07.29.2005 » Concepts

So I'm in the mood to do another gundam kit so I started on my Master Grade Strike Gundam from Gundam Seed. I got this kit well over a year ago at the Pittsburgh Comicon and it's sat on my shelf while I thought about what to do with it. For this kit I'm making a test unit for new Striker Packs. Basically the Strike can be equiped with various packs to server different roles in battle. In Seed we saw the Aile, Launcher, and Sword packs. I'll be making the Aile pack that comes with the kit, but also creating my own custom test-pack. The Strike has a lot of modification potential due to the pack system.

My pack will be called the Shinobi pack. It's roll would be for light armor infiltration and reconissance. I'll be making a backpack with a sensor jammer. For armament the Strike will have a forearm mounted sword for certain and possible a chain weapon and beam saber. Plus it will have the standard Armor Schneiders located in the hip skirt armors.

Color-wise, the Strike will be mostly light warm buff-gray and a splash of test orange. Decals will aslo depict this as a test unit.

07.29.2005 » Cutting, Sanding and Pre-building

I'm almost done cutting and sanding this kit. All I have left is the weapons and Aile Pack. I also need to make the Shinobi Pack for it. I decided to pre-build and pose the kit to see how the pack would fit. Here's a few pics of one of my intended final poses. I plan on photographing several poses. The sword is made from sharpened styrene srtip and various leftover gun and MG parts. The hand is not the final hand. It's the sniper rifle holding hand from my GM Ground Type. I plan on modifying one of my b-club hands to be bent back like that.

08.10.2005 » Sheath Progress

Here's my progress so far on the forearm mounted sheath. I didn't take pics of the mount part off the arm for whatever reason, but I'm pleased with how it's turning out. The small holes within holes will contain the cut-off heads of metal pins after it's painted so that they retain their metal finish. The sheath is hinged under the box in the back in 2 spots. The box hides the hinges, keeps the pins in place and best of all blocks the door from opening too far. I'll be adding some more in front of that box to make it look less "open". I still have a lot of clean-up to do but wanted to post the little bit of progress I made before I get busy with freelance work again.

08.11.2005 » Sheath Progress Part 2

Due to some requests from the forum I decided to take some more pics of the sheath. Below are pics of the arm mount portion, the double hinges and the hinges I bought and modified from the RC department at HobbyTownUSA.

08.18.2005 » Not as much progress as it seems..

Due to a few freelance projects going on at once, I haven't had much time to work on the Strike, but here's where I'm at so far...

I'm almost done with the scratch-building and just need to add finishing details before I can prime and paint. Yay! The backpack is almost done as you can see below. I originally was going to just have a 2-3cm disk as a raddar jammer, but after finding some misc junk in my plumbing extras, I got the idea to go bigger and have a halo as a radar/sensor jammer. (It's Seed.. gotta have a uselessly huge backpack!) I looked for large thin washers and the like, but nothing as large as I wanted was in any other material then rubber at home depot. Instead I bought a 59 cent PVC test plug and used my razor saw to remove the lip. That lip is now my halo. I had to do a lot of cleaning up to the lip, but my big (5") wood sander made short work of that. The two armatures are from modified my ReGZ's BWS that I'm using for scrap. I attacehed the halo with leftover MG screws and those screws will be covered with minus molds.

Here's the pics:

08.21.2005 » Painting has begun...

I primed everything today with my Duplicolor Dark Gray sandable primer. Then a little bit ago I used Alclad II for the first time using my old Badger 150 dual action AB that I used when I started until it broke. I've had it since 1993 and recently fixed it with some parts from another that my brother found cleaning out some property owned by an inlaw. So it's my "beater" airbrush now so I don't mess up my good one with Lacquers and primers.

Anyawy, I used Steel and I LOVE it. I still can't wrap my mind around it being dry and ready for masking in 10 minutes. How strange. The main reason I used it was so that I could avoid scratching up the internals like I normally do when posing. Hopefully the Lacquer holds up better than Tamiya. The finish is beautiful and the color works great for internals. Darker than silver, but not gunmetal dark. I might have to get some more colors now since I bought it on a lark in March at the IPMS show.

I also finally bought a pressure regulator since my compressor doesn't have one. Since the Alclad recommends 12-15 psi and my aztec hobby compressor sprays much higher than that I figured it was a good idea to get one. Got it at walmart for $14 too which wasn't bad.

It's funny, I think I'm getting great results then I buy an airbrugh upgrade and some new paint and I'm getting even better results. Can't wait to try some camo with the lower pressure. The higher pressure made freehanding camo difficult due to excessive overspray.

Pics later...

08.22.2005 » Painting has just about been completed...

Yeah, everything is painted and Futured. Well, except for the eyes, but I do those last anyway. Next up is inking, more Future, then Decals. Here's a shot of all the colors except the Steel Alclad which I neglected to photograph. The sword is silver rub'n buff buffed on over gloss black.

08.23.2005 » Addition

Here's those Alclad parts I forgot to photograph yesterday. It's Alclad 2 Steel over Dark Gray Duplicolor Primer. Very nice color for internals. Not quite gunmetal. It's about the same shade as Tamiya Metallic Gray but all metallic and not flecky. You'll notince a little sprue nub unsanded on the second pic, but my philosophy is if you can't see it, don't sand it. That part will be covered up by the torso armor.