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“Hey, that’s a pretty nice routine you’ve gotten into right there.”

“Oh hi life, yeah working on a little of this project at a time has worked out quite nicely!”

“That’s cool. It would be a shame if…”

“No.”

“…something…”

“Please.”

“…happened…”

“Don’t do this.”

“…to it.”

“You bastard.”

What is up, and yeah one whole month later and I finally have the other two Unights done!

Before my life descended into crazyness, this is the unpainted duo.

A problem with leaving a month between posts, is that I can’t really remember why I took the first picture! I want to say it is something to do with the bases being painted, but I can’t be sure!

I couldn’t be bothered to take pictures of them at each layer of clear paint, but just like Unight 01 I did three coats. Similarly to the test models, the red looks absolutely gorgeous in person, and provided not too much is shining on it, the blue is alright as well.

As I was doing the gold basecoat for the orange, I stumbled across an accidental bonus Iron Man colour scheme!

Both of the models had black and white areas to gloss, although I don’t know why I bother with the white, it doesn’t really show up that much. One day I’ll be motivated enough to learn how to do pearl white, but today is not that day!

With the red on it, Unight 00 is all done, and I think the white sort of distracts from how blotchy the blue is in places! I can’t really compliment the colour scheme, since I didn’t come up with it, but it does look very nice!

I made parts to have either a double avenger Knight, or a Lancer, which was kind of a hasty afterthought, which is why the hand holding the shield looks so janky! There is a great novelty factor to having a big humanoid model with a equally big stick. Makes me feel like it’s some sort of 1/10th scale Inquistor model or something!

Then there is Unight 02, who I do think is the objectively better looking one of the pair, what with the much more even colour. It is a bit of an explosion of red though, what with about 98% of the colour scheme being on the warm side of things!

It is slumming it a little on the option side of things, the only extra part being an additional hand for when the Fate of Konor campaign is settled with athletic events or something.

Real talk though, I am a little frustrated for talking myself into straight up copying the Eva colour schemes, since it does rob them of a little of their identities. So the 40k project I promised myself will have to be more original I think.

Regardless of my own unwarranted self loathing, they look nice as a trio, and I am very pleased to have them finished! I don’t know what I’ll do next or when that will be, but it might be sometime! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Project Eva – Part 5 – Unights 00 and 02 Painted! "Hey, that's a pretty nice routine you've gotten into right there." "Oh hi life, yeah working on a little of this project at a time has worked out quite nicely!"

[renegade-girl-blog]

What a do every peoples? Part 4 already! And we’re already painting!? Crazy talk!

Last time we left off (before I went on holiday…), Unight 01 had gone a little overboard on its Fury Road cosplay.

When I was away I painted the base, and did the bronze mechanics, because doing what you would be doing at home is totally what I should use my time off for…

As I went into detail in the previous post, I layered up the currently photo bombing Eidolon Purple onto the Leadbelcher, and this is what one coat looked like. Really reminds me of Druchi Violet, which gets me thinking if you could do a matte version with washes.

Two coats, and still looks very patchy.

And there is three! I will admit that it pictures it looks ropey in places, but when there isn’t a light being shined directly at it, I am kinda pleased with it. In all honesty I think this is the best result I could hope without either doing like two more coats and risking losing the details, or just using an airbrush.

Next was the green, and by using that shiny gold I got a lovely glowing green that I am very pleased with!

Finally for the armour panels is the gloss black, which I think never doesn’t look awesome, no matter what.

Sprinkle on some glowing red, blood, and tidy up the base and that is one finished model! I can see that perhaps there is a bit of red overload going on in places, but overall I like it. Or maybe it’s just the novelty of hand painted candy colours on a 40k model.

Taking a closer look at the base, I had Dark Eldar stuff scattered over, and with a lick of paint you can’t tell that the flyer is actually a failed illegal reproduction casting, brilliant!

The myriad of option parts allows Unight 01 to accessorize quite handily! Although that knife is reminding me of something…

—Unit 01 intensifies—

And with that, one third of the army is done! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

  Project Eva – Part 4 – Unight 01 Painted What a do every peoples? Part 4 already! And we're already painting!? Crazy talk! Last time we left off (before I went on holiday...), Unight 01 had gone a little overboard on its Fury Road cosplay.

[renegade-girl-blog]

You guys like that pun? Oh yeah I bet you do, nasty pun lovers. What? And this post is about the paint scheme for my Knights I guess.

Awhile back I was given a trio of the oldschool push fit marines (Do they still make them?), and I thought why not use them for colour testing! To start with I sprayed him black and then silver, for reasons that will become apparent very soon! Since fluff wise the Knights are related to my Necrons (look forward to whenever I write up that mess), I stuck with the bronze metallics for things that are traditionally silver.

And then sha-sha! Il est purple! Candy purple! Wooooooooo! Sorry, I got lost for a second there, I tend to get excited around the colour purple, and this was almost too much! I went through about 3 different paints purporting to be clear purple trying to find the right one. One ended up being a lacquor, another was a normal acrylic they misleadingly named ‘clear purple’ (damn you reaper paints!), and finally I had the bright idea of the Forgeworld clear paint, ‘Eidolon purple’, which is perfect! I did three layers here, and I love it!

