Zero: Dumber Than Fiction

It ain't pretty, but it's done. I've been staring at this thing, puttering around with it for the better part of a month trying to figure out how to make it look "good". I give up. I'm calling it finished so I can salvage my sanity and hopefully move on to something else.

 

It's not that the kit looks bad. I'd say that--at best--it probably looks average. And that's not a bad thing. It's just the first kit following the "Snowball", so I was hoping for better from the paint job. Live and learn.

 

Before writing this off, I did just the tiniest amount of work. First, I brushed some Future Floor Acrylic onto all the window surfaces. This gave them a nice glaze. There was also a bit of paint touch-up here and there. I also used a white pencil to put a couple of "up" arrows and "AUSF/G" on the left knee--the one that I originally botched and then painted a darker color so that it looked like a replacement part. I think I've now pulled that look off semi-effectively. Finally, I used some chunky brush cleaner (as I did with the Snowball SG) to weather that left knee cover a bit. And it took a little bit of work, but the results are something I can live with.

 

So now it's time to move on to greener (grayer?) pastures. I'm not sure what the next project will be, but I think there's a good chance that it won't be Ma.K. as I need a break. There's just not a whole lot of fresh ideas there for me at the moment. I'm sure something will catch my fancy shortly. Till then, at least I can stop messing with this Gustav.

Well, I thought I was going to finish the Gustav the other night. I didn't. I had a couple minor setbacks that put this on the "not quite done" list.

 

First off, the final assembly went reasonably well... Due to the nature of the kit, I had to finish all the lacquer coats, then put the windows in, then put the pilot in, and FINALLY secure the top "shell" on. That was the plan. There were only a couple minor errors along the way. First, I managed to smudge some clear glue on one of the windows. Not that big of a deal--not even noticeable. Second, I used CA glue to fasten the top shell to the suit... managed to get just a little bit of CA on the exterior. More noticeable. So, I pulled out the "NATO Green" paint, painted it over, and realized that--due to my weathering--the paint no longer matches. Now I need to wait for the paint to fully cure before attempting to weather that a bit, as I probably won't be able to lacquer that little portion of it. This isn't a big deal as I won't be "handling" that part of the kit, but it's more about the principle.

 

Also, I severely bungled some of the weathering. Specifically, the left knee. I attempted to use the same technique I had used with the Snowball S.G., but buggered it. I had way too much alcohol on the brush, so instead of weathering it with sediment, I stripped the paint completely. So I thought--in my infinite wisdom--that I'd just paint it another color entirely--give it the impression that this part had been replaced in the field and not repainted with the matching camo pattern. Well... That just looks stupid. Especially in gray. I'm going to need to give that part some further attention. I have a couple ideas, so we'll just see how that pans out.

 

So to sum it up, I'm almost done. If I hadn't slightly screwed up a few steps, this thing would be done competely. But it's not. Hopefully, the next report on this thing will be the final report on this thing. I'm ready to move on.

I'm still slowly plugging away on that Gustav--at what seems like a half-hour at at time...

 

The painting and decaling on the suit are finished, and the pilot is pretty-well finished, as well. There's still the matter of washes and weathering, but it's all a lot closer to the end than the beginning. After weeks (months?) of trying to find a good paint scheme, I just kinda whipped this out. I can't decide if it looks like fried eggs, a bunch of amoeba, or a lot of eyeballs. Regardless, it resembles something that the Germans might have tried to use during World War II, so it fits with the whole theme. The base was "NATO Green", the light color was "Deck Tan", and the centers were "Hull Red". All Tamiya acrylics. And hand-painting all those fried eggs on there took a couple days of work. After that was done, I applied a couple yellow identification bands to the sides and the left arm, and then hit the whole thing with the flat lacquer. And this is where I made a small screw-up.

 

When you apply "water-slide" decals, you're supposed to give them a glossy surface to adhere to. As with the last couple of projects, I'd meant to hand-brush some Future Floor Acrylic on to the spots where decals were applied, but I somehow got ahead of myself and forgot to brush it on. As a result, there's some very minor silvering on a couple decals. The Solvaset wiped most of it out, but there's still a couple of spots that a trained eye will see. I can live with it.

