Sinanju WIP *warning very pic heavy*

smeagol the vile wrote:

Well, come on man, lets see some pics of the gun and of the book and such open!

Aight. Here's primed pics of the zook.

 I'm going to paint it RLM74 Dk Gray, just like the rifle, with a bit of divergence for interest: the sensor will get radome tan, clear blue for the optics, and burnt metal bits and bobs like the rifle. The bazooka rockets themselves will get contrasting paint, I need to work out some realistic color-coding for the HEDP warhead.

smeagol the vile wrote:

Is that a book and an AM weapon?

Verily!

It's all assembled and primed now. Unlike most of the Sinanju, this thing was not so carefully designed and cast, and I had to do some real work to get rid of mold lines. Also, the barrel slides a bit too tightly, I need to loosen things up a little if I want to be able to slide it in and out if I don't want to scrape all the paint off in the process.

Some neat things that weren't revealed about the kit till now:

the bazooka optics combine with the rifle optics for when you mount them together, and it looks pretty badass.

 When you mount the bazooka on the shield, there's a whole new clip for attaching to the forearm (which may just be for the unicorn gatlings, I'm not sure) plus the bazooka handle moves so there's actually something to grip, helping with the whole shield situation in general.

Was down for a bit because my airbrush compressor needed parts!

all back now though, and in the meanwhile I've been working on the beam axe handles., as I've wanted them to look more like the G-system Sinanju's, with smooth, body colored panels. So after filling the holes I started adding evergreen sheet styrene. This is complex, as a few attachment points need to stay in order to use it in the various configurations.

Have to cut out the holes that interface with the hand of course.

And filled. I still need to add surface detail, a few more panels for visual interest, prime and pre-paint. woo!

lessons learned: I need a panel line scriber and squadron white shrinks way too much to use as a filler in this application.

smeagol the vile wrote:

Arent ya glad you took my advice and went with the mechaskunk option?  Those parts are amazing, I wish I had the cash for all of their stuff.

Yes my paypal acount weeeeeeps. 

 It's going to be a nice day and all, so I'm going to try to get the insides of the bells primed for paint tomorrow. Stil not sure whether I'll leave the baffles bare or paint them white.

Got my mechaskunkorder today! Spent hours sorting and organizing and such. Everything is a perfect fit except for the thrusters on the calves, which are going to need another 1.5mm clearance. This fortunately is easy to remove from the housing. Shockingly I managed to use all the parts except for 2 short pins, the small foot verniers pack, 2 K-large thrusters and the K-baffles. That's a lot of metal! I also discovered that a mechanical pencil (0.5mm with metal tube) is the perfect and I mean perfect tool for pushing those pins in and out.

painting on hold a few days, I figured out the problem with my airbrush compressor.

 You know the gasket, between the halves of the motor housing? The one that keeps all the oil in?

 Yeah. I don't have one of those.

Gotta call the Silentaire peeps and order one.

 Meanwhile I'm gonna keep working on those axe handles.

This kit is awesome, recently finished my first MG , the char's zaku II ver.2.0 but this are very impressive and your work came out good.

The only thing from this kit that not convince me is the inner frame, seems to me too squared respect the out look. but even great.

Minor update this time, still trying to figure out my color mix. In the meanwhile, I added detail to the bits of the backpack thrusters that are going to stay exposed

and some more detail to the arm (though I need to clean up that gundam marker oops)

I also added detail to the beam rifle, but I'll get pics of that with the next round, cause I'm not quite done with it! I also ordered an obscene number of aluminum upgrade parts from Mechaskunk, so, I've still got a lot of work to do!

Pre-shading is done!

 My white mix was 2 pipettes of 70% Isopropyl alcohol, 4 pipettes of Tamiya white, about 6 drops of clear blue and 3 drops of clear red.

I almost blew up my poor Super Silent 20a compressor. I was definitely running it hard for this session. So I took a break after the first batch to totally disassemble it, top up the oil, and seal some air leaks that it's had since I got it.

Filled shoulders are looking pretty good now.

I should have fired up some test sprue, because I have no idea how my red is going to go down on top of all this.

Armed with fresh Squadron White and Tamiya surface primer, I went at the shoulder seams again. Disassembled, cleaned up, and re-asssembled, this time with cement between the offending seams. Filled, sanded, primered, sanded. Looking better. Thanks to folks who suggested some fresh filler and the totally awesome Tamiya surface primer.

And with a fresh coat of black. Now I'm out of Tamiya black. All in all, I didn't used to consider the Tamiya paints much, but boy do they airbrush nice. I think I'll call the seam filling done, and move on to my pre-highlighting. The seam fill itself is iffy as heck. if I handle the shoulders much more, it'll probably re-open. This will be *FUN* when I get to the dry transfers.

I'm now wondering about the thruster bells.

 1: do I paint the inside a different color? Yellow inside the thruster bells is often done for mobile suits, though I'm not sure how it's justified, it certainly looks good.

2: there's a nub on the attaching part that is visible inside the bell. What color do I paint that?

 3: do I just replace all the bells with aluminum ones from mechaskunk?

Day 10

cleaned up the file marks, I'll only have to re-paint a third of the pieces! Plus the black pieces, since I want to have a final smooth coat on them. I may need to give the areas that are to be painted gold extra attention. That stuff is going to need to be pretty smooth to not show problems.

Still working on filling the shoulder armor gaps. a texturing primer my be the best way.

smeagol the vile wrote:

I see I see, I would have gone the other way around.  Just a heads up, when you preshade, atleast, when I do... I do a basecoat first, then only paint the spots that you want preshaded, thats what I do, works good for me.

Wouldn't that be postshading, then?

I'm doing this specifically to try out the Max Watanabe airbrush techniques, so that's why I'm doing luminosity first, then color.

the doog wrote:

What I would do is to get one of those little pacs of Testor's (???) fine sanding paper packs. You know, they're about 4X5' each, in different coors, coordinated to the grits? Wetsand your part there, and then spray again. You should be able to get it better than that...

 I managed to find my  Micro-Mesh polishing cloths (1500-12000 grit), which were once able to put a mirror finish on a bare white-metal shield. I think I can get rid of my sanding marks now. :D

 Tamiya Fine White primer, hm?

smeagol the vile wrote:

Oh gawd that black is gorgeous, I cant wait to see more.  Personally, I'd have preshaded that black with a nice dark red, to give a real cool effect, black really goes well with red imho

I'm still going with a stock red paint scheme, the black is the preshading. :D IT'll all hopefully make sense later. 

Pretty awesome project you've got going here, Sian.

As far as those annoying seams, you shoudl have filled it in with diluted Squadron Putty, thinned with Testor's liquid cement. Let dry thoroughly, and then file with an emery board, and then wet-sand with fine sandpaper. LIke, 600-1200 grit. Lastly, you should use Tamiya's Fine White Primer to catch all the seams still needing attention. This stff is amazing--I learned about it whilst doing some Auto modeling, where seams can utterly ruin a car model. WHen you're dealing with gloss or enamel paints, you must be "anal" about seam filling and plastic preparation with micro-sanding papers if you don't want to see the marks.

What I would do is to get one of those little pacs of Testor's (???) fine sanding paper packs. You know, they're about 4X5' each, in different coors, coordinated to the grits? Wetsand your part there, and then spray again. You should be able to get it better than that...

Oh gawd that black is gorgeous, I cant wait to see more.  Personally, I'd have preshaded that black with a nice dark red, to give a real cool effect, black really goes well with red imho

Your putty, I have started to use squadrin white, as opposed to green, and I am loving it so much more, its so easier to work with and sand.