Next up I used the extreme gold highlight as a base for the green areas, which gives it an almost neon look. How did I figure this out before I started painting I hear you ask? I assembled this mighty chart!

Submitted for your approval I present; The Clear Paint Candy Colour Reference-o-Matic! Tell your friends!

After that I did some gloss black, and added clear yellow to the bottom of the feet, although it ended up much closer to gold than anything, so I think I’ll switch that to green on the actual model.

Throw in the little details, and et voilaire! Is finish! I really like how this model looks, but weirdly the candy purple looks sumptuous in person, whereas in pictures the bronze is more noticeable and tends to fight for attention. But what about the other two models, don’t they have colour schemes of their own?

Why yes they do! My local shop ran out of Retributor Armour spray, so I had to hand paint one of them, which unbeknownst to me at the time was the beggining of the end for that model!

The gold combined with clear red creates an amazing vibrant colour, but the red is alot thicker than any of the other clear paints, and as you can see poor marine number 2 has contracted a horrible case of sludge monster! Still I thought I might press on for the time being.

You see that? That is Forgeworld clear ‘orange’ over silver. Looks alot like yellow to me. Now I gave up on these two, but I still wanted to iron out the kinks before I potentially ruined a giant model, so…

Bring in the next test subjects! My brother gave me these guys around Christmas, after they were dumped on him by a friend, so after deciding that I wasn’t going to use them for a higher purpose, I volunteered them for shinification!

Which is now done! The name of the game this time was ‘thin your paints you goddamn idiot’! And I am pretty pleased with the results!

Comparing the Necron Warrior to the finished Space Marine, it actually went in the reverse of what I expected! The blue seems to disperse naturally, and so by watering it down on the Necron, it ended up a tiny bit like a wash. The Space Marine’s shoulder pad looks really nice, so I’ll emulate him more on the final product!

As might be obvious, there wasn’t really any change between the two tester models for Unit 1, so I went ahead and began the process on the big beast!

Now. The trouble maker Unit 2. For the Necron I went for a Leadbelcher base, which made a deeper red that fitted in better with the other two, and mixed red into the clear orange putting that over the Retributor Armour. Overall I prefer this, although I might try mixing in less red to create a more noticeable difference between the two colours, since combined with the glowing red and bronze, there are a lot of similar colours going on with this scheme.

And there we are, one big, happy, candy coloured family! It’s been a busy week, so I think I’ve earned the holiday I will be on the next week, so I will catch you all after that! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Project Eva – Part 3 – Colour-nundrum You guys like that pun? Oh yeah I bet you do, nasty pun lovers. What? And this post is about the paint scheme for my Knights I guess.

[renegade-girl-blog]

I know what you’re thinking. There is no way that in a week I have built two more Unights, but that is where you’re wrong! Introducing, batch building titanic models!

Remember how the first time around, I spent a good few days figuring out exactly how Unit 01 was going to fit together? Well now that I don’t have to worry about being creative or anything, I churned out the base pieces in the first night!

At the end of day two, and we have standing models! It doesn’t come up that well in pictures, but Unit 02 (on the right) ended up at a slightly wonky angle, which still infuriates me a tiny bit.

Day three, and the handguns/rifles are all built up, and we have arms and pylons! There was something very satisfying about knowing what I was actually doing this time, without floundering around for hours on end for one tiny piece to fill a certain gap.

The main difference between the Eva’s in the show/films, aside from the colours, are the heads. Much like Unight 01, I spent pretty much the whole build session of the fourth day figuring out the heads of these models. But in the end, I feel equally as pleased with the results, focusing on the signature parts of each one, ie the monoeye and the quad eyes.

And here are the heads attached to their respective bodies!

If you look closely you can see that this is different to the previous picture, since there are no more gappy gaps! For all major purposes, the main construction is now done!

Taking a closer look at Unight 00, this model is going to be used for more ranged builds on Knight, hence a more withdrawn stance. I do need to make the hand and weapon options for both Unights, but I am still figuring out how to repose the awful splayed Wraithknight hand.

Unit 02’s personality is a lot more hit headed, and so I used that as my excuse to have mine charging into battle! The Styrix is a good fit for this, as well as being a beast in the game (oh yeah, not even based and they’ve been wrecking face!). It also fits nicely that Unight 02 can use 01’s knife that I completely forgot to show off last week!

And there is the happy family of giant mass murder bots in their current state! I thought I’d do a post now, since I am not sure when I will next get a chance to work of them, so they may end up unbased for a little while! I have been playing with the colour schemes for each of them, so I may have something to show for that next time! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Project Eva – Part 2 – Unit 00 & Unit 02 I know what you're thinking. There is no way that in a week I have built two more Unights, but that is where you're wrong!

[renegade-girl-blog]

What has it been, like four months since the last time I did anything 40k? Oh wait, I forgot, I did that one model for a friend, so I guess this is hardly a groundbreaking event then. Well, I guess I should introduce my new army and project: Project Eva!

