One Year War GB 2011-2012 !Extended time! 30sept 2012

Updated gb rooster !

Real G added your musai and the dom!

again goggdates!

moved the position of top engines intake

and fixed the ogives with supports

The conduct from plastic rectangles

second try was better

added other lines and some extra detail, the piece rear the head representing a periscope

that's all for the weekend ended

Not really an update, but just some piccies to show where my GB kits are at.

This is my HGUC Dom as of last night.  Some parts, like the torso, arms, and knee joints, have been started.  I also started painting the red parts, including the insides of the lower legs.  Tamiya acrylic Red over Floquil Reefer White primer was used.  The red was suprisingly dense, and satisfactory coverage was achieved in only 2-3 light coats.

And here is the giant 1/400 Musai.  The kit is actually from a line of pre-painted Gundam toys.  Fortuately, this one rates as a full fledged assembly model, and features no pre-painted parts.  It is made entirely of ABS plastic, with no vinyl parts thank goodness.  I have been using Tamiya and Gunze liquid cements for assembly, which seem to bond the pieces well.  Stickers are provided, but are headed straight for the disposal airlock.  Waterslide decals will be substituted.

The "stacks" that protrude from the hull sides were molded in pairs, making cleanup of the interior seams impossible.  I cut the stacks apart with a razor saw so that the seams could be filled and sanded.  I patched the damage I created using Mori-Mori polyester putty.  I could have used some slabs of sheet plastic, but the putty was nearby.  The joints were intentionally stepped so that they would be invisible after assembly.

Clear window parts are provided for the bridges, as well as for the Komusai shuttle cockpit.  They can be made to be inserted after construciton and painting, which will save lazy people like me the trouble of masking.  An optional upper bridge is provided to make Char's Musai, but I opted for a standard ship.

 The turrets have their guns molded in place, so they don't elevate.  The muzzles are separate though, and are molded open.  The turrets have an annoying mold slip line, which will be really fun to clean up.  I am considering sanding off all the sidewall details and rebuilding them with strip plastic.  We'll see how patient I am feeling when I tackle this.

I started assembling the Komusai shuttle.  The upper cargo bay door is removable, which allows Junior to put his 1/400 mobile suits inside.  I modified the cargo bay interior to allow the cockpit window to be inserted after painting.  The bay doors and the optional landing gear will be glued closed for my model.  The shuttle is a jam-fit into the Musai, so unless I can trim the slots in the Musai hull where the Komusai fins fit into, it will be glued in place.

The engine nozzles come as a single molding.  Detail is actually quite nice.  I'll probably either drill out the exhausts and/or add some greeblies inside.

The kit's surface is covered with detail, albeit a little heavy handed.  However, the large size of the finished model will diminish this effect.

Okay that's it for now.  I'll be somewhat inactive for a few weeks to work on some "scale" models for an upcoming club display.

Got some work done on the Zaku, once I got it (gently) pulled apart.

been finding (and painting) gaps in the pieces that I missed earlier, plus, I painted the chestplate!

an example of an area I missed:

sorry about the blurryness.

Also, I painted the axe.

this will be the paintscheme of all the weapons, Dark grey and black.

Say, I heard that someone had a 1/144th Magella Attack Tank, and it seems that some of you don't hold the Feddies in high regard, so....

Meet my M61s!!

Plus, the Hovertrucks:

And that's all I've got. The Zaku is a little sidelined right now, since I have several models on the bench right now, and the Zaku's weapons are not gonna be fun to paint.

Hope that y'all liked the Feddie vehicles--in 1/144th scale, they are tiny, but were exceedingly fun to build.

keep up the great work.

Still SLOWLY assembling my Magella attack tank.  Its going so slowly because the road wheels are small and tedious!

Smeagol,

Try putting the pairs of road wheels together before sanding off the sprue stubs.  That will give you a larger surface to run your sanding sticks across, and give you something bigger to hold on to.  It is much easier than cleaning up the wheels individually.  Be sure to line up the sprue stubs on the wheels before sanding.  And don't be too picky about the return rollers, because you will never see them once the side skirts go on.

When you paint the model, the road wheels may need to be partially hand painted, as I had a hard time airbrushing paint into the deeply dished rims.  Actually, I couldn't get 100% coverage so I faked it by weathering the wheels.

Also, the little rocket bells for the turret are nigh impossible to hold onto while cleaning up, so stick them into one of the mounting holes one at a time to hold them in place while you trim and sand them.  Obviously, do only one at a time, and remove it before putting in the next one.  You run the risk of the dreaded *PLIK* and a visit with the carpet monster if you try holding the bells with tweezers while cleaning up.

HTH,

Neal

Klik

Plus, the Hovertrucks:

 

And that's all I've got. The Zaku is a little sidelined right now, since I have several models on the bench right now, and the Zaku's weapons are not gonna be fun to paint.

