[repost from a popular search engine] Winter is the best season to build models. The cold makes parts easier to cut and saw, and the timing places it right before spring, the season of painting. So, this project, which I have prepared and planned for for half a year, begins officially NOW.
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Well, actually, the kits arrived 3 days ago, but I've been to busy working on them to, you know, make a thread about it. But now I'm outta materials and the hobby stores are closed on new years, so here we are.
Let's begin.
These are all the parts I have so far. None are painted, most were either scratch-built or adapted from other failed mods. There's no Shimenawa ring because I plan on making a new one - the old one was too flat and dimensionless. It looks okay from an angle, but gets batshit ugly when viewed from the front.
Anyways, the body parts are on the left, then the backpack, then the weapons/ accessories.
The Chest unit I felt was misproportioned. It gives the figure a very blunt, masculine shape. Like a body-builder who fights bears. My first mod was to saw the torso into two parts, then taking the bottom and extending it to give the figure a more feminine shape.
I extended the torso by attaching 1-mm styrene plates to the top, and then sanding it down to fit the contours when the cement drys.
The legs were a pain. I ordered two of the same kits, and managed to screw up extending the thighs on all 4 units. That takes skill. Anyways, I used the HGUC GM's upper thighs as a replacement. I ran outta Green putty for smoothing the edges over, so that'll have to wait till after NY. I sanded the joints down to loosen them, since they'll tighten right back up after painting. I also tried to flatten the shins, since they seem too big and bulky, but the engineering on them is really strange and I'll have to first fill it with epoxy before I can get anything done. I've learned my lesson, going one part at a time.
Parts for the backpack. One of the highlights. The parts are from various other kits. The backpack parts on the left are from the MG Freedom Gundam, the one on top is a saw-ed off part from HG 00 gundam's backpack, and the bottom piece was scratchbuilt by yours truely. Took me 2 hours.
It'll look like this when completely glued together. But with, you know, less finger.
Scratchbuilt styrene sticks. With ball-joints attached. These'll hold the Onbashira cannons and allow Kanako to either have them in classic Guncannon position or to wield them underhand. Or, of course, to recreate the MoF sprite (nevermind that the polycaps won't let the model sit cross-legged).
What the setup will look like. The cannons weigh less than they seem.
These are the shoulder armors I finished months before getting the kits. I estimated the size using other HGUC kits. Completely built from scratch. To get them this perfect took me weeks.
Other accessories. The round thing is a Mirror, which'll require some delicate painting. Then there are two swords, one a short falchion, the other a Chinese-styled Jian. I also made a badass Guan Dao, but Soloista said it made the model look like some Dynasty Warriors fellow, so
This single part took the most time out of any. I made all the others in half the time it took to make this (well, the other parts aren't smoothed over/decorated/detailed yet, so we'll see). The blade was fairly easy, and so was the handle, but the guard was abominable. I went through at least 10 others before arriving at this design. And even then, it was tough to make it perfectly symmetrical. But I made it, somehow.
Well, that's all for now.
Voice your support, suggest any changes, gimme advice/ feedback.
I still have to:
-work on the legs
-build a skirt
-attach rivets
-cast a visor
-sand down
-fill in gaps
-carve new panel lines (?)
-Decoration