TMB's super happy fun Eva model-building adventures

For Eva-related fan projects: fanfiction, fanart, AMVs, and other creations. Share your work and discuss others' here.

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TMB's super happy fun Eva model-building adventures

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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Mon Sep 16, 2013 12:33 pm

I really like model kits. I have a lot of them.



This is just the Eva stuff, the 100+ Gundam and other mecha not pictured.

Unfortunately I can also be very lazy so whether they're built or not they ended up being neglected for far too long now.



So I'm starting this thread to both motivate myself to finish stuff and also to share on the fun of model building.

We'll begin with a lot of Eva-02s, mostly because it's the oldest unfinished project I'm eager to finish right now.

I've always been fascinated with various interpretations of the same design (http://i.imgur.com/BLWD7fV.jpg) so back in 2009 with Ha hitting theatres and the Bandai kit version of NME Eva-02 just announced I decided I would finish the other two Eva-02 kits I had laying around: Bandai's and Volks' TV kits.



Those comparison pictures are actually from 2009. I prepared them for a progress thread on another forum that never happened so they're finally seeing the light of day here. Eventually not much happened and the Bandai NME kit arrived with the TV kits unfinished.



So now, 4 years later things pretty much haven't gone anywhere still



What did happen is I've acquired even more kits



So now after digging through the past the plans for the future are simple:
-The Kotobukiya 1/400 scale NME Eva-02 is due to come out some time early next year and so the 2009 goal is now shifted.
-Finish Bandai TV, Volks TV, Kotobukiya resin and Bandai NME kits before the Kotobukiya plastic one arrives.
-The kits will be built OOB (out of box), meaning no stylistic changes to preserve the appearance and interpretation of the design of the stock kit. There will be some tweaks here and there, mostly to ease the build and painting but nothing major.

The idea is to end up with a nice collection of finished kits showing the variety over the years and hopefully the process of getting there will be interesting for others and not just myself.

First proper progress post will be about the Volks "Great Garage Injection" Eva-02, which is not really that great....it's utterly horrifying...

That should go up soon enough.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 8:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby AR-99 » Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:45 pm

Have you considered blogging about this process? I know there's a member who has a blog that reviews Eva figures.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:03 pm

I have but I just don't like the blog format because it's too one-sided. I prefer forums.

Although, anyone have any preferences for layout of the posts? Because there will be lots and lots and LOTS of pictures.
Links?
Thumbs?
Spoilered pics?
Just splurge them full res right in the text and let the forum settings take care of it?
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Tue Sep 24, 2013 12:24 am

Well this thread is off to a blazing start, I've already neglected it for over a week.

My spraybooth was giving me trouble. Had to completely clean it out and replace the air hoses. No spray booth = no spraying = no progress.

Anyway, let me introduce you to the horrors that is the Volks Orient Hero Series Great Garage Injection Evangelion 02.



So what does the kit promise?



That tiny picture. That's the only color photo reference you're given. Fun.

BUT LOOK! ACCESSORIE KITS!



Since there is no good photo reference with the bloody kit itself you can try your luck with the E-MONO book, which does have most things as far as I can tell.



That's where something interesting comes up. Apperently Volks first made this as a 12,000 yen resin kit, then a few months later recycled the sculpt as a 4,800 yen plastic injection kit.

The manual. Pretty damn simple kit.



Bonus Tips and Tricks page



Onto the actual parts themselves. The molding quality leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.



This might actually kill you if you expect Bandai quality precision.



Also the styrene used is pretty damn brittle.



After breaking a few of the original pegs I just discarded them and started replacing them with better plastic or metal. Details of that in the actual build posts which will start going up tomorrow.
For now Nigouki sits and waits...



...until the sun rises again and I can make some noise and fumes. Priming should start tomorrow and will no doubt reveal a ton of things to be fixed but also will finally make for nice photos.



Yay new air hoses.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Tue Sep 24, 2013 11:53 am

So the kit is a mess. Horrible fit, horrible alignment, horrible gaps, etc. It doesn't just require gluing. It requires filling. Overall quality is like a Thai recast but made of styrene instead of ultra-brittle resin.

So, filling and gluing.



SGTP thankfully does both.
SGTP = Super Glue + Talcum Powder
It is a lovely trick that I don't know how to live without anymore. There are actual hobby branded cyanoacrylate + filler combinations out there on the market but I'm cheap and the dollar store stuff is fine.

Get some thick gel super glue and talcum powder, mix the two until it's an even consistency pasta



Apply where needed.