 

The hoses on the legs were mechaskunk braided hose. Thanks to some insight from Bryan Krueger, I managed to successfully tackle those. That was also the first time I was able to use them pretty-well as intended. Previously, I'd had fraying issues, so I'd tried putting a little bit of CA glue on the end. Well, it wicked up so badly, that the hose became unuseable. Per Bryan's suggestion, I cut the hose a little long, and then trimmed off most of the part where the CA had wicked into it, just leaving a small bit of it at the end, to prevent it from fraying as I fed it over the wire. This worked MUCH better, Not perfect (yet), but certainly better than any previous attempts.

 

I should pretty-well have this thing wrapped up in the next week or two, depending on my schedule. More progress will be posted. Soon-ish.

I'm stuck on the Gustav. The whole body is painted in "NATO Green", but it needs some sort of camo pattern. I've been testing various ideas on my "test surface" (a ping-pong ball), but haven't come up with anything I want to commit to. FichtenFoo gave me an idea that I haven't had a chance to play with, so--fingers crossed--maybe he'll get done sooner rather than later. At this point, I'm not counting on it.

 

The base is virtually done at this stage. I picked up some "Sepia" acrylic ink on clearance at Hobby Lobby and used that to stain the typical round wooden base. Celluclay has been formed for the top "ground", and painted in Tamiya "Flat Earth". I'll have to wash it, because it happens to be the same color I used for the pilot's shirt. And speaking of...

 

I've also switched out the "pilot". I really liked the one I had in there. It turns out I liked him too much. I'll save him for some other build. Instead--since this will be replacing the Snowball SAFS on my desk at work--I've gone with another "Geech" bust. In order to get him to fit in the Gustav body, I had to shave a considerable amount off the shoulders, but he fits in there good now. I probably need to do a couple more washes on him--just to get the details to stand up a little bit more. Progress is slow, but it's moving forward. Now I need to vent about something else entirely...

---

"hobzob.com" is a site dedicated to modeling, RC racing, tabletop (card & miniature) gaming, and scale railroaders. I've found it to be a great "social networking" site for modelers and our model club. It's like a "facebook" for hobbyists. I like it. It's a slick interface and holds great promise. Mostly.

 

They recently launched a "Best Paint Job" contest. I was excited because I still genuinely believe that the paint job on the Snowball SAFS is pretty damned good. Heck, even the guy behind "Maschinen Krieger" (Kow Yokoyama himself) commented that it was a very Ma.K. look. So, I entered with high hopes. Voting starts tomorrow, but it's already become readily apparent that this will be a personality popularity contest that has very little to do with actual talent or skill. The results may prove me wrong, but I'm not holding out much hope at this point.

Well, my wife's skills as a painter were validated this weekend. After spending a few mere weeks learning the craft, she bravely submitted her creation for judging at the local HobbyTown Fall "National Model Contest"--and she took 1st place!

 

Even though teaching her what I know may have hurt her chances for the win, she pulled through and demonstrated a natural talent for painting. She has an eye for color, and--although it may not be visible in the images--she used two different shades of purple on the outfit, as well as used a dark green for the shadows. I wouldn't have thought of that, but it worked brilliantly.

 

A little bit of quick background: I picked up several pairs of gaming miniatures from the discontinued "Nîn-Gonost" game line. That way, we could both work on the same figure at the same time. Well, she took it and ran with it. I ended up getting preoccupied with "Halo 3: ODST", but the lack of a good tutor didn't even slow her down. She applied herself, did her best, and the win at the contest shows what she's capable of in a very short amount of time.

 

I'm very proud--my wife is now a self-proclaimed "nerd". More images can be found here.

Okay... These little wargaming figures are kind-of addictive to paint. And, on a related note to this post, my cell phone camera is just about the most awful thing ever when it comes to taking pictures of little tiny things.

 

The li'l gal you see there is just about ready for washes now. I've just kept it simple, but the results are decent. I'm really pleased with the way the white outfit turned out. I'm definitely glad I went back and stripped off the dark red to go this route. Painting the whites of the eyes was a trick that required a BIG magnifying glass, but the deed is done.

 

On a related note, my wife's figure (not pictured--yet!) is at just about the same stage. I still hold to the belief that her figure painting skills will out-shine mine within a month. Once we're all done--if not sooner--I'll dig out the good camera and snap some pictures where you can actually tell what we're doing. Won't that be a treat?

 

And crap--with October here, it's time to start thinking about pumpkins and pumpkin painting. And probably time to grab some cheap paint from Hobby Lobby.

I didn't feel like creating a new category for this, so these things will get stuck in the "Universal Update" category of entries...

