PG Strike Freedom WIP

    Back to Gundam business, here's a WIP build that's been a long time coming. I was showing these pics that have been stored in my camera to our friends in the Philippines, when I realised that I should have posted them! This is for a display piece for a year-end Gundam event. I don't even know when it's due, but I'm more or less done with the main mecha. The objective is to detail it up like Jap maestro Keita's MG SF. A special mention goes to Toymaker, who gave me a lot of advice and some demos for this. So here goes:

The first thing I did was to open up the vents you see on the chest armour, and give the torso more bulk and detail. Next, I beefed up the forearm armours using pla-plating:

I went all out on the pla-plating, beefing up the shoulders as well. Sorry guys, if the pic quality isn't so good. These are uploaded from my phone few months ago before I started blogging. :P

    

Once the torso is done, I had a rough idea of the overall proportions. That's when you know how much more to elongate the feet. I didn't like the original feet of the PG SF. To be honest, the feet of most PG kits are rather bulky instead of sharp and streamlined like their MG counterparts, probably to hold up all that bulk. 

After some mild panel-lining, I used Tamiya quick-dry putty to shape the feet tip. You can see a before-after comparison above. After the putty is dried, follow up with hours and hours...and hours and hours of sanding. LOL.

Once I'm done with certain portions, I prime the stuff to spot for inconsistencies. Then - sanding sanding sanding. With most of the torso done and the piece coming together, this is what it looks like raw -

There are a lot more stuff I did (for example, splitting of the skirt armour), which you can see in some of the finished pics later. Oh and the waist is also extended, cos I found the original torso a bit stunted. I basically forgot to take pics and went straight into the fun bit - painting! After which, here is PG SF in it's half glory, without the wings (a bit on that later):

A bit of focus on various selected bits:

Sliced and diced the ankle armour for more texture.

Opened up the calf armour and added some spare internal parts to bring out the gold exo-skeleton. If that back booster flap looks familiar to you, it's cos it is from the MG Unicorn!

Cut up the knee armour for a more segmented and layered look, especially with the internals peeking out. 

Panel-linning for the skirt armour, which is grossly bare. I cut up the top piece, added a vent and detailed up the internal with another layer to complicate. 

    I used some fluoro gloss coat from Gaianotes, which is why you'll notice a slight blue hue to the white shading. I didn't want it to be too white. Two coats of these were used before and after decaling, before I capped it with a final flat coat for the matt finish. Ta-daaaaa:

    You'll notice the hip cannons and wings are awol. I'm still working on the cannons. As for the wings, they're another monster by itself, and the plan was that I finish the mecha while Toymaker tackled the wings. Obviously, both of us kinda got er...sidetracked with other projects. Lol. But I promise, we'll finish it in time for the display. Till then, watch this space!

Post notes - Before-After comparisons: