I used to build Gundam kits some years back. Now, I’m taking up this new hobby – model kit making.

Here’s one of my first projects – the MG Destiny 1/100 kit from Bandai. I’d like to share with you the progress of the project with photos.

Details after the jump.

A couple of weeks ago, I just completed the “China-version” of my Gundam Astray 1/100. And yes, that was good practice. It was all painted with Tamiya aerosol cans. Once I got to compute the cost of these, it was more prudent to invest in an airbrush set. The good airbrushes like Iwata or Badger start out at $100 or so and that’s without the compressor. Not considering ourselves pros at the moment, I invested in a basic Tamiya Sprayworks set (see photo later). It comes with a standard, top-fed can and it has its own compressor. Right now, me and my pals used it on a couple of projects and we’re satisfied.

Now, on to the Destiny MG 1/100 project.

This is my first Master Grade REAL Gundam and of course, I don’t have a very high expectation for it (but I don’t want to screw it up either). The goal is to practice all those that I read and researched over the net and they say that “practice makes perfect”. In time, I want to improve painting, detailing and weathering techniques so that I apply something new when I buy the next kit.

So far, shopping for the tools, items and accessories for modeling has been so much fun. I really enjoyed gathering all the stuff and neatly packing them into my plastic bins and containers.

Jan 21, 2009

I got the kit last week and I start the first couple of nights assembling, cutting and sanding the pieces. Every night I try to finish a part like the torso, both arms, legs, wing and weapons. It took me the entire week to assemble the kit since I only work on it a couple of hours a day. Gotta be fast next time.

Meanwhile, here’s the box of the Destiny and what’s inside.

MG kits are a bit harder to assemble since they have a gazillion parts. What’s good about MG kits are that a) they are fully poseable, much like Revoltech toys and b) they have an endoskeleton where you just put the armor plating on top. It seems daunting at first.

Here’s the pre-assembled model. I will have to take this apart for painting. The good thing about pre-assembling is that you PLAN for the colors, the weathering and sometimes you’ll see the need where to mask off items for painting. You also get to “QA” your kit to see if there are nip/nib marks visible and other stuff that you need to adjust like seams, etc.

Here’s the Destiny after the snap-build. As you can see, I make the head for last. I call it my “crowning glory” and is sort of a reward for all my efforts.

The wings and the weapons are also pre-assembled and ready for priming.

Jan 23, 2009 (Friday)

After the pre-assembling, I dissamble them all again and arrange the parts correspondingly for painting. Just get a similar container and label them with tape and marker. All this organization will save you a lot of time going through the manual and figuring out which part goes where.

First I spray-painted the endoskeleton using Tamiya gunmetal (can). After it dried, I applied a drybrush of Chrome Silver to the details.

Does the paint harden the joints in your kits? Here’s a tip – put BluTak putty on ‘em. It’s easy to remove once the paint dries and the joints will slide on better.

Now, I skewer all the parts with sticks, arrange them according to color and put them on styro foam. My plan is to go from light to dark, painting the armor first (light grey), then the wings red and then the black parts. For this project, there wasn’t much color modification. I just changed all the blue to black for a tri-color effect.

Using double sided tape for the flat parts makes painting them easier. See below.

And now for the actual painting. Here’s the new Tamiya Spray Work set that I bought for around $120. Time to make the investment pay off, bitches.

The first layer would be the primer. I used a Mr. Surfacer 500 (from Gunze) thined with lacquer thinner. Mr. Surfacer would hide and conceal all the sanding marks and the little seams and cracks of the kit.

Here’s the wing all coated up with Mr. Surfacer.

After drying and curing for 3 hours (I worked on the weapons while waiting). It was time to actually paint the parts. The nozzle was set to ‘medium’ and sprayed at around 5 to 7 inches away from the parts. Drying time was supposed to be around 1 to 3 days (I found that out after I was done with the project). The colors were Tamiya enamels mixed with Tamiya enamel thinner. Base colors of Red, White + black + blue (for armor), Black, GunMetal and Yellow were used.

Here’s the wing after drying and final assembly.

I then re-assembled the Destiny and there were still some spots that I plan to hand-paint in the following day. Of course, I still haven’t applied the decals and the panel lines yet. Here’s a photo;

Here’s the Destiny almost 90% done. All that’s left are more details, panel lining, some weathering and touching up by hand.

Lessons Learned

Every kit is a learning experience. I’m no pro but my goal is to learn something new for every modeling project and I’d like to share it with you. Here are some of the things I learned from this one.

• Assemble everything – don’t leave small parts in the sprues. I found this the hard way and had to mix paint (costs money) just for the little stuff.
• Enamel dries and cures – “Drying” means that the actual enamel paint is dry. That takes around a couple of hours to a day depending on how thick your coat it. But “curing” is actually a different thing. Enamel paint cures from 2 to 5 days. How do you know it’s cured? Simple – when the paint doesn’t feel goey or tacky. That’s the time to apply detail and decals.
• Too much top coat – I got excited with spraying again. The amount of top coat left the gundam with a dusty like surface. I’ll just tell my friends it’s my “dust weathering” technique. Yah right!
• Patience - modeling requires patience. You can’t have it overnight. Good model kits take time. If you don’t have patience, this hobby might not be for you. I’m trying to really control the urge to finish. Sloppy and rushed work, however small, shows… and shows bad.

Hope you guys enjoyed and learned something. More photos to follow upon update.

A better Gundam in the weeks to come.

More Gundam models kit projects and other toys at Geekzkrieg.com