As alluded to at the end of last week’s post, I picked up a Wraithknight for this new project, which is going to be a Renegade Knight army, based on Evangelions, made from Wraithkights, and styled similarly (but not identically) to my Gundam themed Necrons. Everyone keeping up?

Bizarrely for a very famous anime franchise, it is really difficult to find a regular profile image for the main mech in the series: Eva Unit 1. However, the general idea of the Eva does come across here, tall and gangly, with plenty of smooth armour plates, as well a bitchin purple and green colour scheme. With this in mind, here we go!

The main torso is essentially the standard Wraithknight body, but pitched forward so that the waist connects to the front, allowing for a more hunched posture befitting the Eva’s. I took a picture to show the basic internal structure before all the panels were put on.

At the end of the first day of building, I got the model to stand, and snapped a picture to send to a friend whilst I watched a movie (totally not panic justifying the terrible image). Here you can see that the lower body is pretty much just a straight build of the original Wraithknight kit, just with the skirting armour removed.

Day two, and we have one arm! Most of this build session was spent working out the gun, and the various magnetised options, but we will come to that later!

Mid day three, and both arms are on!

Like most conversions, the head really is the most difficult part for, since it is both a really small, complicated area, that carries a huge amount of focus for the finished model. I had to snap the evolution of the head, partly for the unintentionally hilarious googly eyes that it started with!

Day four comes to a close, and the ‘first draft’ is done! Now all that remains is plugging the gaps (the many, many, gaps) and finishing the base.

Fast forward to the weekend, and the mighty Unight 1 (geddit?) is completely constructed! Pictured here without any hands (what was I thinking?), because I know what people want to see.

Maybe I have been permanently changed by my addiction to Gunpla, or that there are a million variations of Knight I wanted to be able to use, I spared no expense to create a full compliment of optional parts to create any of the big 3 Knights that I want to use this model for, starting with…

…a generic Renegade Knight armed with two avenger gatling cannons, because power points are bent, and this configuration is the undisputed king of abusing that! Although there probably aren’t nearly enough barrels to truly represent these weapons, I like to imagine it fires a continuous beam that is swept back and forth rather than individual shots. Come on, they are alien super robots, use your imagination!

Next is the Atrapos, who is a total G. It really tears me up to make this, since the official model is so lovely. Out of all the ‘leggy Knights’ as I call them, the Atrapos is definitely the best, and I really cannot wait to try it out on the table!

Finally for the preset options is the Styrix, who I really overlooked for the first few reads of the IA: Chaos Index, but he is really a mighty monster who I can see either being a real beast, or comically useless. In the various anime representations of Eva’s, for long melee weapons they like to use various lance like things, but I didn’t want to risk mistaking it for a Lancer,so to represent the various -1 to hit options I settled on a giant battleaxe, because why should the Space Wolves hog all the huge-axes-held-by-death-metal-war-machine fun times?

For all these options, the little nubbins on the back can either represent missiles or just fancy vent thingies, because I didn’t want to use an entire pack of magnets for this model.

Speaking of magnets, it does split in half with the power of aforementioned magnetism, so that I stand at least some chance of transporting it without instant breakage.

Shifting attention to the base, I have had this miscast Dark Eldar (sorry, Drukhari or whatever) flyer knocking around for about 3 years, being spawned from my brother’s failed attempts to gyp GW out of like, two kits.

Happily, it is the perfect size to fit on the Knight’s surf board base, and created a nice little theme at the same time!

All decorated up, and ready for spraying!

Thanks for joining me on this new (and inevitably expensive…) project, and I am really excited to get painting! So tune in next time where I either do paint it, or give in and build some more Unights! Either way, good times are ahead, so like always, thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Project Eva – Part 1 – Here we go again… What has it been, like four months since the last time I did anything 40k? Oh wait, I forgot, I did that one model for a friend, so I guess this is hardly a groundbreaking event then.

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I would promise to not make this fortnightly post thing a thing, but at the moment like is busy practicing it’s curve ball throw, so, alas, I cannot. But, that does mean that gives me more time to work of things in the meantime, so let’s dive into that latest finished kit of mine, the High Grade Grimgerde from Iron Blooded Orphans!

I feel like a missed some sort of memo to wear knight themed fancy dress when looking at this guy. Maybe the Grimgerde just loves Dark Souls in the same way the Barbatos loves Monster Hunter. Compared to the other IBO HG’s I’ve done, he is relatively light on accessories, but he has exactly what he needs and not a drop more!

Something that really becomes apparent after building the kit, is just how poseable he is! It’s nuts, like so good I feel like I’ve done him an injustice in every picture by not pushing for better. But trust he, he moves like a bad girl!

But alas, being in the HG club, there is much painting to be done. Nothing catastrophic, just little details here and there.

Grimgerde lets us all down by not having a perfect inner frame, he has to cheat and has wrist warmers on at all times. Shame on you Grimgerde, wrist warmers need to left well alone.

Like the Schwalbe Graze, I started the chipping off with a light grey for the primer…

And then moved onto a matching (or as close as I could get) colour to the inner frame. Although I was pleased that it didn’t take absolutely ages like the past two, something feels off about the Grimgerde to me…

The inner frame twirl that I am not sure why I keep doing.

