Building the Gundam - 08

Despite having jumped the gun a bit and assembled the wings... I can't put them on the Gundam without the harness, so that took priority.

Building the Gundam - 07

I spent the majority of a night just assembling one of the wings, and applying the third party feather upgrade.  The pictures below show the wing in "extended mode."  Basically, the upper left and upper right portions can fold in towards the center to make the wing more compact.  

Stock wings

After applying feather upgrade

Applying the upgrade took a lot of time, as this actually required glue (unlike the rest of the model).  Also, despite the instructions, I had to take care of the placement so that the new feathers would not interfere with the wing's ability to fold and unfold.

Building the Gundam - 06

So that leg that's been sitting on my desk for a week...?  I figured if I didn't at least finish it off over this 3-day weekend, there'd be nothing for it but to consider myself a lazy oaf, haha.

A lot of things, but not a lot of any one thing

It's been a busy weekend for me, though it may not look like I got a lot of any one thing done.  Despite that, I'm exhausted.  Physically and emotionally exhausted.

Building the Gundam - 05

 I've had this leg assembled for a couple days now, just waiting to be painted up, but was only able to get to it yesterday, due to crazy schedules and projects.

Building the Gundam - 04

Second arm all assembled and ready to paint!
I'm continually amazed at how articulate the resulting build is, especially considering that this whole process has been glue-free; just precisely shaped pieces that snap together to hold others in place, create hinge joints, ball-socket joints, or what-have-you.  Crazy.

Building the Gundam - 03

Not a whole lot new since the last update, so I'll keep it short.

Finished painting the left shoulder unit.  Above is after paint, before weathering powder.  Needs more dirt.  When I took the photo, I didn't realize the Gundam was sitting in frame in the background, quietly supervising my progress, haha.  Just sitting there.  Judging.

And now it's dirty.  Let's see if the Gundam approves.

Check it out!  I got a new shoulder!

Building the Gundam - 02

And so the Gundam build continues.  The head took me probably the longest to build so far.  There were lots of very tiny components, and hitting each little bit with spray primer was pretty rough, but I like the end result.

Building the Gundam

I found a cool image on Google of the model we're building, and immediately took it into Photoshop to start sending my friend some ideas around color-scheming.  At this point, I knew he didn't like the mostly white canon color-scheme, and derided the "red booties" that were the feet.  He had mentioned that he did like blue, so I thought I'd start him off with a blue scheme...

Gundam Landed

Look what just landed on my desk:

It's that big ol' Gundam Zero Wing box that my friend ordered.  I was more than a little surprised at how large the box is, but I'm so excited for this.

Incoming Gundam Project

A good friend of mine is interested in collecting some Gundam models... but he doesn't like the idea of them just being in their pre-colored plastics.  So, I'm going to help out by painting them.  This is the first model up:

It's the Wing Gundam Zero, Master Grade, 1:100 scale.
Bandai makes a veritable ton of these very articulate and poseable models in a variety of grades and scales... something that we both had to educate ourselves on in order to make a better selection.  Master Grade applies specifically to the 1:100 scale, and is a measure of complexity, model articulation, and poseability of the model.  It's in the mail, and I can't wait to get my mitts on it.

There will be a little bit of conversion work to be done, involving an upgrade kit that supplies more feathers.  The end result will look like this:

We still have yet to discuss color scheme.  The only solid decision made on that front is that he does not like the default mostly-white scheme, and we've been in discussion about some possibilities.  I'll see about making some mock-ups to send his way to help finalize the scheme.

One of the intriguing bits about this is that (outside of the extra feathers upgrade kit) it involves no glue.  All the pieces are snap-on, several involving ball-socket joints.

I'll post pictures occasionally to keep you all updated on progress.  :)