Rain Mikamura

10/10/06

White base

hand / forearm isnt that smooth, i did sand the resin but i guess i didnt sand it well enough, but.. fatigue is getting to me.. im gonna have to let this go this time.

Shading on the thigh part, i did a quick flesh base/ highlight on the stocking transparency, ive never done this effect before i hope it comes out ok. Im gonna do a pink/ white shading on the *panties*
Head shading, gonna try doing the eye whites after the shading for the simple fact that i forgot to mask the eyes after the white base :P. Earings will be orange, wierd color for pearls but its the correct color :P

Torso: i think it looks ok , i probably need to shade the naval more but i think it looks good, this piece to me is probably the most important focal point so i tried to be extra careful.

I finished all the flesh pieces but was too tired to take all the pics, the shouldar pieces dont have much flesh on them so..

The way i do flesh is, i spray my base flesh, i spray the shadowed areas (reddish flesh), then i do the highlights which creates the majority of the flesh look. For next time i might make the base flesh lighter. Well i ordered 5 bottles of more flesh tone so i think ill have plenty to experiment with later. :)

: evaulating my work thus far, this is definately turning out better than my first figure, and thats all my goal was for this model, to just get progressivley better with each kit is what im striving for. My pre prep work still needs some improving but i think thats an easy obstacle to overcome, my greatest challenge has mostly been fatigue, coming home after work and sanding / prepping is very tiresome. I mostly do my work on the weekdays as i try to not let these kits overrun my weekends.

next up are the eyes and red pink vest!

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09/28/06



The arm where i..... drilled a hole through.... looked a little flat on the shouldar, i pretty much just patched it up and sanded the hole, i didnt really fix the damage. I applied some magic sculpt, a real amount this time, sanded then primed. The surface looked odd before priming but came out silky smooth, i was surprised, sleeve lining isnt perfect, but gimme a break here!



venus de milo pose



ok first pic, ok i understand there is "supposed" to be a seam here, u can tell cause there is this leather jacket "bind" thing that goes where those two knotches are, which would mean there is some kind of seam in the back, and the hobby fan pictures do have a seam, so there is a seam! but this one is huge! so i attempted to close the seam further. this seam will be no more, yes this seam will be closed!! bwahahah! I just noticed the left top jacket lining is damaged, as in its not there, i also need to repair this, shouldnt be too hard since the two jackets dont necessarily need to line up at that point.


guess what, chicken butt.

i forgot to seam patch/ repair the head band, i used mucho putty cause im getting sick of these seams, this needs to be the last seam run its driving me insane. In the meantime i will wetsand the other dried pieces, and work on my backburner rx78-2 ver ka.

It seems lately the putty has been drying slowly, is the room to moist? no enough fresh air? something? if anyone knows itll make things go smoother, i hate to sand "wet" putty, i applied almost no water this time and mashed a little harder so hopefully that will make a difference. Maybe applying more hardener?

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09/23/06

zapped! touched up the gap job on the back vest, vixed the right vest chippped piece on the top corner where the two pieces meet

zapped! Little bit revised gap job here

Rookie mistake, drilled a hole through her arm, ouch it was right through the lning of the jacket, so i had to resculpt that thin tiny little lining, its not perfect but its seamless enough.. zapp!

zapped! Closed the gap a little more on the armpit, left and right ones, also closed the gap alittle better on the vest strap connection.

After priming a few pieces i noticed the paint looked like crap, it wasnt my airbrushing skills it was the surface of hobby fan resin. While the resin was good, the surface was not, i realized i was painting on the damaged layer of this resin, essentially the top layer is pretty much useless, especially while its just the layer between the grease molding adn the real resin. I then decided i was going to sand the entire top layer of all the pieces, the face pic best illustrates the comparison between the hidden real resin under the top layer, vs the raw top layer, the whole face is sanded down except the earings and the ear, notice the shininess of the ears, unprepped surface also has a sort of wierd texture that looks like very bad dried skin, like the whole kit is covered in some kind of resin "scab". For a better comparison look at the sanded face job, then look at the butt shot picture (2nd picture down), notice the crappy surface of the butt, this crappy texture is all over the model even in the skin. Even though i didnt do a perfect job sanding every crevice , im confident my paint job will look 100x smoother. Excuse me of a step like this is trivial to some people but it is not a step i hear of often and i think it helps a lot. I also found it wierd looking when only the areas where mold lines were sanded had a smooth paint job while the rest of the piece didnt, it just made sense to me to sand the entire recast.

