Blogging about plastic scale models of mobile suits from the Gundam franchise, focused on classic designs from the One Year War and advocating the realism of mobile suits in modeling
I finally tried my hand at what is most commonly known as 'The Max Technique,' it's the common style of leaving edges and panel lines darker than the center of the form. This creates some contrast with the edges that gives a nice effect and somehow ends up making them look more like giant robots. It almost represents a minor form of weathering, as if there are areas that have had their color stripped away by wind and weather.
I am quite satisfied with the results I got. Since the model is only a 1/144 scale, it's a bit difficult to really emphasize small areas, my brush, even at its lowest and finest pressure, just covers too much area. So I opted for an extremely subtle gradation on most pieces. This is the rear skirt armor and you can see that on the edges there is a slight shift in shade. This is the medium brown undercoat I painted each of these with, once it was covered with white it did a great job of blending in. The brown actually looks attractive in areas where it shows through, almost like dusty sand has accumulated.
I was at the hobby store and picked up a nice muted red off the shelf. The name was 'German Aircraft WWII,' so I affectionately refer to it as 'Nazi Red.' It's actually quite beautiful, it's slightly darker than pure red and ever so slightly orangey. It's a lot less harsh than the Gundam Red I have, to me it was an ideal choice for the insides of the thrusters. I contemplated gold or silver thrusters but I want to try to build this true to the original design.
These particular pieces show off the gradation very well. They are such simple forms that painting them properly was extremely easy. To paint so fine, I reduced my compressor's PSI to around 20 so that my working pressure dropped quite low, maybe down to 5 or 10. I barely pulled back on the trigger of my brush so that there was a very light, very fine mist of paint coming out. I worked from the center outwards and after I was done I'd pull my brush very far back, release a lot of paint, and twist the piece quickly. This final coat evened out the gradient so that the pieces appeared to be entirely white, not white with brown peeking through.
So now I've just got to do the gray and midnight blue shading on the other half of the kit and then it's on to detailing and finishing. I can't wait to see how it looks once it's all together, it's so tempting to do a test fit but I really want to finish it all before I put in the effort. Stay tuned for more!
I finally got some photos of my setup with my new paint exhaust system from Mr. Hobby. It's a fantastic solution for anyone who has a cramped apartment space with very few windows. I can't work out on my patio (it's very small) so I have to work indoors and crack windows. This easily fits into my window sill and makes next to no noise when on.
The booth runs around $200 so when I first got it, I admit I was disappointed. It seemed so flimsy! As I assembled it, however, it became obvious that it was only 'flimsy' because it was as minimal as it could get while still being effective. It's light, small, holds itself up well, and doesn't feel cheap at all once you're working with it. The fan is about as loud as a hair dryer on low or a small fan, it can be turned on and off with a flip switch.
It has a very sturdy rubber hose that attaches to a small exhaust port on the fan. It goes on and off easily but won't come off by simply pulling on it. In my opinion it is rather high quality, it snaps into place and holds its shape well. You can pull on it to make it longer (that's what she said) or you can scrunch it down so it's small for storage. You can see the feet of the fan sitting quite a ways back on my window sill. I have never felt like this was going to tip over or fall off, it holds its weight perfectly. Again, everything is just as stripped down as it can be.
It's getting to be winter here in Denver and the temperatures are dropping. Mr. Super Booth allows me to work inside because you only need to crack the window slightly so you can fit the mouth outside. That was a separate purchase which I highly recommend. It's only 2 or 3 inches tall so you can get away with a nearly closed window.
I'm 100% certain you can build your own booth for much cheaper than this option, but the quality speaks for itself. It's a really top-notch painting solution for cramped spaces and it saves you the hassle of worrying if you're going to put the wrong fan in or have some kind of fume fire. It has a changeable filter sheet that came with replacements so you don't have to worry. If you're lacking a traditional studio and live in a smaller space like I do, I really recommend it. Set up is easy, clean up is easy, storage is simple and small, what else do I need?
I picked up this HG Zaku II F2 for the r/Gunpla Zaku II Group Build on September 27th which means I was already 4 weeks in when I got the kit. I tried to work quickly but have run into some roadblocks. Here's a log of my work so far:
Here's the box art. It's a fairly slim kit with fewer sprues than an average MG.
Here's my snap fit of the torso as well as the paints I picked up - sail color, super white, midnight blue, and engine gray.
I then disassembled the kit in preparation for painting and kept the pieces segregated by color (cue Ali G saying that's racialism!). This was very useful when I started to putting them on stakes because I was able to group them by color.
Then I gave them a few hours overnight to soak in some soapy water and let them dry that afternoon. This is supposed to help release particles from the surface so it takes paint better. Not sure how necessary this is, but it doesn't seem like it hurt at all. I've also seen it suggested that you use alcohol and a Q-tip to swab each piece before painting. Works nice for an SD but it would get pretty nightmarish on larger kits.
