap housing and poly cap not being tight (the cap themselves fit good). Can be corrected with a filling of expoxy putty but I didn't bother. It also has some parts that are to be 'clipped' into place - which if already painted can damage paint job. Oh, it goes without saying this kit requires glue - it is not snap tight like gundam kits.

Decal is fair - good thickness, difficulty to get off backing sheet (with led to the larger pieces being a bit fragile) but generally react to setting solution well and is moderately flexible. The main issues are the main pieces do not quite trace the leg engravings 100% and the red being too bright - mirage cross should be blood red, but to correct it need masking/spray or aftermarket decals.

Great job on the build.

I've seen these kits at the store but frankly they intimidate me.

All those areas to paint and detail and NOT get it on the wrong body part. So much taping, etc. My hands are the steadiest on a good day.

But well done on your build. What's next? Keep up it up!

Thanks for this build up, I have always seen these girls all finished up and painted and they looked so MASSIVELY hard to build, looking at it step by step it doesn't seem so.

Entering home straight.. The skirt armour was very problematic. Especially after I painted them then tried to assemble, and found out the side skirts doesn't even fit. I used Gunze's metaliser which means, back to the booth for another coat after the handling.

Number chosen is Far Eastern Mirage Corp's #2, princess Aisha Codante - in the spirit of royal flavours this weekend. Also that Aisha as a younger-man hunting middle aged tigress was an interesting character! I doubt her Mirage would be standard though as she's prone to customize things. Thinking about what can be done there..

After a gloss coat, will be panel lining time.

If this was a clear resin kit with full internal skeleton and no ejector pin marks I might consider. As it stands, cannot imagine the look of random dark blobs shown through the milky white plastic.

First time using pearl powder, mixed in acrylics basically gives this slightly silvery paint. I don't know how much I'm supposed to mix in, and first tried gloss white (which didn't turn out that well, I forgot how difficult it is to airbrush white without an undercoat), then settled with flat white to gloss coat later. Of the experimental pieces, I can see trace metallic looking particles but it is not a very obvious effect.

The internals are supposed to be show through the transparent armor.. ;)

Many of the armour's inner surface need to be painted dark grey, given the plastic is transparent, I'm afraid it is not possible to do it without painting the outer surface as the under surface will otherwise shown through. Got a bottle of pearl white from Volks shop whilst in Japan earlier in the year and will make use of it. Wonder how it will go with Acrylic paint?

I build that kit a few years back.

Wave kits are nice and come a long way over the decades when they specialised in Resin and Vinyl kits mostly. FYI, they are not a minor kit maker in japan but a very big name having their own tool, AM, etc lines. Their shop is often featured in Anime, etc.

Nice build so far and I would leave the armor pieces unpainted, builds up nice that way.

Maybe be just a single clear pearl coat. I usually did using Wave Pearl Powders.

I'm having dejavu doing right/left arm/leg repeats, been a while since my last mech.

After a night's progress, parts are stacked up. Glue bottle for size comparison. It is not a big kit. Here I will say the general sharpness, and fit of the mold is quite good and sharp, better than I expected for a non-main-stream manufacturer. Joints are a bit flimsy/loose. Even parts break-down aint too bad, I may have to mask half a dozen parts when painting but the separation of inner (metallic) and outer armour(white) parts is comprehensive for this scale. 

Looks like a lot of fun enjoy.

Ron