TimMather

morning, anyone seen this?

great downloadable instruction book on high level gundum building and modification. its a pay what you can thing, from $1 to $25 , i paid 5 bucks personally felt thats about right seeing how its only digital. heres the link to website. https://www.joshuadarrah.com/zeta-plus-wip-book

only kit ive bought this month, 45 quid posted from banzai hobby(used SAL shipping so skipped customs).

just still prepping, sanding nubs and getting rid of mold seams. i can show you afew little bits and bobs though. the panel lines on the plastic look ok but i want panel lining to be super simple so ran a scriber through all the plastic panel lines, looking at the resin parts they have resrcibed already to make deeper so wasnt that much of a job. also with deeper panel lines with masking off panels you just have to put tape over the whole thing and can use a sharp knife and run it along panel lineto cut perfect mask. these pistons had little bit of work, the left one is original where the plastic runs length of the middle, took that away. these 2 parts of the front skirt are the worst parts out of everything in all of the resin, they made the pour holes in totally the wrong place and it makes the bottom vent all wonky. something like this you need to be super careful, try and cut too close and you can just snap it. so cut only ware it is uniform, and then start rasping away, people worry about dust, but keep a bowl of water on hand so rasper and resin part stay wet and youll have no problems. once youve got the correct angles and straght lines, you can use a sanding stick that flexes to round off corners. i tried to get the inside as neat as poss, but there was just not enough resin there, so had the idea to thicken and neaten it up, and luckily i had these tiny bits of photoetch that fitted perfectly. so glued them in place and once everythings painted with abit of panel lining on them they should look great.

no probs go for it, im in the middle of sanding and prep so got nothing to show anyway, youll also need sticks with the clips, i use kebab sticks from supermarket, you can get away with using blocks of polystyrene if have them to put sticks in, but i use cat scratching board from amazon... not sure if it comes with water slide decals, just finishing a taobao order in next few days, could get you them, let me know probably £4

they are good fun, you just have to treat building them like an a production line with lots of parts on clips, so its only the final day that it all comes together.

haha im not that good, did i tell you about the time i tried aircraft modelling?

day one. 8hours just to take off the parts from sprues and pick out the right resin parts for the waist and upper body!

reference photo dump, im sure that my model will not be as nice as this, but really need somewhere i can put these where they are blown up.

yeah, im building quite a collection of parts, in the parts box

been a year in planning and im hoping for a 6 month buld but could be longer, from the amount of hours il be putting in, i still think its a cost effective hobby. as for colors il be doing mostly like the ID pics, but only 1 color red(mr color red), il be doing the details mostly dark gray just as its has so many details on the surface i think bright metallics would stand out too much, the innerframe will be a mix of grays and metallics as i really enjoyed doing last few models with gray and using decals on the innerframe.

seems im forever doing things red or white! so this build will be the big boy, im hoping to have it done in 6 months to take to telford. its the sazabi ver ka kit, with both infinite dimension resin upgrade sets(ID are the rolls royce of resin upgrades the 2 sets cost me 200 quid) ive also got a full set of metal thrusters and pipes and ive got huge sheet of photoetch for this kit. il be braking the kit into 3 parts(legs and waist, upper body, backpack and the shield and weapons) that way il have less chance of losing a part and will stop me from getting bored. ive not started yet as i wanted to have a proper spring clean of my room but heres the stuff ive got and il show some reference pics for people not familier with these upgrades... the kit is huge to start with... heres the PE set, some of it wont be used as shoulders and fuel tanks are being scrapped for resin versions. and the 2 infinite dimension resin upgrade sets, 1 is mostly the body parts, the second is a redesign of parts for the outside of legs, new backpack funnel holders, new fuel tanks and new weapons. also metal thruster set... ive also got loads of little bits of PE il add as i go and one other change is i bought of these special pipes from korea.. il be using all HIQ decals for the warnings, as i do with all my mechs now.. and i got some logo decals custom printed, so will use the sazabi and S01 logos(the actual font is white but its blick for the photo) so thats about it, probably gonna be a few weeks of cleaning and prep, so will post when i have something to show

thanks for the comments.

thanks guys

nah just used a small brush and the mr color red i used on the body, looks fine cant tell the difference just uploaded final pics in other part of forum .

did this inbetween other projects, filled seams, gloss black, then chameleon pigment powder into lacquer clear, (which is alot cheaper than the overpriced chameleon model paints) then used quartz liquid glass 2 pack clear, the pink was gaia silver with mr color gx clear pink, and finally more liquid glass.

