Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The All Exia Project Part 4

Call me a tortoise

缩头乌龟 to be exact, meaning a coward ^^;

Quentin's going to laugh his head off now, because I didn't keep my own promise to myself at all. ^^;

I didn't paint the edge portion of the GN Sword in silver.



It seemed like a natural decision to me when I was planning this project, that the edge must be in silver, else the whole sword would look pretty much like a huge but plain plastic plate. It looked so awesome in the anime as well. It was after I tried my Gundam Marker Silver on the smaller HG version that I got to see that it was not going to be as good-looking as I initially thought it would be.

The layered paint result is one thing (very ugly one too >_<), the missing boundaries near the point of the sword is another. That's fine for Astraea, because its GN Sword has a clear border to help you identify where you silver painting should stop. Not for Exia's though, and I have four of his GN Sword to paint ^^;

I remember my experience with MG Zaku II Ver. 2.0's Heat Hawk, where its curved edge has no clear boundary either. As I painted more layers of yellow for that part, the spill over became more and more uneven. In the end, I just rubbed the part clean, with a lot of frustration. ^^;

It would be very easy with spray can and masking tape I think. But that's what "I think". I never tried that before, and since I never used it before, I can't tell if the result is going to meet my expectation or not.

Like thinking how easy and nice the edge is going to be with just Gundam Marker Silver, but it's not, at all. ^^;

With the silver edge of the GN Sword out of the picture, I just panel-lined the details on each of them, and done. Less than 5 minutes for that.

And since BB Senshi Exia's participation in my All Exia Project is his GN Sword alone, his portion is all done too XD

The shield portion of the GN Sword needs quite a bit of painting though.


Gray for the "barrel" on the white face of the shield.


Gray for the back of the shield as well.
A new Gundam Marker Gray to share the burden of the same color from SEED Basic Set.


Raw finishing, before the paint spilled over onto the edge of the shield is scratched away...


... and after. I'll wait for the painting to dry off even more before panel-lining the details.



Several not-so-obvious parts to be painted in gray.


For the 1/100 scale version, I cut away the insertion point as indicated by the red arrows for much easier painting. There are still a few more insertion points that can hold the white part in place.


Same treatment for the 1/144 scale version as well.

And a little prelude to the hardest part for the entire project - the helmet.

The face is the easiest part to paint when it comes to the head. ^^;



Painted the cheek in gray.

I'll dedicate the next review to the four helmets. ^^;

7 comments:

redmage20386 said...

paint it all in titanium silver color, or better yet, spray or brush it.

i've done with painting only the edge too, but the result is suck because like you said, there is no boundaries.

so i brush it with titanium silver, it turn out to be quite good.

pictures:
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu134/redmage20386/IMG_1262.jpg
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu134/redmage20386/IMG_1263.jpg

Evaritus Lau said...

Bro NK,

do not use marker for that. It really frustrating 'coz the outcome won't be flat....'coz I tried using plate silver marker, which is a hell of cleaning to do afterwards...^^"

Yes like redmage, there's no other easier way to do it except masking then spray it over.

Busterbeam said...

what an ambitious project. good luck!

Code's Conundrum said...

if you ever get the chance to air brush i would suggest that you use Super metallic Iron to colour the GN blades. it looks uber
and its almost similar to that of the anime


or you could use a Gloss top Coat on it

Q said...

Huhuhuh, you're willing to risk having your name written backward? XD

Jokes aside, the lack of seperation/boundary for Exia's GN Sword means it's hard to give it a silver edge to it (unlike Astraea or completed ones like SHCM-Pro). I'm pretty casual on my gunpla so I did use the ugly silver Gundam marker for it... Getting the whole blade in a finished plating like surface is an interesting option though (or find some other stationary as a compromise XD).

One way or the other, I'm sure you'll find a way that you find best to suit the blade's finishing touch~

Evaritus Lau said...

From how I did on HG 1/144 Exia, just spray the whole part 1st the scrap off the top-middle with a wide art knife should do the trick, then buffered it with a nail buffer or fine sandpaper I think...

=)

madmoz said...

Methinks if you still want that little bit of 'shine' on the edges, the easiest thing to do is to use a gundam marker and paint the 'edge' itself. Stand the blade up sideways and quickly run the marker down the 1mm or so of plastic.
Of course, the easiest thing to do, short of airbrushing would be to get some masking tape and a bottle of 'safe for modelkits' chrome spray...