Brundledonk

I understand what you mean now Brian, I did paint all the parts for the ground type too but decided to display it in the FB mode as it just looks more impressive with the added bulk. I still have the cage to do but I’m planning to use it in a diorama of a hangar and hopefully I will get around to doing that sometime later this year, and I got the Sazabi ver ka for Christmas off my wife ( a very nice kit indeed) and this too will hopefully get done in the summer here’s the gp01 in ground type Pete

Thank you 🙏

Thank you Rock 🙏 I wasn’t a huge fan of the design but I got the zaku for a really cheap price and have to admit that know I’ve done one it’s really grown on me and I have my eye on a few other ones now (psycho zaku in particular) I’m sorry but I don’t really have any knowledge of the Gundam universe beyond the models, not sure what G03 Is Pete

I was very much of the same mind, and before I dipped my toes into the world of Gundam I just thought they were transformers lol, and thank you the kind words I very much appreciate them and honestly if you’ve not tried one before then have a go as they are a great way to reignite the old mojo if the flame goes out as they are so simple to do, just pick a design you like the look of and go to town with it using your own colours etc Pete

Thank you, the kit has a very cleverly designed mechanism that allows you to unlock the hips and swing them forward and this allows them to move in a way that that when seated gives a very natural looking pose ( it gives the gundam a bottom to sit on lol ) but I can’t take any credit for this pose as I saw it in a picture online I don’t have the builders name to be able to credit but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so hopefully he won’t take it the wrong way if he sees my take on it Pete

Thank you Hunter, the aile strike was a a joy and I felt it needed a bit of shading and weathering to try and bring out the lines of the suit, not sure I achieved the picture I had in my mind, but I am still very happy with how it came out in the end Pete Thank you sir, much appreciated Pete

thank you Steve, I still very much feel that I’m finding my way with these kits in regard of how they should look and keep experimenting with every new build to see if I can find the balance between visually appealing and realistic but I’m finding it difficult as there obviously isn’t any real world reference to use and these are 1/60 scale so when weathering I have tried to keep scale in mind but it’s very difficult for me as I’m used to working in larger scale so tend to overdo things a tad ( I built aircraft exclusively in 1/32 for a long time) but these kits are very enjoyable to do as although complex are very simple to put together, and after years of planes and filling and scribing the seam between fuselage halves they almost feel like Lego in comparison 😂 I hope your son likes them Pete

The panel effect you have achieved is really authentic (and very visually appealing too) really like what you’ve done with this and it’s very inspiring Fantastic work my friend Pete

Thank you kindly Fletch

Bit of a jump here as when I’m painting these heads I get right into the zone and forget to take pictures, so this is now the finished result but I’ll do my best to explain what I did to get here the bottom edge of the eyelid had a black line painted on it to mimic lashes and I also added a tiny bit of red wash to the corners of the eyes and along the bottom edge. I didn’t paint eyelashes on there as frankly I’m parts at it (haha!) I find I get one eye looking good but then the other ends up looking like Bet Lynch ( if you’re young then ask your parents who that is lol) Pupils were added and for this I used archer decals then gave the whole eye a good few coats of clear gloss after the final Matt coat was sprayed on the beard was done with really thin dark grey acrylic and built up slowly over multiple coats then light grey dry brushed gently over, the moustache was done in a similar way but using a mix leaning toward black and the same was done on the eyebrows but in all honesty I’m not happy with how they came out but there wasn’t much in the way of sculpted detail on the brows so I feel it has a bit of a ‘greasepaint’ look, but in hand and to the naked eye it looks ok it’s just the close up pics that make it look worse I also added a few more imperfections here and there to the skin using my old faithful Vallejo washes and just kind of added tiny dots using a really fine pointed brush and then dabbing them with my finger to soften the look and I used a tiny bit of white on the bottom lip to highlight hair was given another coat of Vallejo black brown and had the hairlines tidied up, and at the roots at the forehead I really lightly dry brushed a touch of the skin colour to soften the transition

This is the latest one that I completed and is a perfect grade Zaku, which is an older kit I believe but was still a great deal of fun and for this I kept things clean and added no weathering

A group pic of 3 of my perfect grades

A couple of years ago after many years of building aircraft models, I discovered the world of Gundam and soon found myself sucked in as the engineering and simple push fit of these kits came as a breath of fresh air as not much in the way of seam filling or rescribing and accuracy isn’t even on the radar with these subjects so you are free to do whatever you like colour wise this is an aile strike gundam in 1/60 so around a foot tall and fully articulated, it has a detailed inner skeleton which I did paint but alas once the armour goes on is mostly hidden from view it was painted mainly in Tamiya and Gunze mr colour lacquers and I used a Pearl clear coat over the top and that gives it the metallic finish that is visible in the pictures (mainly on the darker colours )

I gave the head a couple of thin coats of Tamiya lacquer Matt clear through the airbrush to seal the base colour and this allows any mistakes from the next stages to be easily erased with a cotton bud dipped in acrylic thinner without effecting the skin I use Vallejo washes for this part ( skin wash/ sepia, Umber and red) applied with a fine brush to the creases in the face to add spots and blemishes to the skin and around the eyes

