HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 3 (Prelude)

So I actually got some work done on the Wing Zero yesterday.  Added some details to the swords and sanded the edges however I ran into a couple issues.  Issue 1:  I left my SD card at work so I was unable to shoot anything for an update.. >_<  Issue 2:  I decided to add a couple holes to the swords ala FFVIII Buster Sword.  I drilled the holes and all seemed well, everything was going smoothly.  That is, until I started the cleanup and realized that the drilling had split the two layers of the sword apart around the holes... FML.  This also messed with some of the putty work too.  Anyhoo I ended up spending what was looking to be a productive day, just fixing mistakes.

At any rate, on the bright side, after I redo some puttying and do a bit more cleaning up everything will be ready for priming.  I could of done the puttying last night before bed but I was a bit fed up at that point trying to "reseal" the two layers of the swords.  I'll get the puttying put on tonight and probably sanded tomorrow morning.  In the meantime I'm going to be photoshopping a couple color schemes I've been thinking about and I'll probably post those.

HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 2 (cont....again)

Unfortunately some issues came up with my wife's car so I wasn't able to get much done since my last post.

Did I ever mention I'm terrible at applying putty?  Well as you can see the first putty application was pretty messy.

I think this is the first shot with both swords together :p.  After the putty dries its basically just a lot of sanding.  

My first pass of putty left a bunch of little gaps and holes here and there.  Air bubbles maybe?  Any hoo I had planned on probably having to do 2 runs of putty on each sword to make sure the bevel is smooth so no biggie.

Now both swords are all messy with putty.  I'll admit to going overboard on the one on the left.  It was awkward to try and take pics while I was going to town with my file.  Not to mention I didn't want plastic and putty dust all over my camera.

 

Well there we have it.  After two passes of putty and lots of sanding I have a nice even bevel on my sword edge.  I just have a couple more things to add and the swords will actually be done.  Which is nice since these swords are the bulk of the scratch building/customizing of this kit.  Oh and if anyone was wondering yes I know the bevel is only on one side of the sword.  I wanted these to be offset to match the Twin Buster Rifles.  I think I'm going to add a piece of pla plate to the 'backs' of the swords to add some detail and weight.  Then a couple panel lines here and there and they'll be ready for priming!  I'm starting to get excited about this kit again. : D

HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 2 (cont.)

Woo it's Friday.  I have gotten a few more things done.  I now have two swords and have started putty work on one of them.  Not sure if I'll post an actual update tonight.  My plan is to get as much done as I can tonight and Saturday so that I might be able to start priming stuff by next week.  At the very least I'll have an update posted late tonight or sometime tomorrow.

HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 2 (more sword)

I mentioned in my previous post that I decided to not use the Elucidator I made.  After I thought about it I didn't like the idea of just taking a popular sword and giving it to my Gunpla.

So I went back to the drawing board, literally.  I tried combining different existing Gundam sword designs into my concept.  I drew the most influence from the GN Buster Sword and the Caletvwich.

I drew up something similar to this. (The orginal is full of tick marks and whatnot.)  My wife helped me out and drew it up in Microsoft Publisher so all the lines would be straight.  She also added a bevel so that I can cut out the bigger and smaller sword shapes.  This is just a printout of the sword adhered to a piece of .75mm pla plate.

These are what I used to cut the sword out of the pla plate.  What I found most effective was a combination of everything really.  I used the scissors for the long straight lines, the nippers for the small points, etc.

Work with it for a bit and voila.  I forgot to mention.  I switched to pla plate from the ID cards simply because it's easier to work with.

Sorry, I kinda skipped a bunch here.  But I finished the larger sword shape and cut a smaller one the same way.  Then I cemented the two together to give the start of a bevel look I'm going for.

My plan was to apply some putty along the the edge of the sword and sanding it down to create the bevel.  That's why I used a bigger and smaller shape.

This is a practice run I did on a sword I made while I was brainstorming.  I know it doesn't look clean but this is after one pass of the putty.  I could tell while I was working with it that if I applied a second, possible third run of puttying and sanding the edge that I would get a nice smooth edge.

