Rock

RIP

June 23-26 in theaters. Full 4k restoration of GITS2

It is something new for the Gundam 00 Revealed Chronicle CGI shorts that fill in 00 with new content. The SAGA is a reference to the Cherudim Saga from Gundam 00V. The took bits of the color scheme, style, and arsenal from the SAGA and applied it in a similar fashion to the Dynames for a 'new' makeshift repair unit/variant. We haven't seen or heard much from Gundam 00 Revealed Chronicle past it's initial video/trailer and this design hasn't even appeared in it or any other media (yet.) It honestly feels like they are just stalling and trying to get more money out of the existing Dynames kit instead of making the other gundams or mobile suits from the 00 series...

Had a bit of canopy glue squeeze out that required cleanup using warm water and a toothpick/cotton swab. A few edges of the canopy required a bit of sanding to get a better, flush fit to the body. For the seam line, xacto blade scrape>1000g>1500g wet>Madworks Super couse polishing compoud. Good enough with minimal effort! More sanding to get the seams straightened upm From here the canopy frame gets masked up and we can move forward to primer! Outside of that just building the sub-assemblies, removing seams and getting the rest of the bird to action. Next time will defold into a lot of progress.

https://twitter.com/nue_post/status/1788527236649562200

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFD6TujMsj4

Amazing work R! The lack of a little Alloy figure to put this beast into scale is a little letdown. The kit turned out and looks fantastic! I really want to buy one, but so far all by Moderoid kits just collect dust partially snapped (Sterlitzia, Escaflowne, Big-O, and Evangelion 01...) Hope Goodsmile keeps up more kits from Horizion, so many good mecha designs.

https://twitter.com/hobby_magazine/status/1788003403899310095?t=oI1QTzSQC2YZcHLb5xKjrQ&s=19

Not feeling the chrome, I repainted the helmet's visor lightly with some titanium. I was hoping for a better finish similar to the irridecent look of a modern F35 pilot's helmet. Better but, not quite there. Then the HiQ Parts' Aurora Blue film I was waiting for showed up! I then went to applying the film. If your wondering what this product is like, picture a piece of clear scotch tape with an effect on it. Anyways, Aurora Blue to visor, and Aurora Green to the heads up display! Aurora films are transparent when viewed head on, but have a iridescent-like color sheen when viewed from an angle. It's not as noticeable as the Mirage series of films which slightly change color, and even harder to photograph. Let's try! With that done there is just one more task left to get the glass down on the bird... In typical fashion, our pilot is sitting just a bit too high to get the canopy into place! An ass-ectomy operation was needed! And with that, (with some help of Ultra Glue,) The canopy is sealed! I went with the more bubble-shaped of the 2 options included with the kit... the one with the giant mold line down the middle. Guess what we'll be fixing next time?!

Aurora film was a miss, could only find Mirage and regular green films. Ordered some blue mirage that should be here next week! Glossing over the clear parts, the next step was the nose. Sadly, as I hinted before, the 2 halves simply were a miss. Therefore some putty/sanding work was needed to get the parts aligned. I used Tritool's PE scribing saws to restore the panel lines before a final round of Mr. Surfacer 1500 was sprayed and imperfections were checked. A final wet sand using 600 grit was completed. From here I straight assembled the nose's remaing details, landing gear and bay doors. Everything nicely fitted and glued with the exception of the landing gear leg itself so I can paint/detail the bay at a later date. Plamax nose cone anyone?

That is exactly what you want!

Not much movement. Got the initial wash done and have continued to sharpen up the cockpit. Everything else is a little more complicated... I hand brushed my base colors onto the pilot. The Micro Mask masking film was a total bust, the edges came out horribly. (Just look at the top back of the helmet.) Going forward I will continue hand painting the details on the suit and try to sharpen everything up. I imagine I'll then do another wash, spray a flat coat, drybrush over everything, and a 2k gloss coating on the the helmet. I want to respray the gold bits to help even them out and see if I can get them to pop a bit more. For the visor I used a Moltov chrome paint pen. I did not get a very good result. I don't really feel like masking the visor off but, I think I will have to redo the chrome with the airbrush and then apply a candy blue/green for the tint. I do have some HiQParts aurora film that is commonly used on camera lens and eye details for Gundam model kits that I've also wanted to try, I'm not sure if I can cleanly apply it to such a small convex shape.

DYRL VS TV. TV also has a 3-piece console screen and a physical HUD instead of everything being projected on the canopy/helmet directly. -- Let the game begin. I couldn't find many good references for the cockpit. In SDFM it varied greatly from scene to scene. I just cherry picked a few key details from the line art to give the eye something interesting. Leftover gunpla, kotobukiya bits, copper wire, and metal HiQ parts proved useful. I was really concerned about filling the dead space around the rear of the seat. The pilot got a little trimming to define the legs and upper arms a bit more, and a little Mr. Disolved Putty was brushed onto the joints to hide the seams. I've been relying on this product a bit more than Mr. Surfacer 500 brushed out of the bottle. For small pinpoint applications it goes down smoother and sands quicker. The shoulder seam received a little bit more of a liberal application because this pilot has been hitting the gym! Afterwards off to a coat of Mr. Surfacer 1500 and a quick check to make sure nothing would get in the way of the nose halves sealing. All good... though the panel lines on the 2 halves conveniently don't meet. For later. Now onto colors.l! I decided to go with the OOB pilot colors. I used Mr. Color 328 for the blue. This is the same blue that is to be used on the valkyrie's markings. For the pilot, I really like the color. I'm trying out a new (to me) product. Micromark's Micro Mask! I tend to use Mr. Masking Sol Neo but, have never been too fond of using it for small areas as it tends to have elasticity. That same latex-like elasticity fights you during toothpick and brush applications. Micro Mask is easier to apply with a thinner consistency closer to dish soap. Anyways, the top of the helmet was masked up and a quick spray of of Mr. Color's 311 white was applied. It's an off-white (yellow/tan + white) that is recommended to use on the body of the valkyrie too. This is my first time seeing the 2 colors together in person. The cockpit was painted with Mr. Color 13, letting some of the black primer show through for the shadows towards the bottom. I wanted to see if the decals were even worth attempting... even with Solveset, they were not. However, they did give me a taste of the direction I would end up heading. Having the bold colored decals on the gray really helped sell the direction I wanted to take with the cockpit's colors. A very early SDFM inspired scheme focusing on bold contrasting primary colors. A nice break from the metallic paints I've been using for everything lately. So, I grabbed the brush, toothpick, and began basing in my color selections. Some trained bridge bunnies may notice that some areas not fully painted in. This is because I am only concerned with getting the basic down before seeing what will end up hidden when I get around to panel lining and washes. I'm debating whether to try a blue or green filter over the aircraft gray to make it look more like the animation's coloring. Not sure if that will clash with what's to come. Top left!