It retains all the gluing ability of superglue and the talcum powder acts as filler and makes it much easier to sand than just regular super glue. Only drawback is that it can be a bit brittle.

The kit also hates symmetry



Some is easy to fix, some I'll just ignore because it'll drive me mad trying to get it perfect and I'll end up abandoning the kit again.

Now back to the topic of those brittle platic pegs mentioned in the earlier post.



I did start by recycling some unused better quality pegs from another kit I had, a Volks Orient Hero Series Mazinger Z but there just wasn't enough spares so I started making my own.



Wire coathangers are infinitely useful. If you want to add the ball to the end to make it an actual ball-joint just fill the polycap with SGTP and put it on top of the metal peg. The polycaps are made of polyethylene and usually that is an annoyance because nothing sticks to them. You can't really glue them unless you bury them in the material and paint flakes off too. But thanks to the non-sticking you can use the polycap as a mold for the ball joint.

Use it over and over because this bloody thing would fall apart otherwise



Doesn't matter if it's not perfect because they'll be hidden



The kit also has male portions of the ball joints made of PE. They're just as useless but this time because of being too soft instead of too hard.



Some more misalignment. It's easier to just drill out the knee joints and replace them with some spare sprues from another kit than it is to assemble the kit as intended. Trying to fix all the crap after claming the parts around the fully finished knee section would be a horror show. Fixing two small holes on each part after everything else is fine = easy.



Trying to keep it under 20 pics per post so as not to molest the forum. More later.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 10:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:28 am

It was supposed to be a an OOB build, but 4 years one thing bugged me enough to redo it. The middle torso section doubled up on the "spine" pieces, taking the one from the above section too.



Not sexy at all



That putty went on 4 years ago, and only got carved up this year....



Got carved up a bit too much so filled in a tried again. Also not the slight gaps between the sections. That felt like needing a fix too.



Much better.

But more joint fixing needed. Ended up buying the famous Hobby Base Yellow Sub ball joints.



People love them because they're PS instead of PE so you can actually paint them.

They went in the ankle joint because I somehow ran out of the intended polycaps.



And yet more fixes needed...panel line rescribing



Gap filling



More panel line rescribing



And for some reason those vents on the thighs were actually bumps so they had to be carved out

Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby kevinlowl » Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:47 pm

Nice project! It's great to see a work in progress build of these Eva model kits as they're not as popular as the usual Gundam stuff so you can't really find much coverage of them around. I've actually just recently bought a bunch of Bandai kits but have yet to start building them. This thread will definitely help out a lot! Also, your current Great Garage Injection kit, oh my. if I were you I would've abandoned it and gone straight to the Bandai kit, haha.

Can't wait for the next update! ^_^

BTW, where did you get that EVA-05 Final Version kit? It's literally impossible to find, like blue EVA-00' and Sachiel. :cringe:

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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Tue Oct 01, 2013 12:37 am

The MP Eva kit I got back in 2004ish, so they were a bit more common back then.

Bandai does still occasionally make runs of the blue 00' but not as regularly as the other kits.
There was a time a few years back where I would keep track of their monthly schedules but during that whole period niether the final MP Eva kit nor Sachiel ever came back...but hey Bandai never actually disposes of their molds so you never know when they'll come back.

That MP Eva kit isn't actually that great. One of the biggest gimmicks is the vinyl sleeve head that's suppose to give you cool, seamless posability. Instead what you get is no posability at all for neck and jaw because it's so stiff. The torso constantly levers around to pop out the polycap instead of rotating inside it and the overall sculpt is kinda meh.

The wings are huge and awesome, but that's about it.



Remember how awesome digital cameras were in 2004?

Anyway the actually GREAT thing about that kit is Bandai's laziness. A lot of the kit is new but they do reuse a lot of the common Eva parts so the result is they give you full trees and lots of spare parts for the other Evas.

My TV Eva-02 are actually hand-me-downs that had a few broken and missing parts so the MP Eva kit fixed all that.





Volks kit update soon. Been distracted by Bandai's Q Eva kits. They are giving me lots of silly ideas.
^_^
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Postby Evartist » Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:03 pm

Nice thread
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Postby Squigsquasher » Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:11 pm

My god that Volks kit looks horrible quality.

Still, good work.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:21 am

No proper update just yet because wind from the east = no spraying. I really need to start spraying.

Also I got sidetracked

Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Thu Nov 07, 2013 11:22 pm

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! One month celebration of thread abandonment!!!! :woohoo:

I've been lazy most of that time but finally the winds changed and I was able to use my spraybooth. So...painting practice. This is the step I have the least experience with because a lot of projects get abandoned before they get here. Also masking is the most tedious and annoying task of them all.