Hope that y'all liked the Feddie vehicles--in 1/144th scale, they are tiny, but were exceedingly fun to build.

keep up the great work.

that's one *** thing that bandai give to me!!!! 

just afters finish to assembly my stratched one hoovertruck in 1/144 i see one of new ìs from bandai was ... the set with two of these ... but i'm pride to have the first one in this scale!!! (at least not seen on web others scratch of hovertruck)

don't fear about the blurry pictures, are fairly clear .

Real G i know what you mean by an entire kit in ABS!! this material is the first problem on mg to get good finish on inner skeletons. Was really hard to remove flasher and mould seam from my char's zaku. I figure work needed to manage a total ABS model

on sidenote, ABS it's a perfect material to make in airplane/helicopter kits wire antennas!! more resistent than normal sprues

that's my results with stretched ABS on my gunship chinook

actually working on others kit but soon again googdates

Yea, I am building them then cleaning the sprue nips off.  the bells are already done, I did actually hold them by hand and sand them, amazing I didn't loose any pieces.

I know about hand painting road wheels I have done tanks before, but at this small scale, just running black over the outside of it should be enough.

Im not sure what to do with the 2nd magella though, see... I had built it when I first got the kit (more then a year ago) just a dry fitting, put it back in the box.  Thing is... one of the barrels on the tri gun on the front broke.  Im not sure what to do, right now im going to try to put a hold where it was and put in a piece of brass, but that might not look right, it wont seem the same as the others.

Smeagol,

Your dexterity and grip are superior to mine!  I couldn't hang onto those teeny slippery rocket bells long enough to get in a swipe with the sandpaper.

For the tri-barrel gun, if you cannot fabricate a replacement to match the remaining ones, I suggest checking out some Quickboost resin machine gun barrels, and replace all three.  Maybe British .303 guns would look appropriate, as they have the cone shaped flash suppressors.

BTW, the Magella is so small that I had to pretty much use a magnifying visor continuously when working on mine.

Good luck on yours, and post some photos when you can!

GraySnake, at the least use the "without container" option, must be some piece to show the rx without it.

bsyamato

GraySnake, at the least use the "without container" option, must be some piece to show the rx without it.

Hey, I never thought of that. Thanks bsyamato

Klik - Nice Feddie vehcles!  I kind of wished that the hover truck and tank were avaialble without having to buy more mobile suits.  I kind of have too many as it is.

Smeagol - I'll hold the line until you get your Magellas up and running!

BTW, I was wondering if there is a way to make some kind of photo narrative at the end of the GB, using the finished models to show "mobile suits in action" during the One Year War.  The idea would be for everyone to take cool combat pose photos of their models and use them to illustrate the progression of a combat scene.  I know I'm a trouble maker, but I had to throw that one out to see if it could float.  Bsyamato, what do you think?

GreySnake

 

bsyamato:

 

GraySnake, at the least use the "without container" option, must be some piece to show the rx without it.

 

 

 

Hey, I never thought of that. Thanks bsyamato

That pack was only used in combat for parachuting, which it was automatically discarded when landing, or for carrying the long range artillery piece, either way no unit carried that whole thing into battle every time, was to much of a big, easy target.

also, that is a sweet magella attack tank.

Dupes,

Take your time and enjoy the movies.  Just grab a drinkie and relax, no worries  The urge to model can be dealt with afterwards!  (This is coming from a guy who is from the analog age, who cannot watch TV while doing anything else except eat snackies.)  Personally, I prefer to watch Japanese stuff with subtitles, as the voice actors are a cut above their English speaking counterparts.

A bit of Gundam technical background is in order, I believe.  The majority of mobile suits use conventional solid ammunition weapons.  The Gundam has a beam weapon main gun, so it technically never runs out of "bullets."  However the creators of the show, bless their hearts, made the weapon a voracious consumer of energy which could easily outstrip the onboard generatot's output.  Thus Amuro couldn't continously blast away like in a video game.  The Vulcan cannon in the Gundam's head are conventional but caseless, so you never see any spent shells pouring out of it's head.  (But I noticed in the TV commercial for the theatrically released "Char's Counterattack", the Nu Gundam's Vulcans DO eject spent casings.)  Anyway, part of Gundam's "reality" is that ammo does run out quickly when you hold the trigger down too long.

Regarding construction, yes it is a trick deciding when to paint or assemble first.  You will find that you will need to do both as you build robot type kits.  Bandai has been very active in evolving their kit engineering to make it easy on us to build and paint their products.  The older style kits required prepainting all parts, assembling and cleaning up the innermost parts, touching up paint, adding the secondary parts, touch up and repaint, then adding the final outermost parts, followed by more touch up and repaint.  The newer kits usually have a modular style of construction which reduces or eliminates the multi-stage assemble-sand-paint routine.  Everyone approaches the problem in a different way - you will need to develop an approach that is best suited to your methods.

