01.21.04 » Quick Start

For a future project I am scratch-building the escape craft seen at the end of MS Gundam. I'll post mere details about the whole project when I get to it.

Here is an image of the craft I am building.

Here are some shots of what I have done so far. The project is going pretty quickly so far and should be done relatively soon. I'm using mostly sheet and strip styrene and option parts.

I printed out the pictures I drew up in Flash to the scale (1/100) that the piece will be in. This helps with measuring. Seen is a 1/100 scal figure from a Bandai MG kit.

01.28.04 » Pause

Here's the latest progress shot taken last week. The wings are cut out and the wing skids are build. I am waiting on some g-tanks before I can continue. I also still have to file the edges, putty, sand etc...

02.28.04 » Back to work...

I had a good bit of time today while my wife and baby were visiting the Grandmas. So I worked on my shuttle. I had finished filing the edges to round them a bit, added the vents to the back of the cabin, modified the wave option tanks to be the size I wanted (thanks Jester!), puttied, primed, sanded, added some panel lines, puttied, sanded some more, etc... I still have to prime again.

Next up, I have to decide how to build the assemblies that will attach the skid to the cabin underside and the wings to the tanks. I'm still debating between styrene and metal. I will be using teeny little kotubukiya burner nozels on the ends of the fuel tanks and for the "disks" on the wings, I have some "minus molds" that will work perfectly.

03.02.04 » More Progress

I scribed some panel lines, did some clean-up and gave it a coat of primer to check for things needing to be fixed. Overall, there's only a little bit more that I need to work on for the cabin portion.

03.08.04 » Building Complete

The shuttle is all built and ready for paint. I also posed a bunch of the figures in space suits that came with many of my MG kits by amputating limbs and repositioning them.

04.27.04 » Painting Complete

Painting of the shuttle is almost complete...just need to highlight a few parts such as the backs of the round dealies on the wings. Still have to decal it, but I'll do that when I decal the GM.

05.03.04 » Decals Done

Here's the almost finished shuttle with decals. Just needs the window added and a flat coat. For size reference, I added a Tamiya bottle in the shot.