Another backlog cleared, my favorite 3 GGeneration (BB戰士) sets that I bought decays ago, RX78-2 Gundam, RX77-2 GunCannon and RX75 Guntank. Although these sets are small, they do need quite a lot of work to make them look good. Back in the days, parents would buy these for their kids and just snap build them. I don’t want them to look like plastic blocks so I never snap build my GGeneration sets. Since these are small sets, they don’t take too much time even if I paint and panel line them. The most challenging part was sanding/filing, all of these plastic models were made very rough, mold lines and rough edges. But in the end, these 3 sets took about a little bit over a week to finish and I pretty happy with the results. I still have quite a log of GGeneration sets in my backlog, let’s see when I will start the other ones during this COVID pandemic. Stay home and stay safe everyone.
Mar 25 2020
RX-178 Gundam & FXA-05D G-Defenser 1/100
Another old plastic model kit that I bought years back. My second favorite Gundam of all, RX-178 aka MK-II. This kit came with the FXA-05D G-Defenser, it was meant to be combined all together to form a “Super Gundam”. Since this kit came out almost 2 decays ago, the built/plastic itself is very fragile. After finished the whole built with paint and everything done, I realized it is almost impossible to put the G-Defenser and Gundam together without damaging the paint or even breaking some parts on the G-Defenser, so I just leave it the way it is.
Overall, this kit was super fun, tons of parts, originally I started this project last year, only finished the G-Defenser, due to the coronavirus lockdown this month, I can finally focus on the Gundam, each took a little over a week to finish. For one of the first generations of Gundam models, this kit is really detailed. Unlike the newer versions of the RX-78 2, this kit doesn’t have a skeleton frame so movement is very limited. One thing I absolutely hate is the ball joints for the arms and legs, they are very long and thin, feels very weak when you try to make poses.
Now onto my next project
Mar 14 2020
Perfect Grade RX78-2 + Custom Set #1&2 1/60
Perfect Grade Gundam RX78-2, this plastic model kit was the GOD of all kits in the year 1998 when it first came out because of the skeleton frame. I bought mine in 1999 along with the custom sets 1&2 but of course, I didn’t really have that much patience to finish such a big plastic model at a young age. I did spray painted the major parts and didn’t really bother with the gray frame nor the parts that you don’t see after the whole Gundam is assembled.
The custom sets have been laying around for 2 decays, I finally decided to put them in good use. Last year around August, I started searching on Amazon and found the price of the Perfect Grade RX78-2 model kit was just $160, that’s basically the price I paid when I bought my first one 20 years ago. The decision was a no brainer and the shipment from Japan arrived about 3 weeks’ time. So the project started almost right away but on and off until now, the whole project took about 4 weeks in total (full time) including spray paint, hand paint, panel lines and etc. I am so pleased to say it is finally finished and to share the final result with the world.
Jul 16 2019
Gundam RX-78 GP01 1/100
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 1/100
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.