One thing I have found out only recently is that it is better to mask off the joint pins and sockets when painting, as Bandai designs the parts to work without paint.  A coat of primer and paint can cause parts to bind.  I use sprue to fit into the sockets and small bits of tape for the pins when painting.  I have seen other modelers use sponge foam to fill large and irregular holes.

The chronology of Gundam goes something like this:

- Mobile Suit Gundam / 08th MS Team / 0080: War in the Pocket / MS Igloo all happen around the same time.  (The One Year War)

- 0083: Stardust Memories happens after the One Year War.

- Zeta Gundam happens after Stardust Memories.

- Double Zeta Gundam  is after Zeta.  (But some purists question the validity of the show as it was kind of silly.)  I am not sure if Double Zeta was released in the US.

- Char's Counterattack is the final (?) installment of the UC Gundam time line.

Gundam Sentinel, which occurs around the same time as Double Zeta, was never made into a anime.  Model Graphix magazine ran a fantastic photo story series in the 1980s though.

Others may know more.

Regarding the overflow of kits, the unfortunate thing is that I rarely buy duplicate subjects; the Gundam universe is just that big.  I only buy stuff from the UC time line, so I have no Gundam Wing, Endless Waltz, G, X, Turn A, F-91, Double O, etc kits.  But hey, if you are looking for a particular model I might be able to help.

HTH

Try to reply in someway dupes .

gundam kits are not as normal kits that absolutely need glue. you can paint singular limb easily as you nees , the after the limb finished you can just snap it to the rest, most kits allow this, in some cases the kit forces you to paint an entire legs after assembly, but are various ways to avoid this and simplify the paint stage, take a look at my work'n'progress of powered gm, in the sci-fi section, i show a tip for the knee and elbow joint

/forums/p/136541/1410360.aspx#1410360

and paints went after seams , but as smeagol says , seams in latest kits are really few and easily to remove.

i try to explain with few on fly pictures

i'll use my seond z'gock normal version

as you see he's snapped 

you can easily remove all subassemblies parts because are snapped with lots of pcb (polycaps , a type of elastic plastic) pieces

just glue , sand and paint, decalling ythe single engine , when finish just snap on finished model.

the arms too

all parts in this kits are easy to refine in single stage ... but a good modeller have thousand of way to complicate the life adding lots of things as stikpusher teach me  , this disease is called AMS (advanced modeller syndrome)

2) for the cronology i think smeagol gived a good link to the gundam universe in his mega explanation

there's lots of serie about gundams, i can't speak objectively because i'm from old school gundams , just the already mentioned oav 0080 war in the pocket and ms igloo 3d series (the m-61 tank are in these ),out of this contest (gb) 0083 stardust memory oav, also the second in cronology time the "gundam Z" (about 50 episodes) ,char's conter attack are a single good movie, there's plenty of good zeon ms!

Between others  series i see (talking only for the story, can't talk about mechs or someone will kill me) "seed" and "seed destiny" have a good sttory but sometimes too many songs between , the latest, gundam 00, seems to be good but not watched all (others 50 episodes )... "Turn A gundam" honestly don't remembe so good , but as 00 and seed series have totally another universe (in the turn a gundam a zaku 2 and others ms are discovered as ancient relics)

For the kits i have no excess stash stock the three i probably not finish i will use in other ways, and are really old (for expample the old rx-79g , i have the newest one , i'll use it fo do a conversion)

i hope me clear friend

actually i use google chrome as browser, are very fast, as other option try opera, more complete.

Firefox as i see consumes too computer resources.

this are a parachute for you smeagol?

.... a little heavy for a parachute LOL

the backpack are used mainly to store the unmounted big gun for the RX and to transport some other good,

if i remind correct the EZ have the parachute on the back..

returning on the RX-79g for GraySnake , with unmounted backpack the pieces must be as this

your kit have a part like this

....................

OMG  

mmm... great magella apart (damn! the kit costs very much in italy ... probably talk someothe this summer ,bring me from japan for free ) .....

what do you mean about in action? to do photoshop postwork? I have a good knowledge about photoshop but neve tried to retouch in this way a gundam picture. It's a good idea but actually no kit finished here

talk more later

Bsyamato,

What I had in mind for the "MS in Action!" was that at the end of the group build, we all take photos of our models in action poses and put together a photo story of some kind.  It will take some planning and coordination between the participants, but I think it would be fun.

Well we have about a year, so no hurry.

Your wrong with the timeline, after Char's counter attack was Gundam F91, then Victory gundam, and then G savior (which is technically in the UC timeline)

Real G

Bsyamato,

What I had in mind for the "MS in Action!" was that at the end of the group build, we all take photos of our models in action poses and put together a photo story of some kind.  It will take some planning and coordination between the participants, but I think it would be fun.

