MG Operation X-Mas/Ho-Ho-Heavy Arms/Noel

Photos by reddit user HeyItsJay

Hi I'm Vette and I like stupid concepts.

We were throwing around the idea of having themed contests in Austin Gundam Club and I, like the saint (Nick) that I am suggested a Holiday theme for the Decemeber meeting. I didn't actually have a kit in mind when I suggested the theme, I just thought it would be fun. I considered doing a holiday Beargguy III. Then I was given a MG Heavy Arms at Oni-con from the lovely folks of Oni-pla and inspiration slapped me like I'd said a dirty word.

My holiday kit should be a festive Heavy Arms that was shooting presents. The presents are coffee stirrers with tape wrapped around and filled to be the missiles and painted to look like exhaust. I wish I would have found clear ones but no luck. The ribbons are strips of paper I dipped in paint then formed and glued in place.

I also took this as an opportunity to indulge in one of my favorite parts of building: stupid tiny detail painting. I started with a basic recolor, keeping the red and white of the original kit (though using the same gorgeous crimson as on the Veni Vidi Fenice) and switched the yellow and orange for gold and nickel. One of the lovely folks at the Oni-pla meet showed me nickel paint and I fell in love. Building the kit was a bit of a nightmare, a lot of pieces fit too tight before paint was even applied and some pieces went AWOL (twice) so I had to scratch build some of the small joint pieces for a skirt flap and a chest... flap thing. But I got him in order and still had fun building him. On top of that festive paint job I channeled xmas sweaters with scrolls, dots, stars, doves, holly and prancing goddamn reindeer all of which were free hand painted.

There's even little deers on the shoulders noone ever sees. Look at them prancing festively!

I also accidentally got a manicure in the same red as I was using to on this kit.

And of course one of the included little Trowa figures got painted as Santa (it was in fact the little dude I painted when I taught a little dude painting workshop at the November meeting of AGC). This was also my first foray into diorama building and while not perfect it's not a bad first attempt! There's still modeler's snow in the corners of my kitchen though.

HG GM Sniper K9

Nice pictures are from HeyItsJay on reddit from the AGC's 2nd contest

So I have a problem. Well, two if we're being honest.

My motto in life is "When in doubt, paint it metallic". Any time I see plain grey or yellow plastic I just want to paint it a metallic~! Actually I would probably paint all of my kits in metallic shiny colors if I didn't hold myself back! Originally the Sniper K9 was just going to be a plain snap build with matte coat over it since I actually loved the green of the plastic (and I am not about that painting the plastic the same shade it already was life) but staring at the grey I couldn't deny my true feelings. It needed to be metallic~!

I could practically hear the Renato brothers though.

"Metallic paints? This is a war machine what are you even thinking?" Mario said.

"But those grey parts would be metal, especially on the frame," I cried back.

"You casual," Julio said, shaking his head.

But that was when I realized that a) my argument was valid, the grey parts WERE likely meant to be bare metal irl, b) this is my kit so I should do what I want and c) I was in fact arguing with myself.

I couldn't find a mid toned metallic grey that I liked in spray can form (I've since bought literally every form of metallic grey from Tamiya) so I laid down a layer of silver and misted a metallic charcoal over it. I like the results though I think maybe it would look better if the kit was weathered. I just love the greens too much to weather this kit right now. Those greens are the plastic of the kit with matte coat over.

The inner frame and the K9 are painted with same metallic charcoal I used to mist over the silver as well as a little bit of matte black on some parts of the K9. It's a beautiful color it just takes FOREVER to dry. Like I really need to leave the pieces to sit for a week before doing much with them when it's even slightly humid. The butt of the rifle shoes this. :(

And thus we get to my other problem. The fact that I simply have to do really detailed painting on my little dudes, even though at 1/144 scale that means they're freaking tiny. It eats up sooo much time though they did come out nicely.

And that's right, I painted these little guys to look like Mario and Julio Renato. Because I really do have a problem.

I also painted another one of the little dudes to look kinda like me! Three of the seven little dudes are lady little dudes so it seemed like a fun idea. At least it was fun until I got to putting make up on her (I don't go outside without makeup). I used a bit of cornstarch in order to change the helmet into a bun hairstyle like I normally wear. :D

The sculpting on these tiny little dudes is insane by the way. So many details.

AG Zedas 'Nightmare' (Bad End Witch prototype)

This kit. Ahahaha this kit. It wasn't supposed to be a prototype but let's say that if it could go wrong on this then it did. First I didn't realize I'd ordered the Advanced Grade and not the High Grade and boy howdy is there a difference despite them being about the same size.

Snap built. The one good pose.

The Advanced Grade has four points of articulation: the head turns, the arms go up and down and the sword kind of swivels. That's it. The legs don't move, the arms don't bend I mean jesus. But it can do the one pose I wanted really freaking well and I'd already dropped the $10 so I forged ahead. The specific purple metal flake I found, while a beautiful color, was difficult first to apply and then utterly impossible to put any sort of top coat on without crackling and fogging randomly popping up. I still went ahead and did all the detail painting because it was already halfway done so I figured why not.

The purple is really beautiful... on the parts where it cooperated.

Obviously I'm not... happy... with the final result but I suppose it's like a car that's really finicky and that I have to spend a lot of time working on. I do love it and it's special in it's own way but I already have another HG Zedas in hand and will be doing this right in the near future.

Life's more fun when you're posing your toys while eating.

On the plus side I don't feel the least bit bad taking this with me for my Builder Fighters cosplays! Although now it's missing a shoulder but I lost that at home, not even at one of the conventions I took it to.

For those who are wondering, it was my digibash to finalize ideas. Originally was going to splat on neon pink paint like splattered transmission fluid/the blood of a gundam but that would have only worked with a grey base color. I will be doing the clock hand sword eventually via pla-plating but I'm kinda done with this version and will wait until I do the HG version.

And for the record, if we include this AG Zedas this makes 5 Zedas that I own. I know, I have a problem. I should probably just change my name to Zeda or Zedas or something given how I still contemplate ordering more HG Zedas kits and dear god if a MG one is ever released I'll need one or three of those.

Veni Vidi Fenice and Meteora Trionfante (HG 1/144 Gundam Wing Fenice and Meteor Hopper)

Completed Spring 2014

Technically the idea for the paint job started from a twitter friend named Zach mentioning how he had this idea of a Fenice custom and he'd call it the Veni Vidi Fenice (you know like I came I saw I conquered). All I could think of were classic Roman triumphal parades as the focus of my major was Roman history. My design actually ended up being rather different than what Zach had planned on but as soon as he had mentioned it I had an image in my head. The face is red since you painted your face red to show a connection to the god of war Mars. It's glossy with lots of gold to show the wealth and showmanship that went into the parade. I was going to do purple on the torso since you'd wear a purple and gold toga but it honestly clashed. I let the gold v fin stand in for the laurels but I may paint that on the back of the head still. And of course I gave him a chariot to match! I used Automotive touch up rattle cans for the red since a metal flake sounded like a beautiful idea. The paint can be a bit thick but otherwise is a dream to work with. You do have to put gloss coat over it though for it to be even remotely glittery/shiny.

I also entered this kit into the A-kon 25 round of the 2014 GBWC! I wanted him to wave out while standing on the chariot but couldn't get him to balance in the case so nixed that idea. My friend John lent me an open palm hand for the occasion but only had a left one that would fit so had to drop the energy cape. The linked gallery is the official Bluefin gallery. It was absolutely thrilling seeing something of mine in the case and I loved getting to see everyone else's hard work too!

Bluefin Gallery