MG GN-X?!

Who's looking forward to this? I'm not sure I am as I already have the HG version. I have to say I'm pretty surprised (and pleased) by the decision to make this though! The mods are going to be great!

Stolen from here.

Recent work, using the tripod and a rant about decals and hobby magazines.

I love my tripod.

It makes taking pictures so much easier. And more fun too actually. This is pretty much the exact way that it looks with the lighting in my room. My room lighting is a bit softer but this is pretty close. Tungsten white balance setting. Just wanted to show off the pics of what I've been working on recently.

You can see with the tripod that the details of the parts really come out. Even on the Sinanju piping for the lower torso... you can see that I missed a couple of tiny spots when I took this picture. I think I got most of them later... it was done by Gundam markers so... it's not perfect. I didn't want to spray it because I wanted the spring underneath to remain its original colour.

The most intricate detailing I've done so far is painting the crest on the front of neck piece, black. It's really tiny and took a bit of work to get it symmetrical.

GM Command shield... took a bit more work than I anticipated.

1. I painted the spare magazines on the inside.
2. Also did a panel line wash on the inside.
3. Fed crest had to be filed down so the paint would stick on the topmost edge.
4. Fed crest was also painted by gold Gundam marker and lined in black very lightly.
5. Shield vents at the top gave me some trouble. Started with a black Gundam marker just on the edges (not the inside. It was very difficult to do with a marker. It would have been easier with a brush). It looked too bold so I tried to get rid of it with thinner and made a big mess, but ended up doing my panel lines in the process. Blessing in disguise maybe. Looked at GM Command art for reference. Vents are grey and solid inside and out. Went for gunmetal with a brush (so much easier on all fronts) and easy clean up job with a knife. Just dragged it around the outside edges of the vent to get that nice curve. Worked perfectly. Better than masking probably.

Now it is time for my rants.

Rant # 1 - Waterslide decals

First time to use them and I'm NOT impressed. I bought an extra set and tried them out on the GM Command and found the whole process to be messy and inefficient. And in the end they didn't stick for me. Or they got stuck in the wrong place. Or they ripped. Dry transfer or stickers with mark setter all the way for me. There was probably something wrong with my technique but I can now officially say that I'm not a fan of water slide decals. At all.

Rant # 2 - Hobby Japan vs. Dengeki Hobby

Went to a book store yesterday and was taking a look at this month’s Dengeki Hobby and realized that it is a superior magazine to Hobby Japan. Never mind the give aways, but they give you decent posters of real kits with/or computer assisted art instead of the standard GFF line art posters that Hobby Japan gives you.

Not to mention this month’s massive 10 page spread on PG Astray... Hobby Japan had TWO and they were like the Bandai press release stuff. NOT impressed.

Unfortunately I made a subscription with Hobby Japan so I'm getting them every month but I won't be renewing it. Dengeki Hobby seems to be better to me. Smaller, better content (Gundam wise at least) and better models. This month’s photo shoot on the GNX-3 A Laws was beautiful! They painted it in like a... metallic ruby colour. Just gorgeous. But in Hobby Japan this month it's all Zaku's and tanks! Who cares?! Is this 1979 and people are still going crazy over how great the Zaku is?! Ugh...

End rant.

Anyways I was not happy about yesterday's revelations. Other than that... it seems like my enthusiasm for modelling as came back. It helps when you can see the progress quickly. It kind of inspires you to keep going. Just going to keep plugging away until the Red Frame comes out and then we'll see what happens then.

GN-X III - Lance work

Since Blogger is TOTALLY lame when it comes to pictures, I'm doing this post through Imageshack. Blogger likes to take your uploaded photos and rotate them anyway it sees fit despite the orientation at the time of the uploading. To make matters worse, Blogger does NOT have a "rotate image' function. I made this post with Imageshack and it worked perfectly the first time. Man you'd think they'd be able to sort something as simple as rotating images out in their programing. Ugh... maybe I should have stuck with Wordpress. Oh well. Too late now.

Now onto today's post. Back to work on my GN-X III. Today will deal with the lance.

Test painted without primer to see how it'd look. It's acceptable. Glued the pieces together and let it sit.


I sanded and I repainted to test the seam lock. It was good but I sanded a bit too much so I covered it up with an extra layer of paint.


I'm going for a complete lance without the rifle ports so it's epoxy putty time! It works by combining the pale green and white ones together until its malleable enough to work with.

Puttied. Epoxy on the base and tip, basic putty on the edge of the lance because I wanted to cover up those lines as well.


Shaving the putty off. I tried sanding it with the thicker base but realized it would take a long time to get it uniform, so I shaved it down to it's base surface.


Sanded again. It was pretty good, but I did way more work than I needed to. Basic putty would have done the job a lot faster and cleaner. Live and learn! Tip length extension is negligible.


Primed the lance to test for errors. There were a couple of imperfections.


More basic putty to cover up the trouble spots. Will do a more gentle sanding job to get it the way I want.

GN-X III - Priming

Primed my seam lined parts to check for errors. The results speak for themselves. Some good, some bad, but mostly on the good side. Probably won't go back to fix the errors but will just cover it up with a couple coats of paint. Well... try to do that at least.