Anyway, mask on...mask off...



Mask on...mask off...



Mask on...mask off...



Hrm, what colors are these?



Whoops, missed a spot



Now the main one



All that masking...



The best part of masking is peeling it off and discovering you didn't mess up too bad



The yellow doesn't quite fit, too bright and...yellow... but it's practice so I'll change it on the real thing to a darker, more orangy one.



Offical Evangelion Neck Color (Gunze Sangyo Mr. Color premixed paints from the NGE days. Eva Color #16 Eva Red Brown to be exact)



And some more masking



Oh this is satisfying



The last one, flat black.



Waiting for panel lines.



Yay panel lines. Always fixing half the masking mistakes. I was gonna give it a flat clear coat spray, because that also helps in hiding mistakes but didn't really feel like it in the end. I like the contrast between the gloss Shine Red and flat Black. To mask that off again for clear coats would be too annoying for just a practice kit. This was actually supposed to be painting practice last year. It's a small ~10cm long freebie from Dengeki Hobby that's been gathering dust on my table since January. I was finally spurred to finish it because the Eva-02 scheme looked pretty good at least on paper



Some very quick finished pics. Quite a few nicks and tiny mistakes but I'm not gonna bother. I've abandoned kits in the past while chasing perfection because of tiny scratches. That is a dumb habit that needs to go. The scratches are the reckless pilot's fault anyway...


Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby kevinlowl » Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:01 am

View Original PostTMBounty_Hunter wrote:Some very quick finished pics. Quite a few nicks and tiny mistakes but I'm not gonna bother. I've abandoned kits in the past while chasing perfection because of tiny scratches. That is a dumb habit that needs to go. The scratches are the reckless pilot's fault anyway...

Add more scratches for battle damage. :tongue:

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Postby Squigsquasher » Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:53 pm

Looks good.

What paints do you use?
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Sat Nov 16, 2013 5:50 pm

I use GSI Creos Mr. Color lacquer hobby paint. Lacquer = most toxic but the fastest drying and most durable. A lot of people prefer acrylics instead because of low toxicity, but my lazinesss prefers lacquer.

Speaking of which, picking the colors is viciously annoying. I spent a whole day going through all the manuals and figuing out all the paint I need for the official "color guides". I actually learned katakana way back around 2005 specifically so that I could use these guides in the little plastic robot manuals. Should have carried on learning the rest of the language...

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10232048t/60/1

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10232045t/60/1

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10114203t/60/1

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10014550t/60/1

(There's actually a mistake in this manual. The spine is labeled as D when that color is clearly the color of the hands and the under side of the plug hatch. The actual spine color isn't given in the 02 manual but 00' has a similar color and thus that reference is used)


Then another day spent hunting around locally for the colors I'm missing. I finally sit down and try a mix and the recommended amounts look absolutely nothing like what's on the box or on the screen. I've had trouble with these manual color guides before so I have no idea what I expected to be different this time. Briefly gave up and spent a day digging through my paint stash and and dumping all the useless ones from old and either finished or abandoned project. I will need the empty jars. There will be lots of experimenting needed.

I also realized I didn't really think this thread through. I don't really have anything exciting to post and becasue of the slow progress so far I've decided to give some time to figure out the best workflow instead of doing actual work. Whether that will be worthwhile, we'll see.

The goals so far, in order of difficulty and thus probably order of compeletion.

*Bandai Eva-02:TV = Build straight as 02:TV

*Bandai Eva-02:Ha = Build straight as 02:Ha

*Bandai Eva-08 #1 = Build straight as 08. Very minor adjustments to the head, just a teeny-tiny bit of polish.

*Volks Eva-02:TV = Build straighta as 02:TV. Still plenty of cleanup to do. Fix a better way to mount the shoulder pylons.

*Bandai Eva-08 #2 = Build as 08+02. Requires proper 02 head half, kit head is unsatisfactory.

*Bandai Eva-02'gamma = Build as 01:ver.Wille. Requires scratchbuilt head because all the ones I have are unsatisfactory.

The fun thing is that all of the above kits have the same problem: Their knee joints (and occasional other parts) need to be assembled first and then the legs sandwich around them. To streamline the process I've spent today disassembling all of the kits and picking out all the parts that need to be done first. They will be preped, painted and clear coated ASAP and left to cure for at least a week to make sure everything does actually cure. That will allow the rest of assembly and painting to march along at a consistent pace.

