Up until now, I've exclusively worked on SD kits, though I've known for a while that I wanted to branch out. My hand was forced when a friend of mine dug up this old 1995 1/144 Gundam Wing Sandrock and gave it to me as a gift. Since it was a much older model kit, I knew I would need to do a full paint-job to make it look good. It was a challenge since these older kits are not very build-friendly by today's standards, and I also ran into some technical troubles throughout the process.
Paints used: Gaianotes lacquers for all airbrushing; Testors/Model Master enamels for hand-detailing.
I worked on this kit at the same time as the SD Sazabi. Unfortunately I had the same airbrush sputtering issue, which produced some gross effects on the left foot and forearms.
The parts list may have been minimal, but the color separation on this old kit was terrible. A lot of pieces required multiple colors and some areas I found a bit too challenging to mask, like the whites on the shield. I subsequently decided to hand-paint a lot, but didn't produce the best results. There are a number of visible brush marks on the blades and blacks (more visible in-person).
Rear view: the machine gun is a fun little accessory, but the blades are way cooler so it will just live here in the back.
I stupidly forgot to mask off the polycaps in the backpack when I sprayed, so there's some ugly scratched up paint going on there.
On the plus side, the panel lining came out reasonably well - this was my second time scribing, so I was able to get more detail than just using the existing panel lines. I'm also very happy with the clean painting on the insides of the shoulder armor.
Closeup of the heat shotels (blades). My metallic paint is a bit ripply, which isn't what I was going for but has kind of a cool effect in these photos. I also made a point (get it?) to sharpen the tips of the blades.
You can see the detailing on the shield (black and red) isn't the cleanest. Those red "eyes" are a bit mushy.
The upper body turned out quite nicely. I'm very happy with the face and shoulders. I held my breath when hand-painting the tiny facial details, but they came out miraculously well.
Final rear view with the heat shotels stowed. I try to avoid doing stuff like this after painting, so as not to mar the paint or topcoat, but I figured these pieces would be fine to slide into the polycaps.
I recently sent this little guy off to his forever home with my friend Nelson (the one who originally gave the kit to me as a gift). Nelson, who is a huge toy collector, did a big favor for me recently, so I decided to give him back the completed kit as my way of saying thanks.
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