About The Kit »

I figured that while I was doing figures I’d bang this one out and get some practice on bare metal and rusting. This was another bad
recast… why is it bad? Well, if the kit is riddled with pin holes, crevasses/recesses are very rough, molds are misaligned, and it requires a whole lot of epoxy putty to make presentable, then it’s a bad cast.

Clean-up wise I had to resculpt around where the arms connect to the torso to make them fit nicely without gaps. The pre-modded gaps were at most 1.5mm in some spots. The mold was misaligned a bit on the torso so I had to really sand down the sides and then recarve some of the folds of the clothing. The torso also had a lot of pinholes on the chest. The back of the hair had a 2mm gap that I filled with Apoxy Sculpt and made an extra strand of hair to fill. I had to also resculpt the part in the hair and where the fingers touch the hair to clean those gaps up. The arms had some roughness in the panel lines and around some of the shapes, but weren’t too bad to clean-up. The boots were a little missaligned as well, but easy to fix.

Painting was done with Alclad 2, Rub-n-Buff, and oils for the metal parts. For the shik, hair and clothing I basecoated with Tamiya Acrylics and then painted with oils over the basecoat much like with Duenan. After a flat coat some discoloration techniques were done to the clothing to make it look less than clean and new.

02.06.2007 » Concepts/Initial
Progress

My
first experience with Battle Angel Alita was watching
it at a friend’s place right before graduation
from the Art Institute. My friend was from Japan
(Hi Mari if you’re out there somewhere!) and her
boyfriend was a big fan. Thankfully the OVA I
watched was subtitled. Great story though and
got me to eventually get the OVA for myself as
well as a few issues of the fantastic Manga.

This kit is another horrible recast. Not quite as bad as Deunan, but
still awful in its own right. (Especially when
compared to recasts from other companies that
have always been top notch for me) Pin holes on
the chest, misaligned mold halves, rough patches,
and more. I’ve spent the past few weeks cleaning
her up while painting Deunan and still have quite
a bit of clean-up to go. The kit comes with the
extra parts to do Gally either in her coat or
without. I’m opting for without because I like
the look of the arms. Plus I want to do some nice
bare metal weathering effects on her.

Since the story takes place in the
“Scrapyard” where Gally is discovered
in a pile of scrap I decided to make a scrapyard
base. The base is made from a pile of miscellaneous
leftover parts from my spares bin. Extra kit parts
and scratch-built items that didn’t make the cut
from past projects. Anything that looked interesting
is in there. It should be a nice rusty mess when
completed.

Here’s some pics of the progress
so far:

02.09.2007 » Pinholes
and Alclad

Gally is not ready for paint and
in fact, painting has begun. As you can see in
the first pic, her chest was riddled with pin-holes.
I filled them with Tamiya Basic putty thinned
with lacquer thinner, but I hear that bondo spot
glazing putty works great too. After that was
fixed, everything was primed and let to set for
24 hours. All parts were primed first with Duplicolor
Filler Primer (light gray) then when that cured
I buffed them with a wad of very fine steel wool.
After that I primed the face with Tamiya Fine
White primer and the rest of the parts with Duplicolor
primer (dark gray).

When that cured I started on the
bare metal parts. My first coat was of Alclad
II Jet Exhaust. This is a dark brownish metal
as seen in pic 2. Afterwards I highlighted the
various parts with Alclad II Magnesium then highlighted
that with Alclad II Aluminum. Finally along the
joints I added Alclad II Pale Burnt Metal to show
heat stress on the joints. Later I’ll take some
oil paints and Rub-n-buff and add more distress
and wear.

02.10.2007 » Base
Paint and More Heat Tarnish

Today so far I’ve given the base
a coat of a rusty-colored mixture of Tamiya Acrylics.
Over this I will add various tones, washes, and
weathering to really bring out the details of
the base. I also added some gold and Blue Run-N-Buff
in spots on the metal parts to give more of a
heat tarnished look. The additions are very subtle
and probably don’t look like much through the
eyes of the camera, but later when I start adding
the washes and oils the effect will really be
brought out. Before that though I’ve added a coat
of gloss Future Floor Acrylic to protect the metal
coats from the thinners and oils. Here’s some
pics:

02.10.2007 » Finished
Base

I didn’t expect to finish the base
so soon, but it’s all done. After spraying it
with the rust color, I added colors onto certain
parts as if they were once painted. I used drybrushing,
random splooges and a sponge to do this. Then
I gave everything a wash with Tamiya black + brown.
You can see the results of this in pic 1. Then
I added a wash of “standard rust” mig
pigment powder over everything. While wet I dabbed
on light rust randomly and black smoke in a few
places. When that dried I took a large soft brush
and blended all the rust pigments around. Then
I added light dust, europe dust, and beach sand
pigments to give it a dusty dirty feel. Finally
I applied some gunmetal pigment via my fingertip
to some edges to give some parts a little worn
shine. You can see the end result in pic 2 and
it’s IMO amazing!

02.17.2007 » Finished
Head

This week I finished up painting
the face and hair. The face painting turned out
better than Duenan, but that’s partially due to
this casts face being smoother and accepting the
blending better. This time I added a little blue
to my oils and I think the color worked out rather
well. More realistic that my last batch of flesh
tone. I painted the eyes first then masked them
off with Windsor Newton Masking Fluid for Watercolors.
I airbrushed a flesh tone to the face then applied
my thin layer of base flesh tone oil paint. This
base color was made from burnt sienna, white,
and a touch of cobalt blue. Highlights were the
base color + white and shadows were the base color
plus more burnt sienna and a touch of burnt umber.
The face is a little paler in person, but I did
that on purpose. I wanted her to have more of
a porcelain doll look since the only real flesh
left on her is her brain. The rest is cyborg.
One last step for the face is to brush some Future
onto the eyes to make them more glassy. I also
took the advice of several forum members and added
some “eyeliner” to accentuate the eyes
more. Looks great!

I also added the straps to the boots
and catsuit as seen in the manga. I made the straps
from photoetch seatbelt parts and lead foil. And
finally, a wash was applied to the metal parts
of her arms and legs along with a little more
blue and gold highlights.