Well we have about a year, so no hurry.

possible is.. needed just photos with clear background, but just wait for others to reply.

My previous work was in photoshop postproductions

Smeagol,

I stand corrected.  (But I am a Gundam snob, so I don't count F91, Victory and G Saviour! )

To each his own.  Plus, there are too many kits from each series to buy anyway, so it is just as well that I don't dabble in all the series.  As I said, others may know more.  (And they do!)

Gotta get off my duff now and start building...

Real G

Smeagol,

I stand corrected.  (But I am a Gundam snob, so I don't count F91, Victory and G Saviour! )

To each his own.  Plus, there are too many kits from each series to buy anyway, so it is just as well that I don't dabble in all the series.  As I said, others may know more.  (And they do!)

Gotta get off my duff now and start building...

you more extremist than me about ms series (totally forget about f-91 and victory)

Bsyamato,

Yeah, well I happen to really like the aesthetic of the original core series of MS designs, and am not all that crazy about the overly fancy stuff.  Funny thing is I don't particularly like Kunio Okawara's design style, which usually feature blocky details.  (He's the guy who designed a lot of the mobile suits across many series, including the original show.)  My steadfast interest in only certain "UC canon" MS designs earned me the nickname "Real G" at the local anime hobby shop.  (So now you know where that came from!)

But, to each his own, and I have no problems with anyone liking the other series.  It's a big universe, and there is room for everyone!

Real G

Bsyamato,

Yeah, well I happen to really like the aesthetic of the original core series of MS designs, and am not all that crazy about the overly fancy stuff.  Funny thing is I don't particularly like Kunio Okawara's design style, which usually feature blocky details.  (He's the guy who designed a lot of the mobile suits across many series, including the original show.)  My steadfast interest in only certain "UC canon" MS designs earned me the nickname "Real G" at the local anime hobby shop.  (So now you know where that came from!)

But, to each his own, and I have no problems with anyone liking the other series.  It's a big universe, and there is room for everyone!

yess ! i watched lots of gundam series, as i speak , liked the gunda seed/seed destiny but not mech desing (just the new gouf or in some way the zaku warrior), on 00 gundam only like the tieren, it's perfectly an armour on legs! but none others.Like too the patlabor mechs (all! specially civil labor) and as old desing the mcross mechs too. Lots of other desing i like but these are the most liked for me

That's the way next year we need an ALL MECHS GB!!! yess

We are too old for new desing?

Bsyamato,

The 1980s was the greatest era for "real robot" anime; I was like a kid in a candy store!  Since then though, the "harware show" anime have declined, and it is all character shows now.  But that's not to say character shows are all bad; for example, I really liked "Trigun."  Oh, that one was also a pretty old show.  I think one problem for me is that the newer stuff tends to be elaborate for the sake of being elaborate.  I like functional designs the best.  I agree that the Tieren looks practical, and definitely has a military look to it.

Anyway, it could be that our demographics are similar (I was born in the 1960s), so maybe that's why our tastes are also similar.

An all-mech GB next year would be great!  Let everyone play: super robot, real robot, sci-fi robot, original design robot, etc!

I tell you what, you guys are worth your weight in gold when it comes to the world of Gundam!

I'm off to watch movie number two (with 08th MS on deck, and War In The Pocket on it's way from Netflix)...I think I'll understand the construction/painting order more after I crack into one of these guys. Won't be long now!

Thanks again for bringing this n00b up to speed!

it's a pleasure Dupes

i'm really curious how an armor builder do the first gunpla kit

hope not a tragedy as me from aircraft world! first two was not so good!

Dupes,

I am sure you will do great!  Remember, a plastic model is a plastic model, even if it has arms, legs, and a head!  Your armor experience will only help you in your build, especially in the painting and weathering process.  You armor guys are always good in that department!  No fear Dupes, and please post progress photos!

I hope you get a blast out of watching the 08th MS Team and 0080.  Of all the series, 0080 is dearest to me - I couldn't figure out why until a friend commented "My god, that little kid is YOU!!!"  I hated to admit it, but I think he was right.

Dupes man, I am really glad your jumping into this head first.  To many armor and aircraft guys give us the stink eye when we ask them to try our stuff, ya know?  Even when they do they like... take something that VERY close to what there used to do, then modify it to make it even closer.  I dunno but to me that kills the spirit of the thing.

Haaahahahhaaaa..."the stink eye". I can TOTALLY see it, too.

Believe me, I can see this being right up my alley - was always big into the Battletech stuff from about age 14 until, well, now! Unfortunately, no one does any good 'mech kits, so this should be a MORE than suitable outlet for my sci-fi robot suit needs.