Making Scratch Building Tools

In preparation for some future scratch-building I'll have to do, I've taken the time to put together some templates to make cutting out styrene plate easier. 

I've made six templates with starting at 5mm, increasing by 5 for each plate up to 3cm. Now I won't have to take measurements every time I have to cut out some piece of styrene.

Extreme Gundam in Action

Little strip guest-starring NagatoYuki and Nyoron-chan!

Kit Build #1 Extreme Gundam - part 6

The 2nd Face

 

 

I like how this alternate face looks, though the white face mask hides the little red chin. The v-fins of the default head protrude nicely from the back of the head, looking as if it were some gaudy ancient war helmet. The beam saber was painted in Tamiya Candy Lime Green and the former clear blue parts were painted with Tamiya Light Metallic Blue.

Default Face

Compared to the 2nd face, Extreme Gundam's default face exudes that "Gundam" feel whereas the face on the back of the head appears to be wearing a helmet. I invested a lot of time on this kit to set it even slightly apart from the normal Out of Box build I prefer to do. Some of the too-white parts were just begging to be painted and in the end the result is quite satisfying, especially the the 2nd face.

Kit Build #1 Extreme Gundam - part 5-2

2-Faced

This is what the faces look like after some painting. The blue is from a Tamiya Light Metallic Blue spray can. I hand painted the sparkly greens using BB Senshi Sangokuden Gundam Marker thinned with a couple of drop of retarder. The yellow eye are also hand painted with extraced paint from a Tamiya Yellow spray can. The black surrounding the eyes is a cheapo shortcut using a black Gundam Marker pen.

Tamiya?

 

I'll definitely be switching to the Tamiya brand for my quick spray painting needs. For one thing, I can get them cheaper than the Mr.Hobby sprays and the color selection is much more vast. Another thing is the Tamiya paints seem to cure better in comparison to Mr.Hobby.

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Kit Build #1 Extreme Gundam - part 5-1

A small update after a little break.

2nd Face

It took a few hours for me to figure out and plan how to saw apart the 2nd V-fin behind Extreme Gundam's head, but it only took me less than two hours to align it and put it back together with cement. This was supposed to be the only mod I was planning for this kit. Opening the rear face of this kit was part of the reason why I bought it, aside from its future potential of having armor upgrades.

Next up is figuring out how to mask the tiny, tiny eyes for painting.

Clear no More

Changed my mind about keeping the clear blue parts after seeing how the Candy Lime Green paint looked on the beam saber (photo-to-come). I'm still sticking with blue for the clear parts though. I'd hate to try and upset the color scheme by painting them green.

Kit Build #1 Extreme Gundam - part 4-2

Legs

 

Taking the time to mask and paint the legs was really worth the time it took. I used black enamel to do the panel lines on the white pieces and an ordinary black Gundam Marker pen to line the blue pieces. I thought about painting the ankle armor a different color but doing so would offset the color arrangement of the kit, so I decided against it.

Progress

Quite satisfied with how its coming together. It was a good thing I decided to paint those excessively plain white parts. Looks more of a Gundam than a cheap gimmick kit released to take advantage of a game popularity.

Final Piece: The Head.