Got a clear coat on, and wanted to put the fella mostly together to put decals on. Here he is:

I'll probably take him apart down to arms, legs, and torso to whitewash and gunk up and stuff.

Robotism

What paints are those Bad? They look fantastic.

 

Thanks! They're Tamiya paints - the brown is flat earth, the medium tan is desert yellow, and the lighter tan is buff. No idea why I had them lying around but I'm glad I did.

What paints are those Bad? They look fantastic.

Did some painting on my pieces parts:

I think this paint is the flattest flat ever. I love it, but I need to clear coat, decal, clear coat, hair spray, white, mess up, hair spray, white, mess up, wash, and maybe clear again. We'll see. Oh, and do the metal parts too. Can't forget that.

Real G

 

 

Robotism

was browsing through the Advance of Zeta books as research and stumbled across this Dom, good inspiration. Siek Zeon

 

 

 

That Dom was from 0080: War in the Pocket.

Advance of Zeta introduced the Dom Stutzer, which featured a long vertical fin affixed to its front for some odd reason.

https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/MS-09R_Rick_Dom_%EF%BC%BBStutzer%EF%BC%BD

 

The kit used is the Dom Tropen from 0083 not 0080. But that scheme is from AoZ which started the Zeon Alive slogans on the suits which is why I mentioned the source.

Real G & Stephen: Those are coming along great guys!!! 

Robotism

was browsing through the Advance of Zeta books as research and stumbled across this Dom, good inspiration. Siek Zeon

That Dom was from 0080: War in the Pocket.

Advance of Zeta introduced the Dom Stutzer, which featured a long vertical fin affixed to its front for some odd reason.

https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/MS-09R_Rick_Dom_%EF%BC%BBStutzer%EF%BC%BD

was browsing through the Advance of Zeta books as research and stumbled across this Dom, good inspiration. Siek Zeon

Stephen,

Holding the stretched sprue in the liquid cement bottle for a few seconds helps sometimes. But if the kit’s plastic formula is brittle, it will still crack.  Yes use the Tamiya or Gunze glues, as they are a lot hotter than Testors.

I have the Gouf's weapons system done. I really like that gattling canon.

Next up will be fixing the seams and priming the kit.

As promised, here is the sprue technique I use to fill gaps.

Some conditions, like the heel area, are better off using conventional putty.

And so puttying commences.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, those look awesome guys!!!

My wire came in Friday (thanks Real G!) and it fiddled around with it and the LED some Fri and Sat. I was hoping to get her all in place and ready to go Easter Sunday but ended up getting a splitting headache and nothing done. 

Cross your fingers I'll get everything in place this week and be ready to paint. 

That sounds great. I've been wanting to do a winter wash MS for a while not but haven't got round to it.

Robotism

Are you going for the original colours Bad or something original?
 

I'm planning going with a desert paint scheme, but then add a worn winter whitewashing to it a la German WWII armor. Never tried that before so we'll have to see how it goes.

Good luck on your build! You'll figure a way.

Are you going for the original colours Bad or something original?

I guess this is the first true dirty robot post of the thread. Cover any small children's eyes and maybe the wifes... But here we go!

The legs are untouchable unless you want to go parts hunting. They're pure grenade and won't stay together enough to even take a photo with the legs built. I have the rear skirt and the weapons pod to build and then it's seam fixing time. Seams are really bad on parts but there's few of those parts.

I have no idea how to split this up for painting. Too many parts rely on each other and it's too stiff a build to split it apart.

Love the Piggy so far! At some point in my life I'll have to build a MaK model.

Got lots o part primed. Gotta check/fix my seam filling and then it's painting time.

Here Piggy piggy piggy! Looks like it's coming along niceless. Not painting polycaps sounds a good idea.

Made a lot of progress tonight but I'll show that later or edit it in later because I want to record my success and suffering on this piece here.

The large piece has a flexible and fragile back "wing". The polycap at the front doesn't fit unless seriously trimmed down. The red cross bar has to go across another piece you install at the same time and there is no way to avoid having to do all this at once. The fittings are so fit you have to pre-trim them or this would never close and I struggled as it was. I've never found a kit with a difficulty curve before but this is the last boss or the super secret boss you're supposed to do after you finish the game.. Either way it's one of the hardest pieces I've ever built.

There's a lot of progress tonight but it looks way less than the work that went into it. The kit has quite a bit of internal detail but no good way to display it, so you build a lot of stuff only to cover the whole piece with large covers. I have lots of big chunky bits to show off later.

I'll post some how-to photos of the sprue filler technique to allay any apprehensions to using the process.  It really changed the way I build models.

Anyway, this little Seapiggy got worked on last night:

I need to clean up the polycap joints before the leg halves can be glued together.  The material the polycaps are made of must be some kind of polymer blend, as it is possible to gently sand off the parting lines.  As much as I obsess on painting everything, I think I will leave these unpainted and only apply weathering on them.  A couple of buddies did theirs that way and they looked fine.

I need to keep focus and build the piggy.  Build the piggy, build the piggy, BUILD THE PIGGY!

