[CrossXhunteR]

Are you a file man or a sandpaper man? I have used a file so far on the G-Self, and sometimes I think about switching to the sandpaper. The file can be a bit hard to get what I want, either removing too much or too little, and some marks seem hard to get out. It is nice on flat surfaces though.
Also, if using a file, do you go back and forth on an area, or just push or pull in only one direction, picking it up on every pass?

[kenzo]

I need to do research on preferred methods. But generally I've read that sandpaper is the way to go. Lots of people make files out of sandpaper by gluing strips to Popsicle sticks. Some prefer just small pieces you use with your hands and fingers.

[CrossXhunteR]

I got a kit of files, and I think the one I am using might be too low of a grit. I'll probably switch to my sandpaper when I start again. I have a lot of different grit paper, and I believe some of it gets to be a fairly high grit too.

[kenzo]

I don't know enough about sandpaper grit. I'm reading online people suggesting at least 1500 level to get it polished; 2000 being ideal. But the crap I have is labeled only 320 and 400. 0_o

My stuff certainly isn't doing the job but I don't know if that numbering people suggest is Japanese grit values or applies to the crap I have too. Thus my need to go to the store and check this crap out myself.

[kenzo]

Went to like 5 places today to find the right fine grit sandpaper. Picked up a bunch of 1500 and 2000 grit stuff. It's Nascar branded from Orchard's Hardware.

Also stopped by the B&N to see if they had gunpla there. They did! The display was even more pathetic than the ones we saw on that /m/ thread!



Those middle kits are HGs/RGs I'm pretty sure. The display is pretty pathetic. I don't even know what those little kits are, but they were like Gunpla for actual babies.

The selection of kits they had was pretty pathetic. Nothing I'd want except for an MG Wing Zero not pictured (because it's behind the other junk). Also none of these kits were labeled with price tags. Like, if I'm tryin' to buy shit, I kinda need to know how much things cost, ya?





My LCS had a better selection, and my LCS has dick for gunpla

[kenzo]

Worked all night and morning on the ZZ. Losing track of time and seeing the sun come up never stops being discombobulating.



I had most of the arms already done, so most of last nights/this morning's progress was on the legs. This kit is mega complicated. I'm so glad I'm plastic cementing everything though, I snapfit some of the pieces and they don't stick well together and it's painfully obvious this would be the most grenadey of grenades. But it's pretty sturdy after I'm done with it. The super fine grain sanding paper is largely doing the trick too. I think the trick is to sand all in the same direction too. The 2000 grit gets things almost polished and then I use a nail-polisher to actually polish and it shines like new plastic.

I'm a little frustrated with this kit though, because some parts on the gunpla's packaging depict say, the inside of the rockets being red, and the kit it's not red, meaning if you want it to look as cool as that, you've gotta do some painting. I wasted a lot of time last night trying to get shit done with my gundam markers, and they weren't doing the trick. I'm going to need to come back to them with some primer first, which I'm not really certain how to go about doing that. The easiest would be if I could find some little bottles of primer I could brush-paint with, but I fear I'll have to buy paint cans and start masking tape/spray painting.

[kenzo]

Finished the legs, and did most of the chest and waist.



Now all that's left is the backpack, the core fighters, the weapons, and all the finishing touches.

This thing seriously has almost zero flexibility. I'm pretty sore some of the poses it does in the show are like, completely impossible.

[kenzo]

I see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Finished work on the rest of the body-components:



Now it's time to put it all together!



The core block/fighter slots into the top, then the backpack latches the bottom to the top. You could unattach the backpack and still get it to stick together, but it's less ideal and doesn't look as rad. Here's a few other angles:





And just so y'all have some size reference:



ZZ is a big guy (4u)

Only things I need left are the weapons and accessories, as well as the decal/painting work. IIRC Cross wanted to see it transformed, but that can't happen until I finish the accessories, since the beam cannon is a big part of the Core-Top/G-Fortress, and the Core Fighter is needed for the Core-Base.

[Jenn04]

ZZ looks fucking INCREDIBLE! Nice work! That thing really is a beast!

