Bah, might as well post something potentially worthwhile (not guaranteed) instead of just excuses. So here’s some really elaborate excuses with pictures. Gonna be rant-y. Chronicle of the last 50 days.
First of all I’m lazy. I have no work ethic. None. Especially when I make plans. The bigger the plan the less gets accomplished. I have trouble getting myself started on anything. The only way things work out is if I persevere enough to get into “the zone” and keep working away, crouched over my table until my guts hurt. If something goes wrong, BOOM, I’m out. I might abandon the thing for a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade…
This is why this is unlikely to ever be a “how-to “thread. That requires lots of planning, lots of extra work and especially requires getting all things done to be presented nicely. So instead this is a “come along and see this tiny thing I did” thread. Seems that’s interesting to at least two people.
So let’s review the plan from a bit ago. Priorities were the Bandai TV and Volks TV 02 kits since they are ready to paint. All the fixing, and 80% of the fine prep-work is done. Just needs paint. Volks is going to be a flat finish all around while Bandai will be high gloss armor on top of flat “skin” to match the 00 I finished years ago. So both need some parts under the armor to be flat black. Black paint goes on, no problem. Leave it for a few weeks to cure and because a bit lazy. Finally the flat clear goes on, in this case Testor’s Dullcote. Leave that for a few weeks to cure just to make sure nothing goes wrong. And then it goes wrong. For some reason the Dullcote just rubs off.
Just from handling the part. Paint underneath is perfectly fine but the Dullcote is not. I gave it extra time to cure so wtf? Never had this problem before. My last can of Dullcote was great. The 00 has Dullcote flat parts and they’re still great many years later. No idea what’s going on. Maybe my new can is from a bad batch or something. Now I have to figure out what’s wrong. Lots of people ragging on Dullcote on the internet. Ok so what do I switch to? People are praising Krylon Flat Clear in the same thread, but I’ve tried it before and hated it. Did they fix it? Maybe I should just switch to Future + Tamiya Flat Base that people always rave about. Either way this is one of those BOOM moments that completely discourages me and now I don’t want to deal with painting anymore.
MOVING ON TO SOMETHING ELSE THEN. Well I have the Wille kits that need work before painting. I have 5 of those babies at this point. They need a bit of cleanup. 08 is mostly fine, literally just cleanup of some of the molding artifacts. 02 has a crap head that needs to be remade from scratch. The mechanical arm is lazy too. Freshly discouraged I need something encouraging so I take the easy task of fixing 08 first. This is just some really basic stuff. The way some parts are molded is a bit disagreeable, but understandable. Not everything can be perfect. First the innards.
I don’t want any of the black “skin” showing through the armor to attract attention so it needs to be featureless.
Just smoothing stuff out, removing anything that might catch your eye.
Moving on to the armor you get these little weird nooks and crannies because these are somewhat fancy pieces to mold and to be able to do them in a 2-part mold you need to sacrifice a bit. Bandai is also very strict about maintaining minimum thickness so you get all sorts of bits. Not that much of a problem though, quick and easy cleanup.
Much better.
But…
Wait…
Why does the white torso bit go on top of the chest armor? That’s not how it’s supposed to work…
Those are the 3DCG models from the actual movie. That’s how it SHOULD look like! Why isn’t the kit like that? Well this clearly needs to be fixed.
Ok now we’re getting there. Maybe not THERE yet but at least closer. Wait…fuck. If I’m fixing this one, am I going to fix all 5 of my Wille Evas to be the same? Why did I just take the simplest task and overcomplicate it for myself? These were supposed to be just quick, minor tweaks, not an overhaul of the entire mid-section. There goes my quick and easy plan…
This is where things usually go horribly, horribly wrong for me. Start small and before you know it WAT. At one point in cleaning up the Bandai TV 02 I started cutting out the vents in the pylons. Those are clearly vents. In my mind the pylons is where the Evas have their APUs and other stuff that helps run all the non-flesh subsystems. You have intakes at the front, exhaust at the back. While deployed the gas generators are running. While in the cage there are some external motors that plug into the pylons. (
Pic,
Pic) Noone wants to run gas generators indoors so those external motors that plug in and take over make perfect sense. They keep the Eva’s internal electrical generators and whatever else, compressors for hydraulics, etc, etc running with no fumes! Clearly those vents deserve to exist and cutting them out would even make the painting easier. Drill it out with a pin vise, clean up with the knife and sand a little bit. The back one is easy.
The front is harder because stuff is in the way.
Fortunately you have a convenient panel line you can cut through.
Now you can hole out the front intake much easier.
Wait…fuck. Why am I doing this exactly? I’m trying to make the Bandai TV 02 match my finished 00 and that doesn’t have the vents cut out. I was just supposed to clean up the panel lines on the pylons and now I’m sitting here having wanked up the internal subsystems as justification for the modifications? Start small and before you know it WAT.
*does the overcomplicator’s salute*
Ugh, so what else do I have…
ZOMG THE ReiOr rather Yui Ichijo is you go by Sadamoto’s labels in the sketch. This is a resin kit based on those early concepts. Sculptor's site:
http://www.sko.janis.or.jp/~suzu/atomicbom/ This is actually the first resin kit I’ve ever attempted to build all the way back in 2004. I screwed up the paint job and it has been abandoned ever since, for pretty much a decade…
Well this too got abandoned pretty quickly yet again, but that’s ok. The 10th anniversary of buying the kit is in August so I still got time. Alternatively I could aim for December 2016 which would be the 10th anniversary of the Asuka kit from this set getting finished…
So for anyone curious the situation right now is everything mentioned in the thread so far is abandoned and tasked with being air filters.
Right now I am fairly excited about something new and am trying to get that going. I want to work on it while I’m still excited about it so that it’s easier to keep motivated. Results of this super-secret project hopefully soon. Hopefully.
Soon. Maybe soon-ish.