i've learned that recasts demand the attention of sanding the entire surface, yes this takes more work and its just one more headache to the list but imo you get almost original kit quality surface by doing this. When done right it would almost be hard to tell the original from a recast.

priming is next, finally then i can put down my white and start my flesh, im really not sure what color her vest is, red? pink? reddish pink? i mean what is that! red orange? red brown with some pink? well illl figure it out.


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09/20/06

Panty gap filled

leg /skirt gap filled, i've refined this a little bit since then

vest gap filled, ive also refined this a little since then, i also corrected the tip of the right vest area

armpit gap fixed, i might fill this a little more, but i think this is fine

a armpit gap and back vest gap would suggest one or both of the vest sides are not fitting correctly somehow to the torso, the two zippers on the front do collide alittle big and do prevent the vest from closing all the way but i dont think this was the source of the problem. i really think it has to do with the shouldar / vest strap alignment, it doesnt seem this part was molded correctly on the leftshouldar to vest gap, but it isnt so bad.

Just need to sand the gaps tonight, im trying not to be so anal about the gaps because its really hindering me from getting to the priming stage in a timely manner, it seems that by the time i get home i only have time to fiddle with a couple pieces then its time to go to bed.

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09/18/06

just finisehd degreasing, need to re sand some pieces and im good to prime, i had a problem with one of the peices, their is a 3 hair hair peice that would go on the back of her head, its just 3 strands of hair sticking out from this one peice of resin. Surprisingly seam lines found their way on this small peice so i decided to sand, i guess i hadndled the peice too roughly, the hair strands broke off, 2 of them, so i patiently superglued them back on. Other than that everythings going smoothly, the seam lines on her hair drove me insane cause there are lots of little spikes and crevices and hard to reach for the sandpaper, the legs also have two sets of seam lines, one created by hobby fan, the other created by the original.

i dont know why but im so lazy to take pictures this time around, i think im just trying to get to the priming stage as fast as possible without pausing to take pictures in between. There are minor gaps ill fill/ take pictures of.

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09/14/06

all the peices, more peices than im normall used to, actually , its a lot of pieces. Mostly small hair extentions and belt attachements.

face shot, there is a air bubble on the bridge of her nose.

seam quality, its "ok", i wouldnt say its horrible , i can handle it though its still a pain in the ass.

i've prepped most of the peices so far, i just need to prep one leg, and the arms, and small hair extentions, and surprise, her vest does not fit properly, gap in the back, .... naturally of course. Also the wrists on her jacket sleeve are actually a seperate peice, and do not fit correctly either, hard to explain ill post pics after degreasing. So far there are gaps for every limb, its very very minor but... i have the means to fix it so i might as well. The torso and belt so far fit well into the skirt, the legs fit well, minor gap but they fit well, the arms fit pretty good, hair fits nicely, her hair band has gapage. I can actually see two sets of seam lines on her leg, one is from the recast the other from the original, go figure.

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Wasting no time, i've already started the sanding/ flash removal process, seam lines are very minimal. There are a lot of parts, lots of small parts. The build quality of this kit is a dream, no masking is necessary except for her gun, The hair is very sharp and there are no chipped peices! The only annoying this is there is a lot of thick flash. Will post pics tonight. As far as i see, there are no areas where putty is required other than gaps.

here's a bio of this character

Rain Mikamura

she pilotts rising gundam from Gundam G. Not a fan but the kit looked fun to make, i strategically chose a kit that looked like it needed minimal masking and puttying. And her cleavage skin area is a seperate peice than her vest, gotta love that, all gk's should build this way.