[CrossXhunteR]

Now do some sick poses.

[kenzo]

ZZ looks fucking INCREDIBLE! Nice work! That thing really is a beast!

Thanks, Jenn. I'm very dissatisfied with how a number of things turned out, but it's a learning process. Sanding and polishing is difficult, and if you don't do it right it can look noticeably scuffed. And I'm still learning how to get the nubs down right, which is haaarrrdddd. And I'm very frustrated with the build quality of the mech itself. The pieces all fit together a lot better than my G-Gundam kits, but the injected plastic itself is pretty shitty. There's noticeable banding in the plastic here and there, and the color is very off for what it should be (the red, yellow, and blue should all be lighter, and more in line with the colors on the Turn-A kit). But yeah I like it. I look forward to seeing how yours turns out!!! Tallgeese is a svelt machine. If you're having any problems with it feeling flimsy, don't feel afraid to start adding some plastic cement here and there to the insides to make things stick. You don't even have to do seam welding; just where they make contact on the inside.

Now do some sick poses.

Can't until it's all done.

[Konanda]

You don't even have to do seam welding

Are these not plastic? Seam welding is used in welding two pieces of metal together continuously and relies on passing a current through the metal as part of the process, plastic being non-conductive wouldn't be able to do that.

[CrossXhunteR]

I believe it is just melting the two plastics together on a seam. You know, a seam weld.

[kenzo]

Bruh. Please look up 'plastic cement'.

Edit: removing unnecessary agro b/c there is no reason to be upset flying lawnmower

[CrossXhunteR]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_w ... nt_welding

[Konanda]

I believe it is just melting the two plastics together on a seam. You know, a seam weld.

I suppose, I just went with what in industry (see below) is called a seam weld first, so it confused me.

[kenzo]

Finished assembly on the ZZ. All that's left now is decals (which are honestly mostly superfluous with this one, but I'll still put 'em on).

Cross, you want some action poses, but there's honestly not a lot that can be done with the ZZ. At least, not without a weighted action base. I have some ideas for some cool poses but like, they'd probably cause the action base to tip over. Also, just like the video we watched, ZZ is completely incapable of holding his weapons in a cool manner. You have to do some weird contortions just to get the guy to hold his gun out forward:



This is a cooler angle:



ZZ can't really do many cool poses with the gun because it's heavy as fuck, and the ZZ's hands are made of potatoes. ZZ is also completely incapable of holding his beam sabers, because they're even heavier than the gun. They have these little things that swivel out and plug into the hands for stability, but they're poorly designed and barely plug in, so they might as well not exist. Here's the ZZ trying to hold his beam saber in a cool position. When I posed it, it was aimed straight up, but by the time I could take a picture it had drooped that far down.



There's unfortunately not a lot that can be done about this; I already had the joints pretty stiff; they're just too damned big.



And that's not Bandai's fault or anything, they're that big in the show. It's part of what makes the ZZ so badass, because his giant beam sabers are super long and not just slice entire mobile suits in half, but basically melt the entire enemy suit in one swing. But the unfortunate side effect is that all that bulk and junk & the trunk makes for an unweildy gunpla.

This is the coolest pose I came up with:



It's based on the eyecatches for ZZ.

Cross also said you wanted some transformed pics? Here's the Core-Top and the Core-Base respectively:





I'm never EVER transforming the ZZ ever again. It's such a huge pain in the ass. I also broke a landing gear while doing this. It's currently drying for repairs. But here's the G-Fortress:







Jenn also wanted some before and after pictures of seam welding. So here's some pics:

Spoiler: show

The pictures didn't come out great, but hopefully you get the idea. Here's a pic of after I plastic cement'd this piece together. The lighting is kinda bad but you should be able to see where to the two pieces of plastic meet, and also the surrounding area there plastic is a little warped/off color because of the extra plastic cement that gooped onto it. It doesn't look too off in this angle, but under better lighting, it looks really different from the normal plastic. I'm only welding the bottom half, btw:


So next step is to reshape with a heavy grit. I'm using ~320 grit IIRC, but anywhere in that ballpark will do. Sometimes you can just shave it down with a knife, but I used too much plastic cement and the ridge is too prominent and requires this heavy sanding. I think people's common instinct while sanding is to do circular motions or to go both ways, but I've found with these plastic kits that you should always sand in one direction, because it just cleans up a lot easier that way; otherwise you're much more prone to leaving scuff marks. I probably should have sanded against the seam here, but I was being lazy.