One thing that really had to be done was repainting the swords. You see, with Bandai kits there are two ways they do gold, the first of which is electro plating the runners with a gorgeous, shiny gold, that is a real joy to look at. The other option is a cheap, injection plastic colour that evokes the phrase, “eh, it’ll do”. On HG’s you get the second option, so I painted them black and did a few layers of Retributor Armour, followed by a flat top coat, and I am very pleased with the results!

Oh boy, the difficult-to-place-shade-of-red knight is done! I think this legally qualifies this post as tying into the new Transformers move actually.

As far as gimmicks go, the Grimgerde is only packing a slide down (and by slide, I mean pull it off and put it back on lower) face grill, but I far prefer it up, so this is literally the only time I have ever bothered to do it. You’re welcome!

I do have a soft spot for twin swords. A small part feels like everything will be alright when there is a tiny plastic roboman with equally tiny plastic daggers in front of me.

The crusade to do his articulation justice continues.

So that’s the Grimgerde, another stunning addition to the HG IBO line up, and easily one of the best kits I’ve ever built. Shame I don’t seem to be able to find much to talk about though. Wonder if I have another kit to try and say more about…

Oh God. Maybe. Look forward to HG IBO kits for the next 3 months, so until the… but wait! What is that in the distance!

ARGH! A 40k kit! What is this, and what could it possibly be for? Well, tune in next time and find out! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – HG Grimgerde I would promise to not make this fortnightly post thing a thing, but at the moment like is busy practicing it's curve ball throw, so, alas, I cannot.

[renegade-girl-blog]

Happy 8th edition release weekend everyone! To celebrate, I thought we would do something different, and take a look at the most recent symptom of my unhealthy gunpla addiction. I know, exciting, right? This time it’s the Schwalbe Graze, who you may remember as being the proud owner of the unpronounceable gleipnir!

  Snapped together and what he comes with out the box.

Remember the MS option sets I was talking about last time? In the same box as the lovely smooth bore cannon, you get this wicked sick lance for the Schwalbe Graze. The only problem is that the lance is meant to be white. You know, not the colour the entire thing is molded in. Dammit Bandai.

Just like the Sinanju, I got the impression that this thing was lacking a little colour in the thrusters, in addition to all the other things like eyes. The stickers for this kit weren’t as offensive as the Barbatos, but we are still going to ignore them.

This guy is a high mobility variant of the standard Graze frame, which at the time I built it I didn’t own, and as such has a full inner frame, which helps me try to forget the pain of my true love, senpai master grade.

I used a similar idea to the Barbatos when it came to painting the Schwalbe Graze, but this time the entire thing had the primer chipping, which is where we are at this stage.

I don’t know why I always take pictures of the top coated inner frame, but tradition demands it, so I am powerless to deny it! At this point I would like to mention I totally dig the high heels, and respect the Schwalbe Graze’s bravery for wearing what it wants.

Schwa-bam, finished! The chipping is a lot less pronounced than on the Barbatos, but I have to say that works better thematically; looks like it’s just been a rough fight rather than used as an ashtray and thrown down the stairs repeatedly for 300 years. The yellow in the thrusters really gives me a strong Kampfer vibe, and a more prepared blogger would have been bothered to get said Kampfer out of the cabinet to show the similarities.

I really like the head on this design, it has like three faces! One of which is inside the head, and in the show they dramatically reveal it constantly, but never explain what it is for, so I had to look it up on the wiki, where I learnt that it is used for long range and precise actions. So glasses, I have a mobile suit with glasses.

For accessories (which allows me to show off my new stands), he comes with the standard Graze machine gun and axe, continuing the IBO theme of heavy lumpy things. But really, who cares about that, when you can have…

The gleipnir! This thing is actually kind of a pain, since the bendy wire is hopeless at holding the weight of it. It’s not impossible, just difficult enough for you to start contemplating just how much you really want that pose whilst you do it.

The lance comes in two parts, one SMG like gun for dual wielding fun times, and then the lance which clips on underneath, and that is definitely how I am going to have him displayed at all times.

A little like this, but with better lighting.

Oh no! What happened? A terrible tragedy involving the frequently popping off waist joint? Or is it a teaser for next week! Damn that was smooth, thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – HG Schwalbe Graze Happy 8th edition release weekend everyone! To celebrate, I thought we would do something different, and take a look at the most recent symptom of my unhealthy gunpla addiction.

[renegade-girl-blog]

What up dogs? So last weekend I was absolutely rammed, going to MCM on Friday, Warhammer World on Saturday, and Guildford on Sunday, I was like some kind of nerd superstar travelling up and down the country, so naturally I didn’t have time to do a post. However, we are fixing that today, with a look at the High Grade Barbatos!

Here he is, the big bad man of the latest Gundam Series, Iron Blooded Orphans (I know, could it be more metal?). The reason we have gone back to the world of High Grades after all the gushing over Master Grades is simply that the graphite technique I used was simply no good on white, and I only realised this after making the MG Sinanju Stein look like utter arse. He is currently in intensive care, and might be able to be saved. In the meantime, I have gone back to HG’s in order to learn how to do things properly, and after watching the first season of IBO, I was simply looking for an excuse to pick up the Barbatos.

