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About The Look »
Originally, I was going to do this
kit in red instead of the blue-violet, but after
playing around with my color scheme, the blue-violet
just seemed to fit this kit very well. Plus I'd
seen it done in red a few times and while it was
nice, it was too "bright" for a kit
of this size. I used these particular colors as
well to give it a prototype/elite feeling.
I also took some influence from
an EX-S I saw in a hobby magazine a while back.
Those influences can be seen in the whites on
the shoulders and the rings around the guns.
The various whites and grays are
meant to give the piece more depth and visual
interest than you'd get by painting it all one
gray or all white.
I designed the decals in Flash and
Illustrator. I sketched the "Miss Iota"
decal first then scanned her in and traced/redrew
her in Flash to make her nice and clean. You can
see on a close-up of the decal in the gallery
how the Alps printer did the purple. On that close-up
it looks weird, but at a normal viewing distance
(without the EXTREME CLOSEUP!) it looks great.
Thanks to Peter at Models4You for the great print
job.
About The Kit »
Okay... this is a HUGE kit. When
I showed my wife the finished piece, I actually
got a "holy crap" out of her as opposed
to the usual "that's nice". LOL!
However with "huge" comes
lots of sanding. I hate sanding. Honestly, I worked
on this kit for 2 months and 6 weeks of that was
cutting and sanding. Really! Granted that was
maybe 1/2 hour a night on most nights, but you
get the drift.
While doing this kit, I took a break
to work on the SD GunTank just because I was getting
burned out. At several points I had thought about
giving up on it and putting it aside, but stuck
with it. And After I got the whole thing together,
I'm glad that I did. Now, all that time and energy
feels worth it.
The EX-S comes in a PG sized box
with hundreds of parts. Many of them are tiny
to accommodate the transformation process. I will
not be transforming this kit as I fear scratching
my paint and decals up.
The kit is nice though as far as
seams. There's only a hand full in the usual spots.
Head, weapons, backpack, fuel tanks, wing binders,
and the base.
Would I recommend this kit? While
I was working on it I would have said "NO!"
but now that it's done and sitting on my shelf,
I'll have to say maybe. If you're willing to put
in the time, and I mean a lot of time, on this
kit, then it'll be worth it in the end.
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