As soon as I was done with the Sinanju I started on this kit. The MG Exia as it turns out is a huge improvement over the already awesome 1/100 Exia kits. The way the parts are broken down makes for very little work as far as seams go.

I wanted to do something to take the Exia ‘over the top’ in a way and to add a “particle accelerator” ring around the GN drive. A modeler at my forum, Shin0bu, had made some for his 1/144 00 and they looked great. With his permission I used that concept for this piece. The addition of really huge GN blades mounted to the GN condensors gives it a winged appearance. Almost Wing Gundam or Seed like actually. Not intended but not a bad look for this.

I designed the Accelerator ring in Illustrator and had a friend lathe the shape for me from Ren foam. The foam is kinda pourus so I had to give it 3-4 coats of Filler primer to smooth it out, but the end result looks nice and smooth. After that I scribed some panel lines into it and added the notches and bead-holes.

The GN Drive for the “Maelstrom Unit” (going with the “avalanche” naming theme for that) was a leftover from my 1/100 Astraea combined with the drive hole cover that came with the MG. Using that cover as the back of the other GN drive made a REALLY stable mounting point for this backpack. Once the latches lock it in place it’s as secure as can be.

The swords were made from styrene sheet and shapes. To make the beveled edge of the blades easier to create I used Plastruct triangular styrene strip glued along the edge. That saved me the enormous headache of filing the edges to be evenly sharp.The hilt was made from extra 1/100 Exia leg and sword parts.

The GN condenser boxes were based on those on the rear of the Dynames. They were made from various styrene sheets and shapes. The small yellow wings are actually better-looking covers than the hooks they conceal beneath that hold the swords in place. Unfortunately the swords are way to big to allow me to pose them nicely with the model. I like them looking like wings better anyway.

I wanted the paint scheme to denote the Rollout stage of the Exia during which it was probably put through its paces in various tests. The orange is Mr. Color Flourescent Orange mixed with a little Flourescent and Character Red. The blades are Alclad II chrome, the internals ar Mr. Color Iron, and the rest is mixes of Tamiya Acrylics. The base color isn’t white, but instead a very light gray. That photographs better and looks less vibrant and glaring in person.

For the clear parts I was stuck with green. No big deal, but I’d rather have had the option of making them bluish-green. THis I found out though can be achieved as I managed to get a great color-shift effect on some of the clear parts, most notably the GN-Drive and the eyes/forehead sensor. If you paint them with clear-green first then spray them with a Future Floor Acrylic + Blue pearl powder mix it looks very cool. When the light hits it it looks blue. This only works though is the pearl powders are not behind the clear green, but are instead in front. After painting I dipped the clear parts in Future which gives them a super shiny gloss.

Enough chatter… here’s the rest of the pics:

A little mental health kit while working on a plethora of other projects. I actually finished this a week ago, but just got a moment to post up the finished images. While the kit looks great in it’s stock red, I’ve seen WAY too many red Sinanju in all it’s forms, candied, gloss, flat, etc… So I decided to go with purple. I initially was going to go with a green similar to the Kash., but thought purple would look more Elite and fit this suit well.Metal bells were used as inserts for the sharpened and painted kit-bells.

I purchased this kit at Hobbywave.com and used lots and lots of option parts from Mechaskunk.com. including most of the bells and beads. I also used some bells and brass cable replacement from Ako Creations.

The scene is continuing to take shape. Since the last update I’ve completed the tank and assembling the figures I’ll be using. I’ve also assembled the UC Hardgraph Gundam Arm and will be resting in the wall of the abandoned/destroyed factory.

While putting the scene together it hit me that I could make this a multi-purpose base, something I’ve wanted to do for a while due to limited display space. I have a couple of German rail cars in 1/35 that I’ve been planning to “modernize” and build as scenery or just on their own for kicks. I decided that by adding embedded rails and a loading dock to the scene that I can later build and photograph them on this base instead of creating an all new base for them and thus take up even more display space.

Anyway, I first layed 2 sheets of 1/2″ MDF board to make a raised base. Then I used Basswood as a nice stainable border to clean-up the edges of the MDF and to create a lip for pouring my pavement using plaster of paris. While the Ebony stain and polycrylic finish was drying I sketched my layout on the base and photographed it for later reference. As usual this is subject to minor changes, but is pretty much how the layout will go.  You can see how I later decided to add rails in red and the accompanying dock in blue.

Once dry I added a piece of scrap basswood and a lip of tape to contain my plaster pour. In the plaster mix I added a lot of rip-rap, talus, ballast and sand to give texture later when chipping out potholes. After the plaster cured I gave the base a coat of primer then immediately sprinkled the base with a thin dusting of baking soda then more primer to seal. This gives it a rougher more asphault-like texture.

When cured I chissled out the grooves for the rails and began scribing in cracks and potholes. Since this is a long-abandoned facility, maybe 3 years or so, nature has begun to take back the landscape. Most of the cracks will have weeds sprouting from them and fines/brush will be growing up the walls and arm. I also started making the mold for and pouring the sidewalk. I made a section of factory wall as well and will make multiple plaster casts of that too once my new silicone mold rubber arrives.