After working with MG’s for so long, the number of stickers on this thing is shocking, however I have no problem painting all the details, like the eyes, shoulders, other bits of the shoulder, calves, knees, chest… Jesus it is bad isn’t it?

At MCM I picked up something called an MS Option set, which essentially are extra accessories, and since I majorly binged on IBO HG’s, we will be seeing quite a bit of them! But in set 1, you get the Smooth Bore Cannon for the Barbatos, which is super rad!

You may have been getting De Ja Vu from this kit, and that is because it is the same inner frame (mostly) as the Astaroth Origin, which I did way back in November (oh my gaaawd), since in the series there are 72 Gundam frames, which are identical, and a big theme of the show is that what sets them apart is the armour placed on top of them, which is why there are 11 million forms of the Barbatos, which we will get to later.

The first thing I wanted to improve on was the battle damage look. Since at the time of the Barbatos’ first appearance it has spent the last 300 years being a power generator for a paramilitary organisation (getting some serious 40k vibes here), I wasn’t too worried about going overboard, since this Gundam should look straight fucked. So I looked up paint chipping techniques, which involved manually dabbing on paint with a brush. No sponges, no drybrushing, just a detail brush and some patience. I tried to copy the colour for the inner frame, to try and give the impression it is made from the same material. On the darker sections (ie, not white), I applied it over a light grey to look like the primer was exposed in places too.

Next was the shading, which was the main issue. I have seen lots of great methods using enamel paints, but unfortunately I don’t quite feel comfortable doing that yet, so instead I used Tamiya Smoke, watered it down, and used it as a more liberal wash in the recessed areas. Although I doubt this would scale up well to MG’s, I am quietly pleased with how it turned on the Barbatos. For the non white or yellow areas, I did the same thing but using Tamiya’s semi gloss black. And yes, there is no reason for the Citadel Air paints to be there.

The last strut down the cat walk before he puts his clothes on.

I went for a matt top coat this time, and I don’t know how well it comes across in pictures, but I think I almost got it just right this time, and he looks delicious!

There was so much to paint, but it was well worth the effort, since I have fallen head over heels for the Barbatos’ many, many designs, and it just wouldn’t be right to leave anything off!

So yes, the whole forms thing. Basically, throughout the show the Barbatos acquires new parts, either through scavenging them off fallen enemy suits, or actually getting them, you know, legally, with money and stuff. The 1st form (on the left), is how he originally appears, and after nicking a few parts, it gets a total refit, and becomes the 4th form (on the right). This translates into the IBO kits being mostly compatible with each other, so you could recreate the 2nd form by giving it the Graze’s shoulder pads, or the 3rd form with the Schwalbe Graze’s gleipnir (I would be impressed it anyone understood even one of those words). Naturally I do not have either finished yet, so we will have to check back later to see the other forms.

Another staple of IBO is the lack of beam weapons, so everything is just good old fashion lumps of metal moving at unsafe speeds. All of the Barbatos’ gear give me a serious Monster Hunter vibe, and it is so refreshing to see a protagonist’s favoured weapon be a goddamn mace for once!

So here he is with the last HG I did, the Mega Shiki, and although I was pleased with the Shiki when I did it, jesus does it look terrible compared with the Barbatos, so I guess mission accomplished?

Just for teh lulz, the MG RX-78-02 Origin for scale, and to get an idea of how different 40 years of Gundam designs look!

And again, the Astaroth Origin, although one of my more successful kits, really doesn’t look so hot next to Big Daddy B, so I think I am onto a winner for now!

Well, that’s it, thanks for joining for what feels like the third generation of my Gundam model kit addiction! What’s that? 8th edition you say? I was in store on Saturday, didn’t get to play it, and I wasn’t really feeling the rules when I read them. Done. Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – HG Barbatos What up dogs? So last weekend I was absolutely rammed, going to MCM on Friday, Warhammer World on Saturday, and Guildford on Sunday, I was like some kind of nerd superstar travelling up and down the country, so naturally I didn't have time to do a post.

[renegade-girl-blog]

So in the show Mobile Suit Gundam Doubl… wait a minute, we aren’t talking about Gundam this week! Praise the Dark Gods, for it is a Christmas miracle! The occasion needed to drag my slacking ass back into 40k was a friend’s birthday, and although I know he would have been happy with anything Space Marine related (yes he is that member of the gaming group), I really wanted to do something special for him, so I decided to bust out the old conversion tools and get to work!

With a build up like that you would have thought I was making him an Imperial Knight out of Dreadnoughts or something, but no, just a plain ol’ Space Marine Captain. However, seeing as I have made a fair few true scale Marine type laddies in the past, I thought I would take this opportunity to test out an idea I had awhile back, slicing together a Terminator with a Retributor for a bit of a height boost.

The finished build was rather plainer than I had envisioned, as you can see in the background with all the Ad Mech parts lying around, there were many ideas thrown around, like giving him 3 arms and a non Space Marine head for a sort of creepy super mercenary vibe, but in the end I just gave an went for the classic Termi hero look. I actually was saved the guilt of giving him a crap loadout, what with 8th ed promising to make the Storm Bolter and Power Sword combo cool again! Get hype!