 

I haven't been doing much with the models lately. I picked up "Halo 3: ODST" for the Xbox360 and, well, that's been sucking up most of my free time. Too much fun. What time I have been working on with figures has been with some little metal fantasy miniature gaming woman warrior thing. That describes it pretty-well. A woman with a very large axe (to grind?). And with figures that small, no way my cell phone camera will pick up on it, so I'll have to remember to shoot some pictures with the "good camera".

 

I painted in the flesh, painted on the outfit color (a dark red), hated the outfit, and decided to make it white instead. So... Stripped off all the paint, re-applied the flesh, painted a light gray over the clothing (as a faux-primer), and painted on the white. Hopefully, I'll hit up some of the detail work tonight.

 

The wife is working on the same figure, and she's doing really well. I'd like to think that my tutoring can take partial credit, but--going back to that "playing the crap out of ODST" thing--she's really come most of the way on her own. I think she'll have this figured out in a hurry. And, if she's not careful, she may even like it!

As the title suggests, I finished that 1/144 Union Flag. Or, at least, I thought I did. Upon reviewing the high-resolution pictures, I see that some paint has already rubbed off. I'll probably be going back and touching that up.

 

This was not a great build. The finished product doesn't look great. The paint job isn't overly impressive or even good enough to stand out in a crowd. It is solidly average. It's more about proving a couple things--mostly to myself. First of all, it proves I can still put together a Bandai "Gundam" kit--even if the results are pretty lackluster. Second of all, it proves I can do it quickly and improvise a cheap method of displaying said kit.

 

Don't get me wrong---I'm happy with some aspects of this. I like the added weapons to the hard-points on the wings. They just seem to "fit". I also like the paint scheme and decals I used here. This looks decidedly like it belongs to the German air force. Not much question about that.

 

There's just not enough going on with this kit to make it interesting overall. It's not the fault of the kit--FichtenFoo has certainly cranked out a pair of very nice Flags. So... the fault must be mine. Too big of a rush. Not enough thought on a proper display stand (and it's too late now since the joints are "fixed" in that position). In short, "not enough" all the way around.

 

So I don't think the kit is awful. I'll still display it with the others. I just thing that there's a lot of things that could've looked better. If you're interested in seeing more on this one, hit up the "Photos" link and go to the "Scale Sci-Fi" gallery (or just click here).

 

Up Next: Probably some teeny-tiny metal figures.

My wife recently decided that she wanted to learn how to paint models. It's a start! To that end, I've started accumulating some supplies. HobbyTown USA was particularly helpful. They have a lot of their little metal gaming figures 50% off right now. That has led to a grand total of seven figures purchased for $1.00 each. They're all one piece and they're all relatively simple. In other words, perfect painting practice.

 

I also picked up something I didn't know even existed: A Testors "Figure Paint Set". Oddly enough, it comes with brown, yellow, white, and tan paints--but not "flesh". So... grabbed a mini bottle of Tamiya "Flat Flesh", too. Oh, and it comes with a tube of Testors non-toxic plastic modeling cement. I suggsted she throw it in the trash, but she handed it to me, instead. I wonder what she's trying to say there.

 

... And of course you need brushes to paint figures. At the very least--at that scale--you're going to need a 10/0 a 5/0, and something a little (but only a little) more broad. In short, she's got the basics to tackle the figures.

 

I think I can teach her my meager skills inside of a week, which means that she should be out-painting me inside of a month. More than enough time for her to put something in the HobbyTown USA Fall National Model Contest (October 10). And LOTS of time to get something together for the IPMS/USA National Convention & Contest in Omaha in 2011.

Construction is done.



I added a couple pieces of 1/16" brass rod for hydraulic hose, some piece from a railroad car(?) on the back, and another piece of brass rod as some sort of roll-bar for the engine. I dunno--it looks cool. Isn't that the whole point? I'm pretty proud of the way it came out--so far--so I took a few pictures in case my paint job ruins an otherwise decent effort. Here's the walkaround pics:

• front-right
• right side
• rear view
• rear-right
• front (this is where the absence of the normal Gans missile tubes seems particuarly awful)

Oh, and I think I came up with a name for it--I'll throw some "Sd.xxx" numbers on the end to make it pretty, but for now I'm calling it the "Ente" (or duck). If the Gans is a "goose", then this thing is the "Ugly Duck".