HMM Zoids 1/72 Red Horn Part 5

Gray, fluorescent green, indecision
Another round of painting and detailing on Kotobukiya's HMM Zoids 1/72 Red Horn after the previous posting: ^^


A collection of parts waiting to be painted in gray, as identified in Part 3.

All the parts are painted using Gaia Color 074 Neutral Gray IV.







Closeups on the painted areas.


Paint work on the smaller light gray parts.



Painting the stock of the High Pressure Concentrated Sulfuric Acid Powder Cannon turned out to be quite a challenge, since there's no explicit border separating the dark gray and yellow sections.
I actually use the protruding dots that circle the middle section as the makeshift border during the paint work, which doesn't really help to make the work any less nerve-racking. ^^;


Paint work for the Composite Sensor Unit's and the recon pod thrusters' base parts.


The radar disc of the 80mm Surface-to-Air Double-barreled Beam Cannon was painted completely in yellow in Part 3, and the surface area's minor line details had already been panel lined after that as well. The bright paint result and clean detailing really tempted me to maintain this look, even though the surface should be in gray to be accurate to the component's designated color scheme. ^^;


After much pondering, I decided to follow the official color scheme. ^^;
Then again, painting the round edge of the radar disc is almost just as difficult as that for the acid cannon just now. ^^;


Minor excessive gray paint on the edge is carefully scratched away using a knife.


The tiny muzzle at the end of the acid cannon is also painted gray using the same paint.


The targeting scopes of the acid cannon and Composite Sensor Unit, and the interior of the weird leg vents are painted using Mr. Color 175 Fluorescent Green Flat.


I only planned to paint the bottom scope fluorescent green at the beginning, but I couldn't really figure out what to do with the pair of scope-like details sticking out besides the cannon barrel, so I painted them with the same color as well.
Panel lines are added using normal panel liner after the paint has dried.


That pair of scopes on Red Horn are left in their base color according to the picture on the instruction manual; the same parts on Dark Horn Harry Special are shown to be painted the same color as the bottom scope though.
Right image is from Kotobukiya.


The leg vents are panel lined the same way as well.


The radar panel of the Composite Sensor Unit is treated using Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black).
The radar disc surface needs not be pointed gray (XD), and will eventually be panel lined as well.


A bit of cleanup for the panel lining work on the four TEZ 20 mm Linear Laser Gun parts.


The muzzles are painted black using panel liner.


While only the turret plate is shown here, all three parts for the 3-Shot Surface-to-Surface Missile Pod are panel lined.


Test fitting the detailed parts to see how the missile pod would turn out when assembled. ^^


Besides panel lining the part, the muzzles of the Anti-Zoid 3-Barreled Linear Cannon are painted silver using a normal pen to highlight their appearance. ^^


Somewhat repetitve panel lining and cleanup for the detailing of the 12 leg armor parts.




The leg armor parts.


(Left) The lower jaw part.
(Right) The side body vent parts.


The side panels of the 3-barreled Linear Cannon.


Besides the usual panel lining on the outer side, the rear face of the panels are painted black using normal marker to emulate depth.


Even though the parts have already been painted, Tamiya's Panel Line Accent Color (Black) can still be used on the two main parts of the linear cannon to take care of most of their molded details swiftly.


Other details on the main body are done using normal panel liner.


(Left) Closeup on the front barrel's details.
(Right) A short border between the top and bottom parts is painted black using normal marker to emphasize the gaps' appearance.


Test fitting the detailed parts to see how the linear cannon would turn out when assembled. ^^



Panel lining for the head parts.


Normal panel lining for the horn and jaw parts.
For the latter, normal panel liner is used to bring out the details not covered by Tamiya's panel lining solution in Part 3.


Added two tiny pieces of metallic green foil stickers to the sunken areas inside the upper jaw part for a bit of additional details. ^^
As mentioned back in Part 3, gray, particularly the darker shade type used in this posting is the most significant paint needed by this Zoids kit. With the paint work on the set of parts done in this posting, I feel that a significant portion of the overall work is completed. ^^

Then again, there are still a lot more to cover though. ^^