Well that's all for now.  I had planned to start putty work on the left hand sword but I honestly just ran outta steam :-o.

I forgot to take pics of Wing Zero holding the sword.. oops.  But here's how it looks mounted on the back.  I didn't think it would "curve" inward that much from the mount location.  Ugh.. I guess I'll just see how it looks when both swords are mounted.

Til then..

HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 1 (cont.)

So I didn't get near the work done I wanted to this weekend.  Got caught up in cleaning the house and anime on Netflix.  Attack On Titan and Kill la Kill really absorbed me Saturday -_-.

Anyway I did get some accomplished.  Decided to try out a new thing for the swords on my Wing Zero.  As cool as the Elucidator is I decided I'd rather have something that I designed.  I'll have another WIP up sometime tonight.  I'm also gonna try documenting with my camera better.

HGAC (HGBF) Wing Gundam Zero WIP 1

Finally got around to posting this.  As I said in an earlier post, out of the HG's I have this kit fit the bill perfect for this build.  Besides it being a solid ass kit, it also has some sentimental value to me.  The first Gundam kit I ever got was the original 1/144 HG Wing Zero.  Back when Gundam Wing was airing in the US you could actually find Wing kits at Game Stop and WalMart.  Well looking back now, that HG was pretty terrible, especially by today's standards.  Anyway, on to the work in progress.

First thing I did.  Yes, I took the wings off of a machine called the WING Gundam.  Umad bro?... any hoo.  I did this because I wanted a sleeker look.  I'll probably end up adding extra thrusters in other places to make up for the thruster pod like wings being gone.  I'm not sure of any modding I'll do to the actual body.  I think I'll just add some pla plate panels here and there, but who knows..

Oh yeah.  Sorry about the TV and junk in the back.  I've been using my lap-desk set up lately.  

That brings us to the next part of this build.  I wanted to keep the Twin Buster Rifles.  On that note, I felt I needed some sort of custom weapon.  I mean I am building this thing with the mind set of 'what if Gundam Build Fighters were real...' so I wanted it to reflect that.  I originally had a brief thought of using the shield for a custom cannon but then I thought, 'This is MY Gunpla!', so I got away from the idea of giving a pretty much mid-long range mobile suit another long range weapon.  In every robot or Gundam game I've ever played I've always been drawn to using melee units or fighting in a close range style.  Yes, I was that asshole with dual Moonlights in Armored Core.  Getting back on topic, I decided to give my Wing Zero twin swords to go with its Twin Buster Rifle.

I nabbed some of these blank ID cards from work.  They basically work like thin, rigid ass pla plate.  I have thicker pla plate that's flimsier than these cards.  Because they're rigid despite how thin they are I thought they would be perfect for a sword blade.

I started with this.  This is part of Bandai Weapon System 003.  My Wing Zero actually spent two days holding one of these as I could not decide on a blade design.  I drew probably about 20 prototypes and spent hours Googling to no avail.  Then my wife brought something up to me.  "Why don't you give it Kirito's sword?"  I was perplexed.  We were watching Sword Art Online at the time on Netflix.  Then I thought about it... This is a 'custom' Gunpla.  Anybody else remember that whole episode in Build Fighters about freeing your imagination?  

So yeah... I went there... I did it... I built an Elucidator for my Wing Zero.  The real Elucidator is on the right for reference.  Yeah it's not an original design and haters gonna hate.  But at the end of the day, I love the sword and the anime.  So I saw no problem in giving a sword design that I love to my Gunpla.

I used the handle from the Heat Sword and trimmed the hand guard down so it would flow better.

Cutting those little parts out of the card was tedious, time consuming, and !@#$@%.  Eh hem... Actually all in all it wasn't that bad once I got going.  I simply put a template on the card and cut it out with my hobby knife.  I ended up making this two of those ID cards thick.  It just seemed kinda dinky just using one card.  One weird thing I ran into with this.. My Tamiya Extra Thin Cement had absolutely no hold/effect on these cards.  No idea why.  Ended up going to my bottle of 'ole reliable Loctite and it held no problem.  Again, no clue why the Tamiya cement didn't work at all.  Oooo welll.

