MG Exia - 2nd Stage - Complete

 VS.

No I'm not done with it yet... but I'm done for now. There's a certain Gauntlet I have to take care of.

MG Exia - Supplemental

Let's go!!! Almost there!

MG Exia - WIP 6 - Painting

Lotta pics so I'm just going to let them do the talking. You can probably figure it out.  Will talk about the paints I used and the painting process in a bit more detail in the coming posts.

Before

After

Good old hockey stick!

Getting close to the assembly stage... But of course there are still a lot of little details to do... and then natural extension of that is choosing which ones are a worth the effort. Gonna start with the decals soon.

MG Exia - WIP 5 - Putty

As I mentioned before I've always always hated the feet for this thing. Impractical design with too many moving parts that don't really do anything. The feet look nice but they've sacrificed functionality. I'm going to change that. After closer inpection of the joint for the "toe" I concluded that it's too much work to increase the range of movement because of the joint shape and placement. But I suppose some movement is better than none (unless it's too loose) so I'm going to leave that as is. If it becomes a problem I'll glue it in place.

Thank you, Seven6398 for this pic!  As you can see the heel doesn't exactly extend all the way to the edges.  It's not such a big deal but I did have some balance problems occasionally.  This is a specifically 00 series type of design so I'm going to change it to make it more conventional.

Using the only type of putty I have.  I don't know what type it is but it's the type where you mix a green and white one together to make this.

After it hardened, it's time to shave and sand.  Note the lack of symmetry.

Then I primed.  Sanded and painted.

It's not perfect. I didn't manage to make the edges as sharp as I wanted to and some of the edges where slightly rounded. Instead of re-puttying I just rounded off the opposing side to make it even. It's just the feet and they're going to be painted black. I can let this go. Like I often say, when it comes to modelling sometimes you just have to choose your battles and let stuff go otherwise you'll never finish. At least if you're a modeler like me. I haven't test fitted it yet to see if it works. More to come!

MG Exia - WIP 4 - Shoulders

Let's just get right to it.

After I shaved the excess putty off, I hand sanded with 180 grit to get it down to the level I wanted it at.  In hindsight, I needed this to be flat so I should have used one of my files or sanding sticks.  My mistake.

I have a choice of two types of extra vent parts.  Wave or Kotobukiya.  I used the Kotobukiya ones for a similar mod with my Infinite Justice.  Because of the area I'm working with the Wave vents seemed like a better option.

I flat sanded the back of the vents and glued them in place using Tamiya Extra Thin Cement (basically the only cement I use now).  It doesn't fit exactly flush.  There is a slightly less than 0.5mm gap at the top of the vents.  So again, in hindsight, I should have either sanded the shoulders flat or attached the vents when the putty was still malleable and pushed it all the way down in order to leave no gaps.  I'll know better next time!  Either way... it's barely noticeable and it definitely passes my inspection.  At this point, mods to the shoulders are essentially completed.

MG Exia - WIP 3 - Refining

This is where we were last time.

I decided to come back to this after working on and finishing a couple of smaller projects that I've yet to post about.  I kinda went through some **** last week but hopefully it will leave me more focused for what's coming up.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of posts recently... but I haven't been idle during that time.  Let's take a look.

After the hacking and cutting the edges were left a bit rough.

All the rough edges were fixed.  Either shaved or sanded down.

I love this type of work.  The refining.  I used 180 grit sandpaper to take it down and then my exacto knife to make sure the edges were up to my standards.  I'm happy with how it looks now.  Pics of the finished product to come later.

More cutting!

Putty to fill in the gaps and even out the surface.

I used a bit of the left over putty on the feet.  I'm probably going to have to add more to this later.  A little bit of putty goes a long way!  I just shaved off a couple of thin slices but it ended up being more than I needed so I was searching for ways to use it.  Then I remembered the feet.  More about that later.  Now it's just a waiting game.

MG Exia - WIP 2 - Scoring and Cutting

Because it's gotta be done.

Hack and slash. Gotta fit these onto the shoulder frame and check the lines again. Re-assess.

MG Exia - WIP 1 - Break down

After looking at it for some time and mulling things over I decided that I'd finally dis-assemble the whole thing and get it ready for painting and modifications. I spent a lot of time talking with my family this weekend (it being Easter and all, relatives were stopping by relatively often hehe), I took the opportunity to get some work done because I'm a social Gunpla guy like that. I like to have someone to talk to or listen to while I'm working.

While I was taking it apart I made note of areas of concern (and I did manage to break a part in the process but I think I can salvage it... or just do away with the whole concept all together.)  I'm talking about the extra, collapsible "antennae" on either of the "collar bones".  I know it's a key part of the design and I do like them but I think they're impractical and get in the way sometimes.  I'll probably scrap them or put them some place else on the suit.

I won't be keeping any secrets with this but I will be revealing things as I work on them.

Despite my efforts in setting up a decent laboratory in the basement I still prefer working in my room so I bring up tools and equipment from the lab as I need them.  Right now the one I'll be working with is the 'saw'.  Time to start hacking up some of this plastic.