GN-X III - Stage 2 - Seam lines

Alright so now I'm going to try and tackle the seam lines. There are a bunch but I'm not going to hit all of them. Just the lower legs, forearms and upper arm armor. Everything else isn't so bad. I'm spraying the off white-grey pieces with the standard Gundam white that I used on the Red Astay's Gerbera Straight. No primer. Just make the grey-white a bit more white and more of a matte finish with a touch of grainy texture. Looks pretty much the way I want it. Haven't tried it on the puttied pieces yet and I'm not sure if it's going to work. I like the light spray but if I do that on the puttied pieces the putty will probably show through. Unless I use a heavy coat which is still an option.

So I'm kinda on the fence now. The metallic brown I got looks heavy enough to go right over top of the base purple and not let much if any of those undertones out. And the white might be able to go right over top of my puttied seam line parts. Don't know why I'm anti primer. Just want to leave as many steps out so I can finish this build faster. MGIJ should be coming out at the end of this week but I won't be able to pick it up right away since I'll be out of town.

Anyways I'll post a couple most pics of this process so you can see the changes as they happen.

GN-X III 609-T - Basic build complete

Didn't take long to make at all. Three panels, a couple of hours. Was thinking of timing myself but then I realized that I'm usually doing 3 things at once and the times wouldn't be accurate. Zero stickers and no sanding yet. Just standard nipping and scraping/cutting with my exacto knife. Not a lot of flexibility in the design. Head barely moves. This is no Gundam! and its no MG that's for sure. That said... I was kind of impressed with it considering that its just a HG. Range of motion isn't great. I thought the legs were built the same but they actually weren't. I put the left one on the right side and vice versa just to realize that the flexibility is different. Aesthetically they look the same however. Little details matter!

Speaking of little details... there aren't that many. Shouldn't expect many from a mass produced suit I suppose. Gonna have fun bringing the few that are there out though. Saw a couple of areas that I can really hit and make look good. Gonna make the GN Tau Drive really pop. Proportion of the legs to the torso is a bit weird though. Couldn't do the "throwing lance" pose the way I wanted to though. Too bad... Don't really feel like modding this kit to get the effects I want. But you never know. Might just decide to say '**** it' and just do it.

Biggest issue so far is the seam lines. Going to have to do something about them this time. Especially if I'm planning on painting this thing. They stand out a lot and in some places the pieces don't fit together exactly right... It'll take some time, but I have it. Gonna need some more paints too. Gonna go back and get the bronze and this... pretty hardcore bright silver I found.

The real joy of this kit is going to be the lance. I've got crazy ideas for that and I'm going to spare no expense in making it look as sweet as I can. Just like Red Astay's Gerbera Straight. Gonna hit that lance hard. It's been the funnest part of the build so far.

Kind of looking forward to making this one but debating on whether or not to go back to the G04 since I was kinda on a roll with it. I'll sleep on it. Finish up the shield and rifle, look at the kit for a bit longer and see if it says anything else to me.

HG 1/144 - GN-X III 609-T A-Laws Type

Just released at my local shop... and I couldn't turn it down. Hell my lunch cost more than this!

This is about as modern as it gets. They just showed the suit for the first time last week.

So I bought it and realized that I get a 30% discount plus 10% points on my card and a free DVD that I didn't even realize I had until I got home and emptied the bag. As I was leaving I was thinking of what colour to paint it. Going down the escalator I looked at my tie and thought... yes... that's it. Metallic Purple! Go back up to the paint section... no metallic purple. Regular purple is too light. Maroon. Too much brown and red. Lavender. Too much pink. Oh well. Take a look at the kit again and listen to it's voice... Centurion. Bronze. Metallic. Shiny. The Bronze paint they have is a bit dull for the main colour but would be a nice accentuate. Go for metallic brown because it has more of the bronze look that I was imagining. Rich. Probably need to prime so the pink under colour doesn't come through. Scanned the other available colours to see if anything else would work... No... Bronze centurion hits me the hardest. Gonna use all metal colours on this bad boy. Weathering on the lance. Sharpen the tip. Extend? No... it'll throw the angles off. The metallic purple would have been nice though. Got me to thinking... My Impulse is in the same colour scheme as another one of my neck ties. Haha I have a tie to match each of my painted Gundams now that I think about it. Strange.

DVD is just some promo stuff. Talking about some 00 kits and a recap of all of Season 1. Great quality though. Starting to think that the 00 Blu-ray DVD's might be a good investment.

Lots of stickers in the box. But I'm not going to use any of them this time. The type of stickers that cover entire pieces to make it look like a different colour. Useless for me.

Feh... I went there looking for MGIJ but came away with this. AND I'm still working on the G04. AND I still have 4 Seed HG's to build. But I am saving those for when I get an airbrush. I'd like to build them at least though. That's kind of the fun part for me. Oh well... no rush. I have time. 609-T is becoming my priority.

With the 609-T I'm going to be doing the WIP here. So... Project: Bronze Centurion - 609-T GN-X III aka JINX. 開始/START