.:HoA Presents!:.

Being the first (and probably not the last) time doing a custom paintjob on a Gundam model kit, I figured it’d be neat to do a process post so I have some documentation as to what I’ve done right and what I’ve done horribly wrong.

Although I’m not that big on Gundam SEED or Destiny series, I found that I really liked the look of the Astray units. They clicked with me for some reason. I even have a nice collection of them in the SD Gundam Online game. Needless to say, it was the perfect place to try out a custom paint scheme following one I currently sport in-game. I did tweak it a bit more when I got around to laying out the color placement, mostly in the places you normally can’t tweak.

You can see the color layout I did here. -> [Link]

Thanks to a lack of a matching jar of paint, I had to change from a lighter blue color (Testors’ True Blue spray) to the darker blue (Testors’ Something Something spray) you see in the photos. If I do another Astray build, I might go with the lighter but the darker has proven to be quite cool looking in person. I also went with enamels as I’ve had better luck with them on plastic without having to prime everything.

List of paints used:

• Deja Blue (One Shot Spray)
• Arctic Blue Metallic
• Metallic Silver
• Metallic Copper
• Metallic Gold

I bought the kit from the HobbyOne Toy Shop in Japan via Amazon. It took a while to get here but came a good four days before it’s earliest arrival date. The box was dinged in the corner but the runners were perfectly fine so I’m calling it a win. After the wait, I wanted to get on painting it but I still had other things that needed doing before I could dive right in.

While I waited for the weather to warm up (and calm down) enough to spray the Deja Blue, I got to work on the parts I Could mess with - the bits that only needed a few touches of paint (2nd pic). The Arctic Blue went on a little thick at first. Once thinned, it started to play nice and not feel so globby. The straight metallics - the silver, copper and gold - were just the right consistency and easy enough to control.

I started simple. I only did the blue and silver. Thanks to having a plan before I went into it, I had a good idea as to where I wanted my colors. I also got a chance to see the difference between the white and black parts as a base for the Arctic Blue (3rd pic). I didn’t make too terrible a mistake by foregoing a primer coat. -.-

After a few days of cold wind and rain, the weather settled down enough that I could get the red parts sprayed blue (4th pic). It took a good eight painfully light coats to get the coverage I wanted. Really, I could’ve stopped at four (two shots on both sides) but the angle I had on my spray setup was pretty bad. Good for what I needed but not idea. The Deja Blue really is a beautifully dark shade of blue and looks fantastic. The Arctic Blue is a hair lighter. Not light enough that many folks would notice but enough that I used a blue marker to make up the difference when I went to touch up the spots where the piece connected to runners.

It was about this time that I started putting things together. Since most of the parts are just blue or white, it all went together fairly quickly. I went until I hit a point where I had to mix the Brass/Yellow Bronze color (5th pic). I waited to ‘till the very end for a reason - this color was a one-shot deal. I could only mix it once and had to use it immediately because I have no safe spare containers to use. I also goofed when i made it. I was going for a set recipe but I accidentally added more copper than I was going for into a small bit of gold. The color looks fantastic but I fear I’ll never get that lucky again.

Instead of going with black, I decided to line my Astray with blue ink. It made sense to me as blue is a natural fit to white. The shadow effects came because of another happy accident. I was cleaning up some stray lines with a cotton swab dabbed in window cleaner. The cleaner dries quicker than water without doing damage to the plastic. What it also did was picked up more of the ink than expected, turning a clean up job into an inkwash. The effect works well for me and, being ink, I still get the advantage of using an eraser to “fix” any parts I don’t feel like having the ever-so-light shade of blue.

I popped up a few shot of the finished project to show how everything looks under the normal light on my drawing table - it’s final resting place - and using the flash so the differences in the blues shows up a little better.

All in all, I had a blast building my custom Astray. Still not going to call this done just yet. I want add some of the water slide decals to it but I’m still not sure on their placement. I also need to shoot a topcoat on it to lock in the colors.

With its dark blues, its bright brass/yellow bronze accents and its light blue panel lines, the MBF-EA1 Astray Prophet is looking pretty damn snazzy watching over my artwork.

Definitely have to do this again. Perhaps a graphite and grey Kai-styled Gundam X Maoh? = )