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Karl Ng
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Jul 16 2019
Gundam RX-78 GP01
Still in the process of clearing up my backlog, for an old model kit, this Gundam RX-78 GP01 is fun to build but not fun to get it perfect. There was a lot of sanding on most of the pieces, some parts were made very clumsy, had to use putty in a few areas which I didn’t expect. Really don’t like how the arms are constructed, arms don’t twist (other than the joints under the shoulders) and upper body movement is very limited due to the core fighter. But I am happy that for an old model, nothing broke (unlike the previous ones I built MS-09 DOM and MSN-02 Zeong).
The most difficult area to paint was probably the core fighter front grill (the chest) and there was a lot of hand painting involved in this set. I am really glad that everything came out the way I wanted. Overall, I had a lot of fun building it and it turned out looking amazingly good. Time a take a break and think about what to build next 🙂
Jul 01 2019
MSN-02 Zeong
Yet another backlog project. MSN-02 Zeong from the piles of my Gunpla in the basement. This model kit gave me the most trouble out of all, 5 of the fingers broke, both of the shoulders joints shattered in pieces (see picture below), one of the elbows broke and even small little pieces broke in pieces for no reasons… With the previous kit that I built MS-09 DOM experience, I somehow managed to fix all the broken pieces. Here is a list of how:
- Shoulders: Ended up using epoxy and a few pieces of leftover plastic from the kit, remade the joints completely.
- Fingers: also cut out the leftover plastics and filed them to match all the broken pieces.
- Elbow joints: I super glued and use Baking Soda to harden it solid then filed it down to fit the elbow socket.
I really spent a lot of time on this kit, I wouldn’t say it was not a fun model but Bandai definitely have to come up with a better version of this. First was the cheap plastic, then was the design of all the movable part in the torso, none of them make any sense to me. Every chest joints can only be moved like 2 mm MAX and they won’t really hold positions/poses… or maybe it’s old…
Anyhow, because of the scale of this kit 1/100 and MS-02 Zeong is probably one of the biggest in size, my eyes can perfectly handle the details and hand painting part. I am pretty happy with the paint job I did to the jets since the jet engines are the main components. And I used a different kind of spray paint method for the body as well, really want to have the shiny look to it but not too shinny.
in conclusion, this is probably the most time I spent on a model kit (weeks) and I am having so much fun even when there are obstacles. Will I do it again with the same kit? Absolutely, but probably with a different finishing on the body.
Jun 23 2019
MS-09 DOM
I started building models again last year, this time I wanted to build something a little different from the last few models, I went ZEON!!! For over 2 decades of Gunpla backlogs, I would have never thought I would encounter problems… What kind of problems?? This model kit MS-09 DOM was 20 years old from my vacation to Hong Kong, with that being said, here comes the problem. Since the model kit has spent years in boxes and basements, some of the plastic parts are very fragile/crunchie dor some reasons. I always start my kits same way, snip, sand, build and paint but while I was working on this, a few parts broke, especially the hands (the fingers fell out from the sockets) which took me a long time to figure out how to get that fixed…
After trying different glues and epoxy putty, I went back to the old fashion way and here is the solution. Glued a few pieces of the leftover plastic from the kit, sanded down the inside of the hands and glued the pieces inside, then drilled out new fingers sockets and it worked!!! (see picture below)
Overall this model kit was fun to build, I don’t know if they have a newer version of this but the hands are definitely a major issue.
May 29 2019
Great Mazinger Z (Infinity Ver.)
Besides my top favorite super robots: Gundam!!! Mazinger Z is also one of my favorites. Bought this Great Mazinger Z (Infinity Ver.) when it first came out, Haven’t really bought any new scaled plastic models the past 15+ years (other than SDCS Cross Silhouette). Ones I started building it, I realized Bandai has grown so much that I was actually surprised by how good set is made, from the quality of plastic to the ways how all the pieces connect together, it was extremely fun to build, not to mention there are literally no seam lines after you put everything together and it even comes with a stand!!! For beginners, this will make a very good display even if you don’t want to paint it considering the colors of the plastic is almost perfect. For an HG 1/144 model set, this has way passed my expectations.
Spray paint wise, I only spray painted silver and red (sparkling finish), and to achieve the ultra shine finish, I polished all parts using super fine sand blocks and Teflon polish. With very minimal detailing, this came out way better than I expected. Tho the set itself is a little expensive ($75 CAD), really thought about getting all the other ones in the series but I will probably wait until they are on sale or something.
Apr 16 2019
SDCS Cross Silhouette experience
RX78-2, Zeta, Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex and Great Mazinger Z
It was a very fun experience and brought back a lot of childhood memories. Initially, I bought the Zaku II when it first came out (which is not showing on this post because I haven’t found the right color of paints to paint it yet), then I bought the RX78-2 and Zeta (my favorites), and Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex, Great Mazinger Z and Mazinger Z (which I haven’t built yet) a couple months later. Very simple fun kits that don’t need too much time to build but unless you are a perfectionist like me, took me quite a while to finish, all kits needed to be painted that is hehe.
The spray paint part was a pain or maybe I should have hand painted them instead… my eyes are not like I used to be 20 years ago so getting the spray painting done was kind of a challenge to me. Here is the break down of what I have done to these models.
- RX78-2: painted almost every part except the yellow (didn’t have the right color of yellow at the time and the original looks just right anyway) and added the SDCS Silhouette Booster (WHITE).
- Zeta: Painted everything including the wings, etc. and didn’t use the stickers that came with the kit because I didn’t want the outcome to be cheap toy looking
- Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex: The color that came with the kit looks awful, had to paint everything to the right gold color. Never really painted almost the whole kit gold before and it was quite a challenge. (spraying too much paint in an area, you will end up messing up the gold finishing look).
- Great Mazinger Z: The most difficult to paint because of the shiny finish (This is why I still haven’t built my SDCS Mazinger Z)… The glossy paint I used melted the color paint on the model, had to remove the paint and try a few times to get the finishing just right.
Overall, these are fun to build and they are not expensive either. If you are getting the Gundam series fo SDCS, I strongly recommend the frame pack and the booster pack because they will give your SDCS models the ability to pose more freely. For the non-Gundam SDCS models, they already came with the extended frame booster so no add-on is needed.