In the stealthiest move ever, I asked my friend about his favourite colour, which he replied was light blue. Oh. Then I asked for his favourite combination of colours, which he replied was black and white. Not really giving me the most exciting pallet to work with, especially since I had visions of doing candy purple or something, nevertheless I was determined to do something cool with it, so I gave the model this distribution of colours, which I’m sure is an official chapter somewhere, but my 40k lore skills have faded to the point where I am really not that bothered.

But then I took really dodgy pictures to demonstrate that he was not glossy! Oh yes, gunpla has made me obsessed with shiny things, so I used ‘Ardcoat on the white and black to give him a tasty sheen.

In the middle of painting this guy, I realised the distribution of red and blue, with black and white in the middle, gave him a strong cop vibe. So combined with the pre-existing idea of combining my friend’s love for humanitarian chapters, the model was christened Sergeant Justice! Bonus points to anyone who knows where I stole that name from!

And then the Sarge was finished! All in all I didn’t have that much time to make and paint this guy, in total about three days, so I was well chuffed to have him done, and actually look quite nice to boot!

Although he may not have requested it, I couldn’t resist doing some sort of candy effect on this model, so in addition to the cameras, I blinged up the Storm Bolter! Unlike the cameras, which were the GW approved Stormhost Silver followed by the clear red, I used Leadbelcher as the base for the gun, giving it a really nice rich red, which looks way better for armour. 30k Thousand Sons players, you know what to do with this information!

I think he is just a gnats whisker too short to qualify for true scale, but he is close enough! And now, the moment you have all been waiting for!

Tinmar Liberai was born to a poor family on the hive world of Multus, and at a young age he was sold to underhive slavers by his parents so that they might stave off starvation for a little while longer. Although Tinmar could not forgive them, he understood how desperate their situation was, coming to hate the unfair conditions and meager pay they endured than, more than their actions.

In his time with the slavers, he saw a great many people forced into a life of crime through similar circumstances, but he also saw the humanity behind their actions. Trained to fight for his master’s amusement, Tinmar excelled, vowing that eventually he would break free of his bonds and bring his fellows with him to a better life, free of injustice and misery.

However, when a Space Marine chapter came to Multus to purge it of a heretical uprising, his talent for fighting at such a young age was noticed, and he was taken in to become a Space Marine. Although he forgot his home world and the people who lived on it through the long years that followed, the strong sense of right and wrong only intensified, sculpting him into a noble warrior.

But the strength of a single warrior could not save his chapter from destruction, as battle after battle ground down their resources and manpower, until eventually, now Captain Tinmar was the sole survivor of this once mighty force. Unswayed by the loss of his brothers, he resolved that he must undertake a solitary crusade to make the galaxy a better, fairer place, free of injustice. Taking his serfs and armaments, he traveled across the Imperium to bring an end to all that crushed the human spirit.

On countless worlds, tales of a single Space Marine coming down and helping out with seemingly insignificant issues that the administration had not given any thought to in millenia sprang up, such as mediating disputes over unsafe working conditions, setting up sustainable pension funds so that citizens didn’t have to work themselves to death, and teaching pre-conscription age civilians about the dangers of chem use. Unaware of the true name and rank of this fearless knight of justice, many systems adopted the name that so many others had, referring to him only as: Sergeant Justice.

And so Tinmar’s crusade goes on, as Sergeant Justice knows that he may never rest, for so long as the Imperium exists, there will always be a mother forced to work without leave to tend to her child, or a factory shift worker made to do overtime without sufficient reimbursement, and only he has the strength and perseverance to ensure these heresies against humanity are destroyed.

I expect the call from Games Workshop to work on the official campaign book for this guy to come any day now.

Anyway, just a little one today, which hopefully may lessen the sting that unfortunately I won’t be able to bring you guys the kit I had planned next week, owing to me having ruined it. But there will be something else! Maybe, I hope, we’ll see. Regardless, thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

  Model Showcase – Sergeant Justice! So in the show Mobile Suit Gundam Doubl... wait a minute, we aren't talking about Gundam this week!

[renegade-girl-blog]

Go onto any gunpla forum, and sooner or later you’ll find a thread about the ‘best kit evar’ (a is optional), and like clockwork, one kit in particular will always get mentioned, with seemingly everyone spouting a seemingly endless amount of praise onto it. That kit is the Master Grade Sinanju, and today I am going to take about an hour of my life writing a post about why I hate it.

Remember this little fellow? Yes it’s Captain NSFW himself, Full Frontal (shame on anyone who googled him), in his tiny pilot glory. As you can see, I painted him before building the rest of the kit, instead of putting him in afterwards, since the Sinanju has a 360 degree cockpit, which is utterly impossible to get anything into once the kit is fully assembled.

No beating around the bush here, this is the Sinanju built straight out of the box, and those who remember last week’s little SD version of the big man, will notice two things. First, holy god that is a lot of accessories! Second, christ alive it looks terrible without all the gold! I was seriously rocked when I built it, since although I knew the gold had to be put on by hand, I wasn’t prepared for how much like a toy it looked without it!