Oh wow that looks awesome Stephen!!! 

Personally I'd just use putty but liquid sprue should work just as well. 

Good luck!!! 

Real G, thanks for that tip,  I will try it out. 

Nope, stretched sprue is the closest thing you will get to matching the hardness of the kit plastic.  Heating will not affect the strength, since styrene is a thermoplastic - once it cools off, it’s business as usual.  I slather on the Tamiya Extra Thin till the sprue is practically melted with no adverse effects.  Just keep it neat and don’t mop it all over the surrounding area.  I have heated sprue, flattened it, cooled it off to preserve the flatness, then carefully reheated to stretch flat bands for shims and really bad sunken areas.  But Bandai kits never need that kind of fixing!

Ikar01, that was a very lucky find!

I worked on the Seapig a bit before bed.  I’m sanding the mold lines of the polycap joints, and amazingly they are disappearing.  I’ll post pics of the little piggy on his feet tomorrow.

Heating up the plastic or using cement to secure it will make it softer than the surrounding plastic won't it? I don't think there is a way to keep the plastic hardness and making it attach to something. Super glue would have it's own hardness differences.

When I was stationed at Kadena in Okinawa (not to be confused with whereever it was they used in the original Katate Kid 2) back then Each payday I would stock up on Yen at the base bank and take my kid to a couple toy stores near the closest Marine base ind gran what kits I was interested in.  I had most all the Macross kits but somehow never got around to the Monster.  This particular kit I found at a Modelpalooza some years ago, sitting in the bottom corner of a vendor's stock.  I was looking it over a bit and asked him how much he wanted, mentioning it had no instructions.  I picked it up for $5.00.  In my haste to get back to where I belonged I hadn't noticed it did have the instructions buried under the loose parts.  That was the only one I had seen since I got back to the states.

Stephen,

Try stretching some sprue from the kit and glue it into the seams.  Do this before heading to bed, then they will be ready to trim and sand the following day.  Sprue lays down neater than putty, and is the same color and hardness of the rest of the kit.  I now use this technique first when filling seams.  Putty can shrink and flake, and CA glue can become super hard and not take to rescribing as well.  Give it a try, you might like it.

And don't forget to come up with cool poses!

Okay, that one was not too cool, but you get the idea.

So this is the seam on the shoulder, will take a little putty to fix that.

But, at least the Gouf is together,

Next up is to work on the weapon systems. Love these Bandai kits, they go together so quickly.

Robotism

Is that sold or asking for? I want to say they got a reprint relatively recently.

A$king price.  The Arii kit is 1/160 scale, bigger than the 1/200 Imai version.  It is the Imai version that gets repopped from time to time.  I have never seen the Arii kit reissued.

Is that sold or asking for? I want to say they got a reprint relatively recently.

Hey Ikar01,

That's a rare beast!  I have only seen the kit on the shelves once, and I got it for my birthday!  It was $15 at the Hobby Company in the Pearl Ridge Shopping Center back in the mid 1980s.  It builds into a very good looking model.  Here's mine, albeit in a group shot:

I looked around FleaBay and the current prices are in the $250-$300 range.  Gyah.

NucMedTech

Real G, much is the case with the Gouf and panel lines, except for the shoulders. Those come split in half with the split going up the horns. I am surprised Bandai went that route instead of making the horns a seperate solid piece.

Stephen

 

Tonight my build went full China. Not slightly China, full China. There's a part in the thigh which goes round the truster using 3 pegs to fit in, the pegs are blocked by 2 cross bars with peg looking injection molds coming out. This wouldn't be a problem if the piece in the instructions told you to cut them off or even showed you the piece from that side but it doesn't. Took the gamble and cut them off, it fits okayish.. The parts straight but the purple connecting part is shaped slightly differently so it all fits, but it fits poorly and needs gluing. There is literally no other way to connect it I can see so there we go.. It's just a bit of glue and putty work but frustrating building.

I think I will end up going with the magazine classic Titans colours because colour seperation and masking will be a nightmare on this. I don't know how you weather navy and black yet, but I can figure it out. I've had some eye troubles the last few days which slowed the build down, had to sit out a couple of building days. Over the weekend I should get the (very phallic...) hips and butt skirt done, and the rest of the legs. The weapons are the most complex part of the whole build and might be a full build session all on it's own.

I'm enjoying seeing the other kits being built. Really glad I suggested this and seeing some kits I never would have expected. If all goes well I hope we can make this a bianual event or something.

ikar01, if you can find it Scifi scale did a magazine called Mecha meka robot. There's a very similar kit done for a diorama. If you can find a copy you may get some inspiration. I can try and get a picture of the finished diorama if you can't find it.

This one was going to be a quick and easy build, I thought.  That changed with the lightly printed instructions and by vision.  Thank goodness for my Father's magnifying glass.  

The parts were a little more complicated than I thought they would be and my sight didn't help.

There was a lot of putty used here, but this kit was from the early 80s when the Macross show was on Japanese T.V.