Here's the shipment my airbrush and compressor combo came in. I use an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS and an Iwata Smart Jet compressor. I've really enjoyed it since I've had it, the quality is unbelievable and it provides great control of paint flow with a dual action trigger (i.e. you can control airflow by pressing down, paint flow by pulling back). The compressor runs very quietly and shuts off when it's not in use. Cleaning the airbrush is tremendously easy and takes maybe 5 or 10 minutes.
Here are photos of my first attempt using the brush. I mixed Mr. Surfacer 1200 at a 1:1 ratio with thinner and poured it into my cup. I tested it on a piece of paper and it worked great. Each piece is stuck on a bamboo skewer with a bit of mounting putty. This worked well, but I recommend using smaller pieces of styrofoam so you can more easily manage the pieces. It also makes putting wet pieces back a lot easier as you won't touch other ones that are drying.
Here was my first set up. I was using a totally ineffective cardboard box and stupidly put my compressor on a chair. At the kind advice of a forum goer on MAC, I now spray with it on the ground. Here you can see I did a pretty good job on some pieces (like the backpack) but others such as the foot were undersprayed. You only get better by making mistakes! I went back later and resprayed the unfinished pieces.
And today, in spite of some sickness, I went forward with my first pre-shading step - the undercoat! I picked out Brown FS30219, what a charming name. It's a nice middle toned milk-and-coffee color which compliments the sandy white of the kit very well.
2:1 thinner to paint ratio, mixed up about 25ml and only ended up using half. I'm saving the rest for my 1/100 MG version of this kit.
I think they turned out fantastic, the coat is very even and delicate, I love the color so much I almost want to keep it this way.
Mmm, semi-gloss.
So I'm going to let them dry for a day and then get cracking on the rest tomorrow. I am not confident I will make the Halloween deadline but I will finish this as soon as I can. I'll keep you updated.
I've finally gotten around to finishing my Zaku II 2.0 MG! I had a really good time with this kit, Bandai did some smart design on this classic MS. The model has a fully detailed inner frame that is easily comparable to a Perfect Grade - the legs have numerous sliding pistons and layered pieces of internal mechanics, the mono eye swivels from side to side in the visor as the head shifts left and right, and the pilot's cockpit can be shifted internally with a switch underneath the backpack. By the time you slap the outer armor on it, the weight is noticeably heavy which is good because the final product feels very solid, not fragile at all.
The raw plastic that comes in the kit is gorgeous, it almost has a porcelain finish when you buff it making this a great candidate for anyone who doesn't want to paint. One of the biggest reliefs was how easily the tubing was constructed. It came mounted on a little rubber pipe so you snip each one off and can sand them all at once while they remain on the skewer. Then you slide them on to a hollow metal spring which gives a touch of realism that is much appreciated.
The mono eye was colored using a magenta Sharpie. It catches the light very well and I actually prefer the muted pink over the harsh magenta they show as an example in the instruction booklet. I should also mention that the hands on this kit are very impressive, each finger has one knuckle and one ball and socket joint so you can pose them almost any way you want. The palms have a very convenient ridge you can mount weapons in to so they are held tightly. Older kits like the Zaku I in the background lack this feature and tend to hold their weapons very loosely, limiting poses and making them look a little dumpy.
You can see really well in this photo that the head dome on the Zaku II has been rounded out significantly compared to the Gouf. It's not immediately obvious, but a lot of the proportions of this kit have changed to be a bit truer to the 70's design. I personally love it, this is the quintessential Gundam aesthetic. The panel lines are tastefully sparse, the MS has a robust, stocky anatomy that makes it look like it could take a beating (or dole one out!) and it really looks like a machine of war and not a robot superhero.
This is one of those rare model kits where there is literally nothing to critique. I love the attention to detail that's in this kit, easily the highest quality MG I've yet to build. Now if they'd only do a Zaku I 2.0...
Do people, like myself, spend time imagining what it would be like if Gundam robots were actually present on the streets of our cities? Are you sure you're not limiting yourself to the images that were offered in the animated series? One of the reasons that I fell in love with Gundam was that it excites me to imagine what it would be like if these machines actually existed, and I worry that other fans may be losing out...
Hajime Katoki
Hajime Katoki is one of the most well-regarded mecha designers, known for his infamously detailed "Ver. Ka" designs. Many years ago I found a website that had a compilation of realistic images he made using Gundams and I've finally found them again. They appear to be a series of promotional postcards for Gundam Fix, an art book that Katoki put out some time ago.
In my own vision, Mobile Suits transcend their roots as an animated show and become something bigger, a far reaching concept like the elves of fantasy lore. While it was originally a cartoon, I think this was actually a limiting factor to how much the creators were able to flesh the story out. The appeal of cartoons revolves around children who can be easily overwhelmed by excessively complex stories. There is an adult veneer to most Gundam shows, some more than others, but it always seemed that they only existed to reel kids in with bright colors and action-packed robot fights in order to sell them toys. I recognize the irony in my love for Gundam models as I complain about the commercialization of the TV show, but I feel justified in the fact that I first discovered them before I knew anything about the animated series.