As you can see, all the painting needed to bring this kit up to speed is well above the average! They give you a choice of either stickers or, believe is or not, water slide decals for the gold trim! Anyone who uses either of those is utterly insane! So that is why I practiced on the SD, using citadel’s Retributor Armour, since I don’t fancy having a mental breakdown. I was also shocked to realise that the thrusters are meant to be straight grey, which is super dull for such an ostentatious mobile suit, so naturally I had to do something about that!

Like all master grades, he has an inner frame, which allows me to show off the monoeye, which was also painted, like always!

Additionally, the missiles in the bazooka come as grey, but I fancied painting them up like all the pros do! Also, there is a little red band that goes around each of the fuel tanks, which are supplied as stickers, but we don’t use those sort of amateur things around here, so I rolled up my sleeves and got masking. For my first masking job, I think it went pretty well!

Fuck me that is a ludicrous number of parts! This is one of the reasons why I hate this kit, since there is so much of it! Usually a master grade will take once can of top coat in one spray session, but the Sinanju used 2 and a half in three sessions!

All glossed up and waiting for clothes!

A little twirl on the cat walk really shows off how beautiful this kit is when all finished! After I built it, I had a real crisis where I realised there were loads of little things I hated about the Sinanju’s design, like the pointy winkle picker toes and the unnecessarily spiky shoulder binders. However, with the gold and the gloss I have come back around to loving this guy! The idea behind the paint job was that as the leader of Neo Zeon’s personal suit, as well as being piloted by one of the best pilots, it was basically never going to get banged up, and being only deployed in space, dirt was not going to be factor, hence the mostly clean look.

All the painted areas done and dusted, and I am really pleased with the end result! Doing some Kampfer-esque yellow on the thrusters really ups the level on detail, and reduces the boring ‘dead areas’. Or I could have just said I like it, that works too.

We have a lot to cover on this kit, so I need to keep the pace fast. I love the opening cockpit, the three stages appeal to some part of me that adores things like moving knee armour. The thruster unit on the shin can also pop out and move around, and the wings open up when you pull on the middle sections. All very swanky stuff.

Next up are the weapons, and holy shit are there a lot of gimmicks in there monsters. The beam rifle looks very nice, and can open up to attach the included, er, thing. It looks to me like a grenade launcher, but apparently it is a shotgun or something. I don’t claim to know these things, I just know it looks cool when combined with the rifle.

Now the rifle is undeniably very rad, but the biggest issue with the Sinanju are the hands. Despite being articulated, which ticks my weird model kit hand fetish, they are the same as the Zaku 2 (why does everything come back to the Zaku…), which worked fine for that kit, but for the Sinanju its weapons are simply too big and heavy for their own good. This picture was achieved with a mix of wedging, blu tack, and luck, but even with that…

…most poses with the rifle end up like this.

But don’t worry, if the beam rifle is too big for you, you’ll be pleased to hear that the OVA version of the Sinanju comes with an even heavier, extendable bazooka (hyperness of said bazooka is unconfirmed). How big is it you ask?

Dag yo.

Oh, and it can combine with the rifle too. Poor Sinanju has no chance of holding this with one hand, or even in an interesting pose with two.

Since the Sinanju is straight outta luck with its ranged weaponry, we come to the close combat stuff. The back of the forearm extends, to allow the beam sabers to protrude from the wrist. Without removing the cuff section, this totally scratches up the gold trim, so be warned of that amazing design choice. The instruction booklet informs me this is called a ‘beam tonfa’, but it could be pulling my leg for all I know. Also you can put them in it’s hands, but that is for losers (and people who remember to photograph it).

For those of you who find lightsabers on a 22 metre tall robot not hardcore enough, the Sinanju also sports a pair of beam axes, because that is also a thing in Gundam. Funnily enough, that is only the start of the ridiculous beam style weaponry *eyes glaze over with memories of G Fighter*.

Naturally in the theme of this kit, the axes can be combined in case the Sinanju feels like showing up the Gelgoog as a little bitch.

No, of course we aren’t done yet, the shield has a ludicrous amount of stuff to do as well. It can house the axes, mount on a special mount on the shoulder binders, and also turn into the most amazing weapon the Sinanju has, the shield axe thing!

Behold the majestic impracticality!

The grenade launcher (we’re going with that) clips into the shield, or if you’d prefer…

Yeah that is about as silly as I am prepared to go. Best of luck doing anything at all with that.

Goddamn we are finally done with accessories, at least I hope so! The Sinanju is an absolute monster in the height department, towering over all the other kits I have, save for the Kampfer, which is why I wasn’t too fussed about its height, since in the Sinanju’s era, after the third Neo Zeon war, pretty all much all mobile suits are about 20 + metres tall, so the Kampfer can hide amongst them.

  Looking at pictures like this really gives the Sinanju a strong angel vibe, which got me thinking that I wonder if Zaku’s see the Sinanju when they die (in their hundreds .. of thousands, poor, poor Zaku’s).

My collection of completed Zeon (and Neo Zeon, for you sticklers) mobile suits.

