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Hello!
This Build Club edition runs until the end of February, which leaves [takes look at calendar] ...wait, how did that happen?
I'll be keeping submissions open until the hard deadline of March 15, after which I'll send out the end-of-round roundup post.
The good news is that the end of one round means the start of a new one!
I will announce the theme for the next round later this week to give time to prepare for the start of the round on April 1.
So, I have two in-progress kits right now.
The first is the Koumei Re-GZ SD BB Senshi, which I've had on hold for about a year and a half now. My adventures in Gunpla and plamo started many years back with SD Gundams, and specifically BB Senshis, a bunch of which I was able to get for cheap via one of Hobby Search's sales, back when they were still allowed to sell Gunpla. Even now, I still rely on them for practice and experimentation.
After several years of only building kits every once in a blue moon, I got Serious in 2023, and started off with this BB Senshi, mainly to see how my hand painting was doing and to try out a gold Gundam Marker EX. I didn't like said marker, mainly because I couldn't get an even, consistent coat, and wasn't happy with how the rest of my painting was going, so I boxed up this kit and shifted my attention elsewhere. Haven't really touched it since, and don't feel like going back to it anytime soon.
On the other hand, there's my second in-progress kit: MS General's Raider of Shadow Yin Hu. Last year, I built the Suit Type body, which puts her in a waitress outfit, and plan to build the Armed Type body this year. In case you're wondering, to save space, I collapsed her box and put all the leftover pieces for said Armed Type in a smaller one.
The building of the Suit Type went all right. The manual is one of the best I've ever seen, with multiple languages and lists of runners needed for each section, not to mention clear instructions for just about everything. However, the quality of the kit itself is so-so, with obvious seam lines, lower-grade plastic than what's found in Japanese kits, and nub marks that could be a little better hidden—I had to do quite a bit of touching up on the prepainted silver and gold parts. I mostly like the end result, though, and hope that the Armed Type version doesn't give me too much trouble later on.
That's everything for now! Planning to get back into building when the weather warms up, and already have a handful of kits I'd like to tackle. Hopefully one or more of them will match up with the next Build Club theme.
I have a couple kits that I mostly finished early in January, but ended up getting back-burnered: the Master Grade Astray Red Frame Kai and the High Grade Immortal Justice Gundam. Both are close to completion, so this mini Build Club is a good kick in the pants to finally get them done.
I finished the snap build on the Red Frame, so it's just been waiting for some panel lining. I still need to take some proper photos, but it's looking good.
DELI-STYLE
After that, the Immortal Justice has a bit of work left on the backpack and accessories, as well as panel lining, which I should be getting to in the next few days.
I love my Tamiya Panel Line Accent Color! A few of my favourite aspects:
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Tangentially, I was recently asked what panel lining colour to use for a project, and my answer was as always: do some tests! Runner tags are a great way to check panel lining colours, for example here are some tests I did for the Bust Model. Pretty much every runner tag has two or more colors for comparison, e.g. the red tag has Dark Brown on BUST and Brown on MODEL, and the white runner has Black, Light Gray, Gray and Dark Gray on 78F00, ガンダム, BUST and MODEL respectively.
Much more large scale building and painting (redecorating a bedroom) took up a good chunk of February, thus I'm happy for a lenient start to the club with something small yet meaningful.
Very much a casual builder, as I mostly pick up kits here & there for the fun of assembly and to display in amusing ways later, so even the basic after build detailing I rarely indulge in. With the above-mentioned time constraints though I looked for windows to exploit. I work a lot of night shifts, which are often pretty slack and great for getting a leg up on extracurriculars, so I packed up a model and brought it in for a few nights to see what I could accomplish within that venue.
My approach to arts & craft might be described as "ghetto fabulous". It's likely the old art college student in me used to making the most from whatever you could find lying around. I assembled a HG Gundam Fenice a while back now, and it soon became a fave to take down, futz around with and repose. You notice more doing that; with the half-broken aesthetic of the Fenice I saw that even a tiny bit of work would really make it pop.
So on night shift we go. It's quiet but you don't take the piss, so I'm not hauling out a load of gear (not that I have very much). Whadda we got then? In the office stationary a 0.1 nib pin that just about fits for panel lining. I throw on some background noise on the monitor and for the next few hours til we're live at work I go at it.
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Progress is shaky but persistent. With the pen I can easily erase mistakes with the plentiful anti-bacterial desk wipes and line again, cleaning overspill away and leaving ink within the groove. It smears a lot of course, though what I notice is that if wiped to a certain degree it created a pleasing blur that put me in mind of a metal weld (another thing I did in art college for a spell). Was pretty illuminating to see what worked where; it didn't take as well to the yellow portions so I left them off mostly. It did much to dispel some subconscious notions of Gunpla decoration needing to be a precise art with little room for error. Even with a model I held dear like the Fenice I was now able to get a bit messy and keep the end result in mind, with that safety net of just cleaning the whole yoke back down if I truly screwed up. Might be the mental gymnastics of a novice, but dammit if it didn't pass the night and saved me burning my eyes on another screen.
Fenice is the envy of their un-lined peers on the shelf now. With the helpful nudge this correspondence provides however the rest may not be far behind.
Finishing up the Immortal Justice!
Lots of smooth/rounded design on this guy means there's not a whole lot to worry about panel lining, so it went pretty quickly.
With both kits finished off, I got some nice shots of them:
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The Red Frame Kai comes with this big sword thing that can reconfigure into a weird backpack or a laser bow.
Normally I'm a fan of big dumb weapons, but I'm really not into the way the thing looks like a Transformer.
The kit comes with an action base just to help hold it up.
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