Here, I began to take a much more fine grit to smooth it out. I have 1000 grit I probably should have done before this step, but this is the 1500 grit:


This is after going at it with 2000 grit. If you do it right, this can be your finished step, but it takes some practice, and usually it's easier to pull off on less complicated pieces. However I'm kind of a shitter, so I then take a finger nail polisher/buffer to it next:


And here it is after a polishing. The seam is basically gone. There's a couple of scuff marks left but I could have gotten rid of those had I cared. There's a little bit of discoloration where the nubs once were, but that's kind of my fault for doing a shitty job at removing the nubs. Had I sanded the nubs down with this same step procedure instead of knifing them, you'd have seen nothing. This is also a really zoomed in look at a seam that's pretty small and if you're eyeballing it IRL you wouldn't see anything.

[CrossXhunteR]

I take it you were unable to do the thruster paint thing.

[kenzo]

Haven't done that yet, and it's gonna be some time until I can. I need to find some primer first and foremost, and then maybe some paints if my markers won't cut it on that primer. I seen some but gotta do research into if it's what I want. I'm also not super excited about doing any painting either, so that's a back-burner project.

Just as I was putting my ZZ aside, guess what came in the mail?

[CrossXhunteR]

I don't know if you posted a picture and it's just not loading for me or what, but I remember you ordered a Ball and I feel like something else.

Which Gunpla are you doing next? Also, do you ever plan to get an RX-78-2 or Unicorn Gundam? Are you waiting for the new The Origin MG to come out?

[kenzo]

It's a Ball!



I will build this next, because it's easy and I need a lil break from Gunpla after the harrowing experience that was the ZZ.

I'll build The Origin b/c it looks more like the TV show, and I'm going to light the fuck up out of its eyeballs. Unicorn maybe someday, maybe never. It's a low priority versus higher priorities like a Quebeley.

[CrossXhunteR]

Even though I have been bad so far in actually getting my kits built, I still like the idea of Gunpla and have actually been looking to pick up some of the IBO HG kits. Specifically the Barbatos and a Graze of some sort. I still don't know if I would want a regular Graze, the Kai variant that Akihiro flies, or one of the Schwalbe's. I think there might only be one Schwalbe out so far, but I know some more kits are releasing soon.

Pic of the kits I am thinking about for anyone that isn't watching the show/doesn't know which is which name. Hidden under spoilers to not take up all of the space.

Spoiler: show

Barbatos.





Regular Graze.





Graze Kai.





McGillis's Schwalbe Graze.

[CrossXhunteR]

I picked up the HG Barbatos yesterday on the way home from Barnes and Noble. It was even a few dollars cheaper than if purchased from Amazon. Now to get around to actually working on one of these kits.

Edit: Pretty cool stop motion build of one of the Graze's.

[kenzo]

That's a rad video! I'd love to make one, but I know the effort that goes into that, and suffice to say, fuck that noise.

Someday when I run out of protag and main villain suits to build, I'm going to get another Turn-A and go wild on it. Painting, gluing, sanding, and everything in my power to make it perfect. The more I build, the more I marvel at how well designed and just downright sexy everything about the MG Turn-A is. The Turn-A was MG #100 that Bandai put out; there's been almost 100 more since then (and countless P-Bandai exclusives) and it's still one the best plamo kits ever.

I thought about getting some HG IBO kits, but I'd rather save the money and buy something else with that dinero. I've been looking at branching out into some kotobukiya model kits lately. Getting a Jehuty from ZoE, or the Delphine from Break Blade just shot up the priority chart for myself. I've heard bad things about the engineering of Kotobukiya kits, but those two mechs in particular are just too sex to pass up:

Spoiler: show

DAT Enemy threat ring doe...

Man, I miss Break Blade...

Also, started on the Ball last night. What a crazy figurine! This is the inner 'frame'.



There's stupid levels of detail here. There's also an entire sheet of fucking decals to put on the inner frame; completely obscured from vision if you have the outer armor put on. I assume this is for the benefit of modders who want to do shit like battle damage or crazy kitbashes, but I could care less at this point in my building carrier. Here's the back thrusters attached:



When this is all said and done, the Ball will be about the size of a regular kit's torso and arms, with about half as much complexity. It's been a pretty chill kit to make so far. My only complaint is that the documentation seems to recommend using a brown panel lining color, and I ain't got that; only gray and black. So we'll see how it looks with gray first. These version Ka kits man... so crazy.

[CrossXhunteR]

Do they make other ZoE kits? Do you have links for the Jehuty at least?

I love that you are a true gunpla man now, since all your progress pics have that specific cutting mat in them.

On another note, apparently the purple Schwalbe Graze with the lance was P-Bandai exclusive. What's up with that? Making one of the two main enemy mech's unavailable through normal means is messed up. I saw someone say to just buy the weapon pack that comes with the lance and paint the blue Scwhalbe purple, but that is too many steps too far.

[kenzo]

There's a few others ZoE kits that I can tell, but I don't really know the full extent. I just searched 'kotobukiya' and 'Zone of the Enders' on amazon, and from that I saw there was this Jehuty, a lower quality Jehuty, an Inubis, the Orbital Frame from i,Dolores, and a Vic Viper. I'd have liked there to have also been Ardjet that Ken pilots, or any mech from Fist of Mars, but if there is it's not on Amazon. I also wouldn't jump to buy from Amazon just quite yet either; those prices seem pretty inflated and there's a number of other online shops to consider first, but I'm not quite at the point where I'm willing to do that. Also, just from a cursory look, these kits seem to require panel lining in a variety of colors like blue (for those rad color streaks that glow down the units in the games), so that'll end up being a challenge.

[kenzo]

Finished building the Ball! It's such a cute kit.

Throw on the front hatch and a few details:


Install the thrusters:


Most of the exterior armor:


Main body GET:


Manipulator arms. Note the little red wires behind the pincers, and the metal rods lower on the arms; I thought those were nice touches.


The canon:


Complete! There isn't a lot to say about this kit. It's really simple, low stress, and looks good. Using a gray marker for the panel linings worked out pretty well, IMO. I think the brown looks bad in the preview images, but this is a good medium. Black on the gray would have been bad and looked garish. I still have all the decals to put on, so that's going to be something. I might just sit down and have a decal marathon this afternoon/evening? Who knows.


And one last image for scale reference:


I might go and get the 08th MS Team variant now too, because that one's pretty rad.

[LiQuid]

Why can't they make all the robots the same size. They look dumb standing next to each other.

[CrossXhunteR]

It's a bit scuffed in areas and I would still need to panel line in, but I finally finished my G-Self this morning. Here is a not good picture of it. No cool poses as of yet.

Towards the end, I was getting very terse with the waist joint not staying together, but overall it was an easy kit that seems well put together. There are some seams that I couldn't get fully together, specifically on one of the legs on the back of it. I do wish there were two colors of blue included in the box, as the feet and shield seem to be different in the promo art. Also, the gun is very plain but the art has a ton of extra colors and detail on it.

[CrossXhunteR]

Assembled the Barbatos this week. Still not really up to panel lining. Got some sanding sticks to use with this build, and they were okay. Good at getting the nubs down, but I was having some issues getting the scuffs off, even with the much higher grits. Was only a dummy once on this when assembling a leg, getting it mostly assembled before needing to take it apart. Will post pictures tomorrow when I have better lighting conditions.
Got the Schwalbe Graze and the Graze Kai in earlier this week, so I can move to one of those or my God Gundam next.