Optimistically, VERY optimistically, I could have a half dozen finished Eva kits by the end of the year. That would be awesome but it would also mean finishing more kits in ~1.5 months than I have in the last 7 years.
This plan also omits any weapons and accessories. Only the Evas themselves will get done first. I have such a massive stockpile of weapons (Just the pallet rifles number 20...)it'd be easier to do them all in an assembly line later.

Realistically, given my past output, I should have at least one Nigouki done by the end of the year.

Either way probably nothing interesting to post until at least December. I now have all the paint and other supplies that I could possibly need. My work area has been organized. No excuses left. Just gotta work, work, work.


EDIT: Have two totally interesting pics.
All the parts that need to be painted before being sandwiched:

Pretty much all of it will be flat black.

Some more parts that don't need sandwiching but they do need to be painted flat black, so they're joining the above:
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Squigsquasher » Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:01 am

Hmm, looks like it could take a while. Best of luck to you.

Would you recommend spraying/painting the components on the frames? It struck me as an easier way of doing it. I've never built a plamo before (although I do build/paint Warhammer 40,000 models) and was thinking of getting the LM-HG Unit 01, and possibly giving it a custom paint job (possibly a shiny metallic candy purple, like the SOC figure had).
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:32 pm

Painting the parts while still on the tree/runner might not be the best idea because of Bandai's laziness. They don't like undergates. The gate is where the runner connects to the actual part. Bandai puts it where ever it's easier, which usually means it'll show up on the surface of the assembled model. Some manufacturers take the trouble to hide the gates in a place on the part that would be concealed when assembled. Usually under the part, thus undergate.

It really depends on how you want the finished model to look. If you want to get rid of the seams and the gate marks it's gonna need work after cutting all the parts form the tree, potentially waisting much of the effort of painting while on the tree. Some modellers like to give the initial coat of primer to the parts while on the trees because it's easy but then proceed as usual.

As an example, here's the Eva-04 kit out of the box. It's a special coating kit. Bandai gives the parts a layer of silver right at the factory. But when you assemble it parts where the gate were cut off reveal the original plastic underneath the coating. Seams are also pretty ugly. Because of this most modellers either avoid special coating versions of kits or strip the coating off and repaint.

Eva-04 out of the box as an example of painting while on trees:


And for comparison my olde Eva-00 that has the seams hidden and fully painted


The old TV kits are simple and because of that place seams in the easiest spot for parts breakdown. It was the 90s so noone was really concerend with hiding seams into panels lines like they do these days. I would still highly recommend the TV kits because they are simple to build and paint and have this beautiful hourglass figure.

And another example
Seam:


No seam and painted:


Seam removed. Parts cemented together and sanded down, panel line rescribed. Plastic was a little discolored by the cement but that's no problem since it's getting painted over.



I was gonna add more update-y stuff but decided against it since it would be a jumbled mess of minor tweaks to basically every kit so far. It's probably better to have a progress post detailing the tweaks of each individual kit.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Squigsquasher » Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:44 pm

Ah, OK. Thanks, that's helpful!

I assume you use an airbrush for painting them; do you paint it in sub-assemblies to avoid getting paint on bits you don't want to spray (so for example, blue on the black inner leg), or use masking tape?
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:02 pm

The 00 is actually half hand-brushed and half airbrushed. You can tell one thigh has deeper panel lines because that's the airbrushed one since the paint goes on in a much more even way.

As for the other question it's pretty much both. Some parts have to be assembled first because others go around them. The knees for 02 TV are fully painted, clear coated and now masked.



Now the thigh and ankle have been sandwiched around it as you can see in the previous post's pic.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby TMBounty_Hunter » Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:57 pm

View Original PostTMBounty_Hunter wrote:Optimistically, VERY optimistically, I could have a half dozen finished Eva kits by the end of the year.

Realistically, given my past output, I should have at least one Nigouki done by the end of the year.

I make myself cry every time I go back and see a prediction like that. 5 weeks into the new year and I still haven't finished anything.

At least most of the fiddling is done. Heads all fixed up.



Just the fine prepwork left. Decided to do a test fit of the Volks kit before that to check if there's any horrible misfitting or if any parts rub eachother the wrong way. Also because I needed to see if there's light at the end of the tunnel.




Was gonna detail some of the fiddling done but turns out I never scanned the needed material. Turns out the plastic and resin versions of the Volks kit is a lot more different than I thought. That'll come eventually. Kit should be done in hopefully 2-ish weeks. OPTIMISM.
Last edited by TMBounty_Hunter on Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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