Gundam Weekend Part Too!

Well, after another payday (wheee!) we were able to fund another "Gundam Weekend" (which is what I'm starting to call a weekend devoted to Gunpla construction and other Gundam related activities). This weekend we were able to complete painting and construction of a MG RX78-5, and yes it's a somewhat older mold, but we liked how it looked and it was also within our budgets. (hehehe)

He came with relatively fewer parts compared to our other MG's but we had a few problems regarding the paint and panel lines, this plus our new construction method put his completion time up there along with the others. Our new method used last Gundam Weekend entailed that we panel lined before we painted, but this time around after painting, the panel lines started to run. This was rather annoying, because we normally progress in our builds, not regress.

The final product still looks nice, but we learned the hard way that not all paints will accept panel lines before hand. So we may include a panel line paint test before we start on anything next time. The over all procedure was also a bit more streamlined now, we were able to cut away a mass of parts for painting even without considering their position in the kit. We just examined the pieced carefully before construction.

We also noticed that for a MG kit, his body was a little "HGish", there were barely any internals, and his entire shoulder joint consists of just one polycap! He does have screws on each upper arm joint, and his legs and arms are complex with parts, but because he is an older mold, he wasn't as heavily detailed as the newer kits. We still enjoyed building him all the same!

Parts fresh with paint.

This is RX78-5's shoulder joint. For an MG it's a little bare with just one polycap to hold everything in place.

We also began experimenting with styrene boards, experienced modelers use styrene in very many ways, and they are even able to build entire armor pieces and various other modifications all from styrene. So we are currently trying simple styrene detail applications.

Styrene being added to the head.

We also observed with RX78-5 that he had a massive foot, one that was not jointed at the ankles that we have grown accustomed to. Also adding to his lack of poseability was the limited amount his entire leg could compress due to the rather bulky armor plates.

The legs maximum crouch position.

All comments aside yet again, after completing the entire kit, we were very surprised at how nice the entire color scheme was. Also impressive was his apparent heft, size wise he has more bulk to him that our other kits, and combined with his very impressive giant gattling gun we were very happy to add him to our collection.

RX78-5 in all his completed glory! Nice!

That same night, we also continued work with our Strike and IWSP modifications. Last time we were able to modify the color scheme of Strike, this time we modded the colors of the IWSP pack as well.

Strike with IWSP custom colors.

It still is not fully comleted, as it still needs a few tweaks here and there. Hopefully we will be able to complete him soon.

Our collection so far, looking forward to adding more members to the brotherhood of Gundams.

After every Gundam Weekend we always pack up our collection for safe keeping!

Wonder what our next Gundam Weekend will bring? Will keep you posted...

For more details on Gundam Weekend mosey on down to Senses Lumines where he covers the details (pros and cons) of the RX78-5 construction as well as the custom painting of Strike with IWSP, and various other experiences during Gundam modeling.