Back to the Twin Busters.  Like I said earlier, I wanted to keep these for this build.  I actually don't plan on modding or adding anything to them but I was presented with a small issue.  My Wing Zero has 2 rifles and is going to have 2 swords.  He only has 2 hands... Well as soon as I made the Elucidator I had already started thinking of sheath prototypes that would hold it and the other sword.  My issue is the rifles.  Is my Wing Zero going to just through the rifles/rifle away when it wants to use its swords? Hell no.  If there's one ongoing pet peeve I have with mobile suits it's that I think all a mobile suits weapons should be able to store on it somehow.  It just makes sense.  Like, why have to ditch a weapon to use another weapon?

That brings us to this quick little mod I did.  I had originally planned on attaching something else in place of the wings.  That's why what used to be to ball joint connection is now a chewed up peg. -_-   Anyhoo I did some cannibalizing to the shield to get the connectors for the Twin Busters.  After some cleaning up and some cementing we have...

I think it flows better than I thought it would.  

It does stick a little off to the side.  Ugh.  I can only hope that putting the sheath apparatus in the middle will help deter from that bit of awkwardness.  Speaking of which.  As I'm typing I can see that I really don't have that much room in the middle for said apparatus.  I don't think there's even room for the Elucidator's hilt/hand guard in that space.  Many curses are ensuing in my head right now.  ..sigh..  Oh well.  I guess I'll figure it out when I get there like always.  

Well here's some random pics I took.  My next missions are the other "holder" for the right side Buster Rifle and the other sword.  No, I'm not going to make a Dark Repulsor to go with the Elucidator.  I'm not gonna take both of Kirito's swords.  I have an idea I'm running with atm.  Hopefully it'll go smoother.  I'll probably post another WIP after I start working on ideas for the sheath.

HGAC Wing Gundam Zero Rant (Cont.)

Ok so I took some pics last night and was planning on uploading a WIP this morning.  However, my daughter was having nothing to do with me sitting on my laptop.. sigh..  Oh well.  Anyway, the first WIP will be up tonight after I get home.  I think I might try to convince my wife to jazz this blog up too :).

HGAC Wing Gundam Zero Rant

This is going to be an introduction of sorts to a custom build of the Wing Zero that I'm doing.  Basically I wanted to make a Gunpla that I would use if Build Fighters and Plavsky Particles were real and all that.  I already attempted something like this with a custom HGUC Gerbera Tetra I built a while back, (come to think of it I should really copy it over to this blog), but there was a lot that I ended up not liking on that kit.  My paint job was spotty and my scratch building wasn't very clean at all.  So I decided to make another Build Fighters custom and this time try to actually be pleased with it at the end of the build.

I wanted to use a more modern HG that would be easy to work with.  Also, I wanted it to be a solid kit on it's own.  Nobody likes starting a project on a floppy mess -_-

So I ended up with the HGAC Wing Zero.  It met the criteria I had perfectly.  Newer HG-Check, Solid-Check.  For some reason I can't find a single custom build of this kit aside from some painted lite-mod builds.  Honestly kind of a little bonus for me as I did want something that hasn't been done ten times before I get to if ya know what I mean.

Well tonight I'll actually try to post a real WIP with pics and whatnot instead of just a rant.

Fresh Start

So, this is my second gunpla blog.  I decided to scrap my first one and start completely fresh.  This will be a blog where I post my WIP's of custom kits, my finished kits, and other random rantings.  On that note, here's some things I'm working on that will be up soon... er .... at some point.

• HGAC Wing Gundam Zero (doing a build fighters-esque custom build with this)
• MG Sazabi Ver. Ka (just need to finish the decals and top coat)
• MG Nu Gundam Ver. Ka (currently just snapped together)

Also I'm going to working on and off on some other side projects but these are my priority ones right now.  Especially the Sazabi.  I got burnt out during the decals and the kit has just been sitting for about a month now.

I'm going to post a WIP on my HGAC Wing Zero either tonight or tomorrow night.