1/35 Unicorn Gundam Bust.

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Another kit I have had for some time but as time goes on my small stash is diminishing. This is one massive kit so it's going to take a bit of time to build and finish. The kit comes with an LED setup and a some very nice metal thruster bells and all the details you could wish for. I made a start on the base fully expecting this to be a nightmare of badly fitting parts but so far it has fitted together extremely well, just the molding lines to get rid of. I do plan on going to town on the painting of this one, no weathering but lot of detail paint and pre/post shading. 

 

 

The lighting gods were with me to day so some decent pictures for a change. 

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Last night I did a bit a parts check mostly for the lights as you can see it seems quite comprehensive, its going to be fun checking all the LED, connections and wires. Looks like it can run USB or AAA well. 

 

The pictures of the kit built look as if the LED are very close to clear parts of the kit so the light deffusion is not great, so I'm going to try and do somthing about it. No idea what as it well out side my knowledge. 

 

 

Image of a complete kit, its the bright spots of the LED's that I would like to better defuse. 

 

[Pete in Lincs 14,756]

Interesting stuff. I'm no expert either but would foil do the diffusing trick? It's similar to what works on certain car tail lights.

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

46 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Interesting stuff. I'm no expert either but would foil do the diffusing trick? It's similar to what works on certain car tail lights.

I don't know but it sounds like I idea worth trying out. 

 

But of sanding and primer today.... 

 

 

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

So I was going to test all the LEDs and wires today but the connections are very tight so to prevent brakes I will test and install as  I building now. 

 

That leaves me with the bright spots to sort out really before I start building properly. So I will paint silver or use foil behind the light and I might also swap out the white LED's for some green one I have ( quoted as 3 - 3.4v). Not sure what the white one are but as they are using 2 AAA 3v, I assume they are 3v LED's so they should be compatible. A quick test with the wiring I tried out show they look to work and are about the same brightness so not sure they will help with the bright spots. 

 

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Unpacking the rest of the kit to wash the plastic and found a few more metal parts, looks like the 3 piston and metal centres and some metal details for the back piston. Very nice as well. 

 

 

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Washing up all done.....

 

[Will Vale 5,013]

Nice goodies.

For the light diffusing, the foil will reflect any light that wasn't going where you want forwards again, which should help a bit. There aren't a lot of LEDs for the area they're covering though and I think some hot spots are unavoidable. You might try adding a slip of greaseproof paper, typing paper or thin styrene (in increasing order of diffusion) in front of the LED to soften and spread the light.

Or spray matt varnish on the inside of the clear parts, and silver metallic on the front of the opaque pieces behind them (so it goes reflector-LED-diffuser in each case).

Another idea would be to make some opaque masks in techy shapes and put them inside the clear parts in the front of the LEDs. In the built-up pic you can see the glow looks more diffused in the middle where the armour blocks the view of the LED.

 

HTH,

 

Will

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Cheers Will for the advice I will give it a go and see what happens. 

 

And to avoid testing the light I painted most of the base parts lastnight. I used thinned down AK true metal the wax stuff. For the gold I used grey and black primer to try and get some differences in the finish colour, it sort of worked. I might spray some clear yellow or orange over the gold to really give it some deep colour. 

 

[HoolioPaulio 1,483]

Watching this with excitement, looks like it will be massive when done.  I imagine there is tons of detail, and your painting skill should do it great justice.

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

Cheers, it's slow going with the wax paints but these were just about ready to push together, a bit of bling... 

 

[Will Vale 5,013]

Wow that's a lovely finish, could be real metal.

Do the wax paints dry robust? It looks like you were able to mask over them.

 

W

[Hunter Rose 2,716]

Looks like a beast of a kit! Look forward to this one coming together, looking good so far

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

12 hours ago, Will Vale said:

Wow that's a lovely finish, could be real metal.

Do the wax paints dry robust? It looks like you were able to mask over them.

 

W

Cheers Will. It's not great to be honest but it's so much easier to use than the likes of Alclad. It rubs of more than chips so as long as you don't touch it it's fine, goes off properly after about 4 or 5 days but I still give a gloss top before doing anything with it. Thinned down with white sprites, not sure if that slows the drying time. 

 

Just good parts separation not masking.... Yet. 

[rockpopandchips 5,152]

So a bit more work done on this now, the white base has just had the decals put and need a top coat, I can then make a start on building the base with the lights in. I wanted to go for a modulating colour with the white so had weathered, added some shading and a few scratches etc to metallics on the base in an attempt to give it a bit more of a used look. I would like to build this in to a 1/35 diorama with crew working on the Gundam but we will have to see how it goes.