Not-So-Small Projects: The World of Almosts

In my multi-month hiatus, though I was inactive on this blog, I was anything but idle when it came to Gunpla. During this time of silence, a lot of experimenting turned into small projects that, for one reason or another, could not be finished until more recently. One of the more better known projects is the SD Messer which I last wrote about in January. From the hand-painted candy red of that project spawned two other projects that started off as candy color experiments: a re-visit to the SD BB Senshi Sengoku Astray, and the exploration of candy blue with the SD LegendBB Musha Godmaru. Progress on all three of these pieces were put on hold at around the same time for different reasons, and somehow were all finished around the same time. Because of this, I decided to sum up all my experiences in one post rather than having a separate article for each kit. Let us kick it off with the one that kicked off the experimenting: SD Messer of the SD BB Senshi Xi Gundam.

From WIP 003: MS Sight Lens painted gray and metallic red

If you were following me in October of last year, you might have seen my Quick Review of the SD Xi Gundam. The kit comes with a miniature SD mobile suit known as the Me-02R Messer, a monoeye grunt in the novel Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash. This little guy starts off as a four-piece blob of red plastic. The detail is almost all there, but the lack of color separation and monoeye detail made for an undesirable piece. I decided to take the four pieces and fashion it into a shelf-worthy piece.

After many shades of Tamiya Clear Red on Mr. Hobby Gold, I came to find the monoeye I had made out of a pen and MS Sight Lens looked lackluster in comparison to the candy red and gold of the rest of the kit. I decided I wanted to fix the problem with something my friend used for his SD Sazabi - something he called an aurora sticker.
Unfortunately, soon after I asked, his house flooded and he could not access his supplies. In that 99% completion status, I waited for that one sticker until just a few weeks ago when I helped him move to another room in the condo. With the special sticker, I was finally able to complete the SD Messer and call it a night.

I guess I also finished the beam rifle since the last article.

While working on hand painting candy red on the SD Messer, I decided to see how viable hand painting candy red actually was, so I took the SD BB Senshi Sengoku Astray off my shelf, dismantled it, and started slapping gold and clear red all over it (along with some white in the appropriate places). To continue the metallic motif, I decided the best color for the gray parts would be Tamiya's Gunmetal. I was able to use some of my friend's Gunmetal for the feet and chest, but ran out of time to finish the second set of arms.

Instead of buying my own jar, I waited for the next time we were could hang out to finish off the Sengoku Astray. From the looks of it, hand painting candy red is viable but very hard to pull off correctly. The next time I want to paint candy colors, I will be using an airbrush.

I obtained the LegendBB Musha Godmaru in a group order with some of my friends. I wanted the kit as Sekai's best Gunpla and Sekai's one and only loss. Similar to the Sengoku Astray, I wanted to continue experimenting with hand painted candy colors, this time with silver and clear blue. Because LegendBB kits tend to have an "inner figure" under a set of armor, I was able to experiment on the chest with little consequence.

The inner shoulders would be covered by detail pieces like these (Kanji reads "Bakunetsu")

I started off by painting Tamiya enamel silver (after priming of course) followed by a few coats of Tamiya acrylic clear blue. The result was a noticeably uneven coat for the inner chest.

Everything lined up, waiting for final assembly

It is a good thing most of it would be covered by an outer layer of armor. I decided to wait for my friend's airbrush to finish the Musha Godmaru and the results were to die for! Even someone like me who has had much too little time with an airbrush was able to get some nice even coats of clear blue on the chest armor.

Thanks for checking this article out! I was not sure how I could fit these little bits into the blog, but since I had enough of these "shorter" projects, it seemed to have worked out. For those who were expecting an article on the Weiß Hund Zulu, FEAR NOT! I am in the process of writing the article. Because so much time has passed since I started the project, it is a little difficult organizing my thoughts into a coherent story. I hope to have that for you soon. In the mean time, I look forward to seeing the Gunpla Lollapalooza entries soon. Good luck to all who entered and may the best builder win!