First step is to add a skin tone base and for this I mixed my own from mr hobby acrylics really highly thinned with lacquer to keep some translucency and sprayed at low pressure directly over the head with no primer I tend to use the skin on the Mack of my hand as a guide to get the tone right but it’s hard to tell how light or dark it’s going to be without the hair, so I roughly blocked that in along with with Vallejo black brown along with the whites of his eyes in Vallejo ivory to give me an idea of how it was looking

Back again with another head paint and this one will be a companion piece to the Rick grimes I painted a while back here’s the little the little fella out of the packet and after a bit of a dunk in some soupy water to remove any traces of mould release that may be present likeness of Jeffrey Dean Morgan is definitely in there but paint hopefully bring it out a bit more

I wondered what the bits were the are along the bottom and in the front arches and is that the battle Droid ? ( leg or arm joints ) when I saw it they were familiar but I couldn't think what they were, really excellent choice of greeblies as they really work well and make the look feel authentic

I've taken Rocky apart ready for paint and you can see him in the background I some of the above pics but I haven't started painting him yet and will get started in the morning and hopefully will have him finished by the end of the day and more importantly before my daughter gets home from school as I want to keep this as a surprise Here's all the bits Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr I don't think he's quite as bad as Groot was but still not great, although I'm sure Rocket is in there and I just hope I can bring him over with a bit of paint Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr Pete

bit of a leap forward now as I was I the groove and didn't want to stop to take pics, but what I did was keep adding the strong tone to the recesses details until I had the depth I needed to reinforce the detail, then I first drybrushed very lightly with Vallejo flat brown followed by another go with some Vallejo red brown mixed in and finally gradually added Vallejo Ivory to make the highlight. All this was done extremely lightly and I've many passes with a very soft brush then I went back with strong tone and a fine brush and picked out any creases that were wiped out by the drybrushing. Eyes were painted Ivory and the pupils painted in with black and green and yellow was used to simulate the moss all that's left to do is give it all a flat coat and gloss the eyes Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr Groot repaint after by Brundle Donk, on Flickr Groot repaint after by Brundle Donk, on Flickr

next was to add Tamiya buff to the mix and I sprayed this on some edges and high spots, then army painter strong tone wash was applied to the recesses ( still wet in the pic and face not done at this point ) Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr

I didn't strip or prime him and just gave him a wipe down with IPA after which I sprayed him with Tamiya flat earth and then in some spots with a bit of red brown added to the cup Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr and of course did the same deal on t'other side Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr

My daughter is a fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and last year I found a baby Groot figure in the bargain bin at Asda and gave that a bit of a tart up and gave it to her as a stocking filler for Christmas and she loved it here's before Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickr and after a lick of paint Untitled by Brundle Donk, on Flickrand I wanted to do something similar this year and I found a cheap bust of Groot with a figure of Rocky for cheap on ebay, the sculpting isn't bad but the paint job is shocking but I'm reasonably handy with paint and a brush/airbrush so thought I could do something with them and pressed the buy it now button I wanted to get this done last week but she's been off school with a bug so I had to wait until she went back today before I could crack on and I've only got one more day to try and finish it as after tomorrow I have commitments that will keep my me away from the bench until possibly the new year so need to get my skates on here's Groot at the start of play and whoever painted it at the factory must have done it after a liquid lunch ( look at his eyes ) he's got one at home and one away lol but aside from that he's a bit dark and a bit bland Groot and rocket repaint before by Brundle Donk, on Flickr and the back Groot and rocket repaint before by Brundle Donk, on Flickr

excellent kitbashing in action and I love the colour you've used for the body it really works well with the shape, are some of those parts you've used from a strike Gundam ? I have one in the stash and some of the bits look similar. Pete

hi Johnny, I just had a read through the thread and it's all looking rather splendid to me my friend, a shame the first shading didn't work out the way you had hoped but sometimes its nothing ventured nothing gained in this model building game so fair do's for giving it as bash and it's these kind of experiments that have led me to new techniques and effects. I'm still a relative newb to these robot kits but I do enjoy the ease of the build and no glue means I can't get tamiya extra. thin fingerprints all over the place lol. I do like the dirt/grime effect you have achieved with the Flory wash and the colour of the dark dirt looks very nice on the white and I will be dropping by more regularly to keep track of your progress. in regards to your comment regarding lack of step by step on some of the sci-fi threads, for me it's down to the Photobucket changes a while ago as that wiped out a few years of my stuff online and I went back and repaired some WIP threads after hosting my images on Flickr , but then Flickr changed their terms of service and reduced the amount of pics allowed with a free account from 1tb to 1000 images max ( I had over 6000 on there ) this really took the jam out of my donut to be honest and since then I haven't been posting anywhere near as often and my WIP threads aren't as involved as they used to be, I could have got a paid account the but with the way images hosting has been going I wasn't confident that down the line terms would change again and prices may rise to point that was more than I wanted to pay or image limits got reduced again but when I best update my Gundam thread I'll try and show a bit more of how I achieved some of the effects that I used keep up the good work mate and I look forward to seeing more progress on this one Pete