I remember watching Toonami on Cartoon Network when I'd get home from school. They had a usually predictable lineup of Japanese shows: Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, and for a long time Gundam Wing. Even at so young of an age I could feel something about the show I didn't like. Too much fantasy and melodrama. Even the designs of the suits didn't appeal to me, they seemed too garish and colorful. The pilots were stereotypically whiny teenagers who could somehow perform superhero robot moves (dodging thousands of missiles, constantly explosive action) with nothing but two joysticks and some pedals.
The only series I can really say I enjoyed was The 08th MS Team. It was a retelling of the original One Year War from the Mobile Suit: Gundam series but it took place in the jungles of Asia. It featured a squad of individual soldiers who had limitations and lacked the expertise of other pilots. Their equipment was believable, at one point an RX-79(G) loses its head and has it replaced with a GM head. They set up an ambush against some Zeon soldiers who have been harassing a town and on the first shot they actually miss! It's a big deal, too, because it gives their position away. They even use a hand-launched RPG to shoot the unarmored area under the Zaku skirt to incapacitate it. The battle doesn't immediately turn into mobile suits flying at each other with swords and axes, there aren't volleys of hundreds of missiles. It actually turns into a lesson about the horrors of having to kill people in war.
I like the idea that Gundams, like their pilots, are limited in their capabilities. They represent something between a super advanced jet airplane and a heavily armored tank. Their size puts them at a disadvantage; they're easily spotted, fairly slow to move, and are a huge investment. Losing a single MS would mean many billions of dollars in destroyed technology, they'd do everything in their power to minimize the risk of confrontation. Your best bet would be hiding, spotting them enemy, then attacking from range without their knowledge. This makes me think they'd probably not survive excessive battle damage. A single direct hit with a large missile (say the RX-78's 380mm bazooka) could severely incapacitate the machine. It could break their relatively unarmored joints, it could destroy critical systems for keeping balance or moving, and the trauma the pilot suffers in falling almost 50 feet to the ground would be nothing short of a car wreck. You could break bones with that kind of force!
For this reason, they would rarely if ever have the amount of damage that some modelers portray on them. I can forgive minor pock marks from small weapons fire and maybe even some soot from explosions, but when people show deep beam saber cuts across the head, huge, gaping craters from explosives, or paint weathering across the whole kit that looks like it was dragged behind a car, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief. I admire the skill it takes to create that damage, but have you ever seen an operational jet that's in such bad condition? Even a tank? There might be a few examples of rickety machines after huge battles or towards the end of the war as resources get scarce, but they would take damn fine care of those machines and only the best of the best would pilot them. A mobile suit melee would be historic, there would be only a handful of such events.
The advantage of an MS in combat is that they could reorient large weapons, like artillery, very quickly. Take the Zaku's ubiquitous 120mm machine gun for example. Wikipedia states:
Heavy mortars are typically between 120- and 300-mm caliber... a 120 mm mortar bomb has about the same explosive capability as a 155 mm artillery shell.
For reference, here is a video of a 155mm GPS guided artillery round:
Mobile suits are essentially a vehicle to shrink large weapons down to a normal size so it can be moved and fired at speed. They transform the standard artillery shell into a rapid fire machine gun that can be very accurately aimed. Close combat would probably be out of the question unless it was a last resort, even a few sprays from a 120mm machine gun could cause dangerous levels of damage. But how would a Mobile Suit reload a weapon? Maybe a computer system would take over and automatically go through the delicate motions necessary to reload such a massive gun.
Defenses against conventional ground forces like walls or fences could be kicked down, stepped over, or stepped on, tanks could be blown away like leaves, and ground forces could probably be spotted by the numerous cameras on mobile suits. However, I honestly don't know if I could see mobile suits walking around cities to defend them. Their intense weight would rupture asphalt and cement with their every step, ruining roads, knocking out power lines, and potentially even collapsing sewer and water systems. The empty weight of a Zaku II is 130,000 lbs, more than three times the maximum allowed load of semi trucks in the US. You can easily imagine how much force they'd put down after landing from flying. This makes me think their main use would be invasion of enemy cities or perimeter defense of friendly cities. They'd probably have special city patrol MS units that are equipped to fly great distances, they'd maybe even be small enough and light enough that they could walk through streets without causing such destruction.
Keeping in mind that the original Gundam timeline takes place a couple hundred years in the future (around 2250), I am assuming that they'd no longer use chemically fueled rockets and they'd have found energy sources that can power a Mobile Suit easily such as a miniature fusion generator. I can believe almost everything except for the grace of these giants. I don't think they could flip around like 40 foot tall Bruce Lees, but I do think they could walk, run, and fly very efficiently.
Gundam models, or Gunpla as it's called, appeal to me as scaled down replicas of these concepts. The 'design vocabulary' used in the Gundam universe is very appealing to me - the design of legs, feet, armor, weapons and so on are very solid. They have a similar flavor that penetrates most models in the Universal Century timeline. I think most of the kits have a very inspired look and would almost be like bragging rights for forces that have them. Even a dozen mobile suits would be more dangerous than a nuclear weapon, but to have a bright blue machine like a Gouf with its aggressive shoulders and angry look would both inspire those who are on its side and terrify those who aren't.
