MG Gundam RX78 CA WIP
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This is my entry for an out-of-box (OOB) competition organized by an online forum called Plamo. This competition is only open to MG Gundam kits featured in the One Year War era.
My entry is the MG Gundam RX78 CA. I got this kit couple of months ago but never get to build it until now. I thought this would be a great opportunity to build this kit and the competition would serves as a motivation for me to build it the best I can.
By the way, did I mentioned that this is the first ever MG kit I’ve ever built? I’m not sure how well can I cope with it. Lets wait and see how things turn out.
This post will be updated from time to time as I progress with the building of this kit so please check back here often for more updates.
This is the MG Gundam RX78 CA.
Spent last Saturday snap fitting the kit.
There are quite a lot of seam lines on this kit.
Started on some minor parts today. Fixed the bean rifle, the bazooka, and the hands.
The bazooka.
I applied loads of plastic cement of both the rifle and bazooka parts and pressed them together until the cement oozes out of the joining area.
After the glue dried, I first file the part with a jewel file.
Then I sand it to smooth using 1000 grid sand paper.
The beam rifle.
Before.
After.
The hand.
There were quite a lots of mold marks/lines on the hands.
First use a hobby knife to scrape off the mold lines from the surface.
In the process of scraping off mold lines, I scraped off the finger panel lines (groves between parts of finger) as well. I use a hobby knife to careful re-scribe the finger panel lines.
This is how the final product looks like.
Update 22/01/2007:
The head.
To facility easy painting of the head and face, I modded the way to assemble the face and head camera. I hope this is not considered a mod to the kit and my Gundam will not be disqualified. First cut out off the head camera and the attaching piece from the main piece.
Glue part A to the original place where it was supposed to be as if it was not cut off.
With part A in place, part B can be easily glue into place from the front once painting of the head is completed.
To be able to insert the face after the head had been put together, first cut an opening at the part where the face was suppose to be inserted.
Now, once the painting is completed, the face can be slide into the opening from underneath the head.
A big seam line on the head that needed putty to fix.
The backpack.
There were quite a lot of mold lines on the backpack. Just get rid of them like how to get rid of those on the hands.
After removing the mold lines.
Internal parts.
All the internal parts ready to be painted.
Masking using paper. The reason I use paper was because the parts to be masked were just painted and not fully cured yet. If I use masking tape, I risk having the paint lifted off when removing the masking tape.
Internal parts all painted with burn iron colour.
The frame for the leg.
Update 30/01/2007:
There was an issue with parts fitting of the leg amours. The parts seem to be too big and protruded to the sides. See the circled area in the picture below.
I fixed this by first file the protruding area with a jewel file (item 1). Then I used 600 grid sandpaper (item 2) to sand it back to shape. Lastly I used 1000 grid sandpaper (item 3) to sand the surface to smooth.
And this is the final result.
There weren’t too many seam lines with this kit. There was however some long and nasty seam lines on the arms.
After gluing the parts together, I used the jewel file and sandpapers as mentioned above to file and sand off the seam lines.
However, as the picture above shown, the original panel line was also sanded off in the process of removing the seam line. To fix this, simple re-script it.
New panel lines.
The appearance of this kit is utterly dull so I thought I add a few new panel lines to spice things up a bit. I borrowed a few panel line designs from the MG RX-78-2 One Year War version because that kit is pack full of panel lines.
To add the new panel lines, I first cut out a piece of paper in the shape of the part and draw the panel line of the paper.
Then attach the paper to the part using masking tape and use a sharp tool to poke holes onto the part at certain strategic location as markings.
Remove the paper and script new panel lines using the holes as guides.
The finished product.
Update 06/02/2007:
Not much of an update for this week. Already finished all the panel linings and starting painting already. Here’s another way I do panel lines. It is very hard to use the paper template method I posts previously if the part’s surface is not flat. In this case I will stick a large piece of masking tape to the part and draw the panel lines on the masking tape. Then as before, I’ll use a sharp tool to mark out the panel lines. Once done, just stick the same piece of masking tape to the other identical part and repeat the same process.
From the very beginning I have wanted to do a blue and white colour scheme but can’t really decide on the actual layout. Then as I was checking out an online modeling forum, I came across pictures of the new MG Hi-Nu Gundam and I thought that is a pretty cool layout and hence I come up with this colour layout.
Update 15/02/2007:
Just a little update this time. Done most of the painting but at the some time screwed up some paint works due to masking issue so these need to be redone.
These are some of the painted parts.
The bazooka.
The beam rifle. The color is a bit too dark for my liking so I’ll probably repaint this with a little color.
The core fighter.
The two-tone shoulder piece.
Update 28/02/2007:
Managed to finish painting and decaling the kit before the long Chinese New Year holiday. I only applied the dry transfer decals and did not apply the sticker decals at all. The only thing left now is a layer of semi-gloss clear coat and panel lining.
Front view.
Rear view.
Core fighter.
Update 12/03/2007:
With the application of decals and paneling, the MG Gundam RX-78 CA has finally been completed.
The panel lines were completed using the wash method. I can’t find any Tamiya enamel paint anywhere in KL so I had to settle for Tamiya Acrylic water based paints. I thin the paint with water (duh) and some washing detergent. While doing the wash, the detergent helps to clean up the panel lines…. not… the detergent is used so that the paint mixture can flow a bit more easily into the panel lines.
This is how the final product looks like.
Go to this post – MG Gundam RX-78 CA to see the rest of the picture.
The end.
Written by Ken on January 18th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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