I began to create some of the details for the dio as well. First was a sheet of signs which I’ll print out later to use. You can download them here. I also made a cable spool from 1/32″ plywood sheet. Mig productions is sending me their Modern City Accessories volume 1 and 2 and modern street lamps to use for this piece. The set contains dumpsters, street lights, barriers, etc… I won’t be able to fit it all on, but all of it will find its way into future projects. I’ve also had a set of “Modern Diorama Accessories” from Blast Models for years that I’ve been meaning to use. I might throw something from that in. Sattelite dish, fridge, microwave, TV, computer, vacuum…

Here’s all the pics:

I’m in the mood for a tank and diorama and this has been burning a hole in my shelf since it arrived. It’s the 1/35 EFGF M61A5 Main Battle Tank “Semovente” Phantom Element from the realistic Gundam model series: U.C. Hard Graph.

This is a really big tank to say the least. Compared to my KV-2, the KV-2 looks rather small and meek. Lots of fantastic details are molded into the design such as non-slip texture, panels, latches, etc.  Several places allow for open hatches and the rear door could be very easily modified to hinge open with a single cut down the molded center door-seam. The drivers hatch is very interesting as it does not flip open, but rather swivels in a circle to open up. This is due to the low clearance of the twin cannon barrels.

Speaking of barrels, the two barrels are two of only 5 parts that require seams to be dealt with. The other three are the front latches and the underside of the turret. All of these seams line up PERFECTLY with typical Bandai quality. Just snap them together and run some thin glue down the seams. Squeeze and you’re all set.  Most of this kit still requires glue to put it together, but there’s a few snap-fit parts which IMO are in great places and really help line things up for gluing.

The road-wheels and suspension are fantastic. The suspension can be swiveled to allow this kit to sit on rough terrain without any modifications. The road wheels come in three parts each (2 halves and a polycap) and have that typical line of flash down the center that most armor kits tend to have. The easiest way to deal with is is to put the road wheels together then slide them on some brass rod in a drill. Choose brass rod that makes for a tight fit. Below you can see a youtube video of the clean-up process. It made the tedious process of cleaning up 24 road wheel halves into 12 very quick sanding sessions as seen below.

The kit can be constructed with the front/side covers on or off. Both look great, but I’m more partial to them being off and is probably how I will display mine. With them off there’s more room for stowage and you can see the treads and road wheels. Those places always look so great when weathered that it’s be a shame to hide them.

As of now the kit is constructed completely based on the instructions. I could prime and paint it and go from there, but I’m going to look it over some more and see if there’s anyplace worth modifying with leftover PE latches, stowage hooks and whatnot. I’ll be adding a pile of stowage to this thing as I often do. I just love the look of a lived-in, used AFV with lots of equipment hanging off of it. I’ll also be making this into a diorama utilizing the Gundam Arm set and making some factory ruins in the background.

About The Build »

I’ve been wanting to paint something in pink
for a while now, but aside from perhaps the Infinite Justice,
I couldn’t decide what else might look good. Then I picked
up the Astraea Type F and it looked perfect for a pink-build!

The kit itself was very easy to put together.
Not a whole lot of seams or masking involved when painting.
The parts fit is perfect as usual with Bandai kits. This kit
comes with all the things that the other Astraea comes with,
but has extra parts for the “mask”.

The worst part of the kit was the rubber parts
for the panels in the arms, legs, and “kidneys”.
I replaced those with ribbed styrene sheet.

Ironically the most difficult part of this kit
was getting a good pink color. I prefer Tamiya Acrylics and
there was just no mixes that I could find that came out vivid
enough. So I decided to seek out some Magenta Pigment in order
to tint some flat white to the shade I need. Well, apparently
Magenta Pigment isn’t cheap so I went to Michaels to have
a look around.

I found some PearlEx pigment sets, and Series
2 had just the color I wanted. Unfortunately (or so I thought)
it had a pearescent sheen to it. I decided to get it anyway
and work with it. It ended up working perfectly and the pearl
sheen was really minimized when mixed with the flat white.
I mixed enough pigment with my white to get the desired color
and did a test spray. It went on a little thick and lumpy,
but thinning it much more fixed that. The end result was the
perfect color. In fact, I also have a pearl cyan and yellow
that I could potentially use to make any color I want via
CMYK values.

Another benefit of the pearl powders was in
doing a color-shift GN-Particle effect to the clear parts
and lenses. To achieve this I sprayed the back of the clear
parts with Future + Green PearlEx, then I added blue pearlEx
to that and sprayed the back-side again, finally I added clear
green Tamiya to that and gave it a final spray. Then dip it
in future to give it a nice gloss and place it over Alclad
Chrome painted internals for the full effect. The end result
is fantastic and unfortunately much better looking in person.
Almost gem-like.