if youve seen the build thread youll know im not totally happy with this, but ive calmed down abit now and even though the clear parts look total trash, i dont think its that bad. not perfect but im ok with it seeing how it was first car ive built, the chances of building another full bodied car is slim to none.lol

so put everything together and to be honest, il never buy another one of these piece of trash aoshima kits again(could be that all cars are like this, in which case il stick to mechs that actually fit properly and are fun, rather than prolonged torture) i cant deal with the retardation of poor instructions, bad fit issues and poor kit design! the design of the rear lights and how you put them together and the order of the instructions is beyond all sanity, it took all my will power not to stanp on the bloody model and be done with it! the windows also look crap and dont fit, which means when you try and glue them you need a fast setting glue, but that means they could pop out as its drying and put glue all over the window! anyway, i took lots of pics of the process of building this.... so started with putting the brakes together... then put the engine in that i put together last week. then did the cockpit, all simple and fit well. and fit it to the chasis. then put the frnt grill on, which fit well. then the front lights and windscreen which tricky but ok. the side windows didnt fit, tried using tiny bits of super glue but kept poping out after a minute, had to hold it in for 15 minues then use watered down pva glue capilery action would seal the window. then i totally missed taking photos as anger level was at maximum doing the rear lights that look crap. they dont fit, they dont have tabs to holds parts together and there is no way of gluing the clear part to the brake lights, oh and the orange blinkers both snapped when cutting from the sprue, so ended up painting the indicators with paint. the body was quite easy to fit, and the wheels are super tight fit which i dont mind as i wanted that look. then just glued the skirts and spoiler on and fitted the mirrors.. so thats about it, the rear fenders need retouching with red and il go over with an indian ink pen again as some angles you can still see remains of white compound. il take some proper photos in afew days. overall im not happy with what ive done and feel wee weed off.

cheeers fella im 99% there now, put all the parts away, away from me when spraying metallics,. painting inside of windows black is quite shabby, but to be honest im really at the end of my patience, in photo you cant really see it but had some burn through right on the top edge of the rear wheel arches. im thinking that just running a fine brush over the edge with some red will be enough to blend so doesnt stand out. wheels look great and are happy with them.

heres what ive had devilered in last month. p bandai rebawoo. also a mass of do-dads from taobao, decals, PE, some metal pipes and some scrapers and rasps. 3rd party providence gundam(its much better than the bandai version) and a resin conversion kit for the MG zero wing kit... this is what resin conversion looks like... got this plastic unicorn bust, awesome kit with full set of LEDs included also got afew more things ive not taken pics for and put away, but il show some ad photos... these PE sheets for MG sinanju... i also finally got this sazabi resin dress up kit, the body kit and the fuel tank kit together cost me 175 quid, but its worth it, look at it, LOOK AT IT!!!

hay just seen this model at the liberty walk head office/cafe. clearly from the size its a pocher kit but just wondered can you get upgrades to the pocher lambo kit? i will probably never own such a pricy kit so just wondered? here is photo. here is time stamped link to vid...

getting there, not been posting but been soldiering on, i got all the decals down with no silvering.... this pic is before i did all the tiny warnings like on gundams... then primed and painted all the other parts, the spoilers ive done in a dark gray and wheels will be black with a flat clear so flat black and brakes are bright yellow. the cockpit is gloss black sprayed from far so gives a glossy but textured look and seats are same red again sprayed from afar. then i put down the 2k quartz liquid glass. was the first time glossing a car shell and had quite a few problems, had tiny areas that the clear didnt want to sit and would seporate just like oil and water, i tried blasting more and more and would keep seporating, its in three tiny pin pricks on the body and although not perfect it hasnt ruined it. the other problem is i kinda rushed it and some corners are abit patchy, the thing i was worried about when doing it was to do it too thick and laying down too much, but ended up with areas that it was too thin. left clear for 48hrs then started to wet sand out mistakes, was using 5000grit and in the past when doing a mech it sanded out imperfections and was not a problem when i used compounds it would go glassy. but on this model, it didnt matter how much i polished with compounds the scratches stayed. so asked around and was told i need some much higher grits, so bought some rubber sheets that go upto 12,000grit, i just got them in post today and had a go wet sanding with them, and they are working great, done 2 parts and have finally got that glassy finish. so thats where im upto, will sand compound and polish all parts over weekend, will flat coat the parts i need to and there is afew more parts i need to do metallic. then just have to paint the inside of clear windows then i can put together.

yeah i love them, i used to big bits of foam packaging that are ok for putting parts in but less stable, these cat scratch boards on the other hand hold sticks well and also double up as trays to lay parts on. @Will Vale @Dazzio i guess its just what we are into and what we like or dont like. to me the smaller size, the lack of inner frame and the need to weld, fill and smooth seams really bug me personally. the problems of a master grade of tons of parts and bigger project doesnt bother me really. seeing how with a master grade you can paint everything and simply snap it together, with the only real prep work being sanding nubs.

just to add, if you are wanting to build/paint a master grade kit it really isnt that bigger deal as long as you buy some items to help you, you really must get a load of croc clips asleast 50 or 100 and put them on kebab sticks which you can buy from supermarket for a few quid. to hold all the parts on sticks you can use a piece of stirofoam or what i use is a cat scratcher from amazon... the thing with gundam modelling if you are not used to it, it is a slog. weeks or months of prep, then weeks of frenzed painting tons of small parts, then in one night putting the whole thing together. its funny as i was just saying today that im used to bulk prepping, bulk painting and then all coming together at the end, where as the scale model car im doing at the mo takes forever as you cant paint everything at once.