[WIP] HG00 001 Exia R-WIP1

If you guys notice, I have never posted any pictures in details of my HG00 1/144 Exia. Why ? Simply because being my first HG, it was built in the most awesome ways (to current standards that is). No gundam marker, panel lining using some crappy too-dark pen, extremely obvious nip marks and heaps more. So yea, I rework it. Since I already have the color needed to put him back into good shape, why not ?! 

Alrites, in this rework, the tools that I have used are:-

1. Spray Pearl White TS-45

2. Spray Metallic Blue TS-19

3. Spray Metallic Red TS-18

4. Spray Gun Metal TS-48

5. Paint Mr.Hobby Dark Sea Grey No.331 (Semi-Gloss)

I did not take much pictures for the R-WIP but here you go:-

Again extreme masking for the shield.

This is Exia at 75% complete. Note that all stickers are gone and similar to Nu, I am still waiting for his decal via Samuel.

Note that most of the grey parts were hand painted. I like this Dark Sea Grey but it stinks. The painted parts has a "unpainted" look to me. I also painted some of the parts on the sole. Still needs some touch up though.

 

Thanks for viewing and hopefully my R-WIP posts has inspired some of you guys out there to do some refurbishment on your older kits.

[WIP] HGUC 101 Gundam Unicorn R-WIP1 Decal HELL !!!

Have you guys play those games that needs leveling up ? Just like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactic Ogre and certain SLGs and RPGs ? Have you ever try to tackle monsters with levels that is way beyond your current skills/levels ? Just like a Level 12 Cloud fighting Level 45 Sephiroth at the end of Disc 1 ?

Me and my friend just did that.We both have no prior experience in water decals. Never heard of Mr.Mark Softer until a few weeks ago. And like some stupid newbie, we started decal-ing UNICORN for God's sake. I have heard stories of how much decals it has for the MG but now...here is the story for the HG.

Same amount of decals applies for the HG BUT the catch is that the decals are much much smaller !!! Have a look at these pictures yourself |||

 Just look at the size of the warning decal !!!

 Sharp blade made it easy to cut out the decal or else it will take forever !!!

 That is Brunei's 1cent coin !!!

 

Unicorn, you better look good when all this is done. Thanks for viewing and stay tune for more pictures.

[ADV] iShop2go.com's New Packaging

Hopefully I am the only person given these pictures. These pictures were given to me by William of iShop2go.com. I have been a pest to him for a long to get hold of these exclusive photos and finally got them last week. 

According to William, he cleared the area of his colleagues before taking these pictures :) Thanks William. As a reference, he has put together their packaging alongside Bandai and Yamato. Hope this will give readers a better idea of how much their packaging have improved over the past 6 months.

Please visit their shop with the quick access icons on this blog's left panel. 

According to William,

1. They have different number for different boxes. You can check T# in the box upper side
2. Different number means different size. Those are some and not all in our inventory
3. Each side are with 2 layer carton to reduce the damage from delivery, OR careless handlement
4. There is 2 cardboards inside each shipment with our logo (Upper and Lower). This is to fix the product position inside the box.

Note: These are words directly from the email itself. 

Cool iShop2go.com logos pasted everywhere on the box...

Hopefully with these pictures, everyone who is intended to buy from iShop2go.com got their confidence boosted :) Note that due to Brunei's Custom procedures, packages usually comes a bit late. This does not mean that the seller posted it late.This applies to iShop2go.com too.

[WIP] HGUC 086 Nu Gundam R-WIP1

Alright, here is a first look of my Nu Re-WIP. After a few session of spray painting frenzy, I finally decided to rebuild my Nu. For you guys information, Nu is my 2nd HG kit. Exia was my first. I bought this kit via my friend from Singapore for only SG$29.90; believe it or not as OG was overloaded with it. I felt that this kit is too good to be just left behind with my initial built; no skill in panel lining and let alone any painting done. 

Well, for this re-work, I used the following spray paints and tools:-

1. Spray Tamiya Matt White TS-27
       For all of Nu White parts.

2. Spray Tamiya Metallic Black TS-40
       For all of Nu Bluish Black parts.
3. Spray Tamiya Metallic Red TS-18
      For all of Nu Red parts.
4. Spray Tamiya Lemon Yellow TS-XX
      For all of Nu Yellow parts (except V-fin).
5. Spray Tamiya Gun Metal TS-38
      For all of Nu Joints and inner frame parts.
6. Paint Tamiya Flat YellowXF-3
      For all of Nu Groin's V, Thruster on legs, sole and skirt.
7. Paint Tamiya Titanium Silver X-32
      For all of Nu Mechanical Pipings parts on frame.
8. Paint Mr.Hobby Metallic Gold No.9
      For all of Nu Mechanical Joint Pipings parts on frame
9. Pilot Super Silver
      For Nu Bazooka Exhaust cover.
9. Tamiya Masking Tape (6mm)
      To mask parts during spray painting.
10. Tamiya Modelling Brush Item.87017
      Ultimate fine tip brush to reach all hard-to-reach place.

Anyways here are the pictures of my WIP. They are actually in chronological order though it may not seem so.

This picture shows masking done on Nu's parts; getting reading for yellow spray. Note that at time of masking, I have already finished spray painting all the white parts with matt white. Very tedious job just to mask all these parts |||

Closer look at the mask parts. Accurate masking at important places using Tamiya's 6mm masking tape and the rest with A4 paper coupled with cello tape. Faster and saves time.

First layer...

Second layer...

This is how it looks after spraying...

Peel off masking...

Voila :) Work done !!!

Closer look on the matt white on all of Nu's part...

Here is another example of what I have done to just spray paint the skirt area black. Just took too much time.

Gold and silver detailing...

A better look of Nu WIP semi-assembled :)

And finally, once the hellish procedures is over, I can finally put Nu back together. Note that all the decals were removed and at time of writing, Nu looks like this:-

Nu is still at 80% complete as I am still waiting for the decals from SamuelDecal. Hopefully it arrive soon enough so that I can get this done with and move in |||

And if anyone is wondering, these are the Pilot Super Silver/Gold I am talking about. 

Stay tune for more pictures and anticipate Nu at 100% completion. Thanks for viewing.

[TOOLS] SamuelDecal, TatsuHobby, V2HobbyWorld - Decals !!!

I never thought that I would one day buy this decals just to detail my model kits. And I have always been satisfied with a panel lined and some painted kit. Now, building gunpla has gone to a whole new level for me as I have started spray painting, water decal-ing and maybe soon, top coating. 

Anyways, these are the water decals I got from various shops online recently. There have not arrive yet (at time of writing this post). I am sure that you can decipher which kits these decals are for.

The e-shops that I bought from are listed below:-

1. Samuel Decal

2. Tatsu Hobby

3. V2Hobby World

Here are the pictures that I have got from their websites. Too lazy to differentiate which decals are from which shops. I think it will be nice for you guys to browse through all of the decals yourself :) 

HGUC 1/144 Hi-Nu

HGUC 1/144 Studio Reckless

HGUC 1/144 Psycho Gundam Version 1

HGUC 1/144 Pscho Gundam Murasame Lab

HGUC 1/144 Zeta Gundam

HGUC 1/144 Gundam Unicorn ver.Ka & OVA

MG 1/100 Gundam RX-78-2 O.Y.W

HG00 1/144 Gundam Exia

HG00 1/144 O Gundam

HG00 1/144 00 Raiser

Thanks for viewing and stay tune for more updates.