1/72 Transformable VF-25S Super Messiah Valkyrie Ozma Lee's Unit Part 8

The most difficult parts to paint
Continuing with the work on 1/72 Transformable VF-25S Super Messiah Valkyrie Ozma Lee's Unit after the previous posting. ^^


Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black) used on additional body parts that aren't grouped with the fuselage (detailed in the previous posting).


With excessive panel liner paint wiped away using cotton swab soaked with enamel thinner.


(Left) Like the Super Pack chest armor detailed in Part 4, the details behind the Valkyrie's own chest armor were panel lined as well.
(Right) The elevated details behind the neck part looks pretty interesting. ^^


The two yellow panels above the Super Pack chest armor have white and gray stripes around the parts. Given the size, and sharp corners of the parts, it won't be easy to wrap the marking seals around them to realize the details.


Since the chest panels' stripes aren't clearly shown in the instruction manual, the marking seals for the parts prove to be more helpful in indicating their colors. ^^;


All six sides on each yellow panel were painted white using Gundam Marker.


When the paint has dried, excessive white paint on top the panels was scratched away using a knife.


All except the two forward-facing sides were painted using Gundam Marker Mecha Gray.
The paint work was really difficult given the parts' small size, compounded by the fact that there's no clear border between the two stripes. ^^; Just make sure it's straight and roughly half in width on the side you're painting on" was the guideline I set for myself for the paint work. ^^;


(Left) Almost unavoidably, one or two sides' paint result didn't turn out well. ^^;
(Right) The excessive bit of mecha gray paint spilled over onto the white stripe was scratched away using a knife, but that cause tiny bits of white paint to be chipped off as well. ^^;


The areas with chipped white paint is "corrected" by painting another layer of white stripe on top of the original one using a sharpened toothpick. ^^


Test fitting the painted parts to see how the chest panels would look like when the parts are assembled. ^^
The lighter base color of the parts, and simple detail design were perhaps the motivations behind my decision to go ahead and paint the details, as compared to the shoulder armor parts (Part 6) in which the opposite decision was made. ^^


Simple panel lining for some of the other body parts.



The chest plate also have details, in red and black that can be realized without using the marking seals provided. ^^


(Left) The red diamond was painted using normal sharp-tipped marker, while the black area was from Gundam Marker paint.
(Right) Excessive black paint around the edges of the part was scratched off using a knife.


Referencing the components on the instruction manual, the micro-missile ports, and vents (?) on the Super Pack booster units should be painted black.


The targeted areas are painted black using normal marker.


Despite their size, the two booster unit parts feature relatively simple details that weren't difficult to panel line. ^^



Line details in tight corners were realized using both Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black) and normal panel liner.



All the ports on the two parts are going to be painted black to simulate depth inside them.


The ports were painted using black whiteboard marker ink.


(Left) Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black) was used to realize all the thruster nozzles' exterior details with ease. ^^
(Right) With excessive panel liner paint wiped away using cotton swab soaked with enamel thinner. Some of the more obvious molded details were redrawn using normal panel liner.


Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black) proved to be a crucial tool to realize the interior details of the thrusters, which are much more elaborate than that outside the parts. ^^
Normal panel liner was used to draw the line representing the outermost ring.







The panel line and paint work was repeated for parts of the other booster unit and thrusters. ^^
Done for the body's and main booster units' detailing, only parts of the head, and dorsal thruster remain before the entire work on this Macross kit is done. ^^