But didn’t I say I hated this kit at the start? And yeah, I think I do stand by that, for the simple fact there are so many little things that annoy me. Although I can ignore the small visual elements I don’t like, now it’s finished, things like needing to hold a weapon to properly counterbalance the backpack, and the completely useless hands, detract from the overall experience and just make it a chore to handle, especially when the constant risk of chipping the all important gold gets factored in.

However at the end of the day, this is all balanced out by the fact that the Sinanju does look incredible in pictures, but knowing what I know now I wouldn’t have bothered with this version, and just stuck with the alternate, Federation version that I built first. Oh yeah, that is a teaser for about two weeks time (maybe), so as always thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

  Model Showcase – MG Sinanju (OVA Version) Go onto any gunpla forum, and sooner or later you'll find a thread about the 'best kit evar' (a is optional), and like clockwork, one kit in particular will always get mentioned, with seemingly everyone spouting a seemingly endless amount of praise onto it.

[renegade-girl-blog]

Unfortunately I only have a little post lined up for today, but fortunately that is a pun on two levels, and you didn’t even know it! First up on our tiny agenda is another batch of pilot figures for my various master grades, ranging from ones I built months ago but haven’t gotten around to weathering, to ones I finished today!

Before and after! There were loads more this time, and I think the novelty of multiple colour schemes well and truly wears off when you have to juggle 8 at once! So, going from left to right on the top row, we have: Full Frontal (don’t google his name), Zechs Marquis, Milliardo Peacecraft (yes really), Heero Yuy, Kamille Bidan, Kou Uraki, Banagher Links, and two random jerk offs who go with the plinth I totally showed off with the Gundam Mk 2.

First up is Heero with the Gundam Wing Zero, in all of its 90’s coloured glory.

Then there’s Kamille (in Japanese his name is Kamiru, oh how I shouldn’t laugh) with the Gundam Mk 2. In actuality there could have been like 4 potential characters here, but I just assume it’s the Mk 2’s original owner.

And finally Ensign Uraki, whom I did not bother to paint the seated pilot in the core fighter. For some reason he looks particularly tiny in front of GP01.

But what about this tiny Full Frontal (don’t google it)? Where is his mobile suit? I don’t know about the master grade, but I did pick up a Super Deformed kit of it, the Sinanju.

For those unfamiliar with SD kits (which I imagine is most of you), they are basically cutesy versions of the giant war machines we (by which I mean I) know and love. Think Pop Vinyls, but with a soul since they aren’t homogenized and thus retain the charm of the source design. As you can see here, it is pretty much the opposite of my native master grade, weighing in at a whopping four sprues!

No joke, it took me just 15 minutes to build this little fella, included clipping off and tidying up the pieces! As you can see, SD kits are essentially void of colour separation, instead relying on stickers, which as per usual I immediately declared heretical and threw back into the box, opting instead to paint it all.

Blammo, he is done! It was actually really refreshing to work on something that didn’t take an entire week, although painting the white was really hard work!

The lil ‘Nanju is suitably diminutive, which is ironic since the Sinanju is in reality (or as close as the show counts as) a behemoth of a mobile suit, but then again SD kits do not obey any sort of scale, so that essential means IT HAS NO RULES, SCREW YOU MUM!

Being essentially a novelty item, posability is borderline non existent, but I did manage to eek out a solid Char kick out of it.

But the real reason I bought this kit was to test out the gold, but I wonder what for? Better check in next week to find out! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – Pilot Party and SD Sinanju Unfortunately I only have a little post lined up for today, but fortunately that is a pun on two levels, and you didn't even know it!

[renegade-girl-blog]

Just when you thought that I had gotten out of the habit of posting on Sundays, I reveal my trickery and unveil yet another non-40k model kit, perfectly capitalising on the 8th ed sort of anti hype. Today it’s the Kampfer Kai, which I can’t technically refer to as a master grade, since is a third party kit, meaning that it is flirting dangerously close to the illegal line, but since it is made by a Chinese company called Gogo, it is going to be around for ever. So unfortunately that means there is some explaining to do as to why I even bought this over the real master grade.

This right here is the official Kampfer, and visually this mobile suit is one of my all time favourites, which makes it a real shame that the kit is around 16 years old, and as all saw with GP01, master grades from that era do not have thigh swivels age gracefully. Naturally I was quite bummed about this, until I heard that there was a third party kit that was essentially an updated MG Kampfer, and after watching a few reviews I went for it!

But that is where the normal stuff ends, since this kit is in fact a plastic mold version of a resin upgrade set to be used with the Zaku 2 2.0 (which is a right class act, if I do say so), which means that this is a Frankenstein’s monster of recast official Bandai parts and new parts which are built onto bits of the frame, like the arms above, to make it into a Kampfer. Thew, did we all get that?

This has the bizarre side effect, as you will see later, that this is a massive model, and is far taller than the official version! Despite all this shady third party recast business, the kit is pretty solid, and the plastic quality is almost as good as the official stuff, albeit omitting perhaps a few health and safety regulations, being a little of the child murderingly sharp side in places, and it is the only kit where my hands hurt after each build session.

But enough prattling on about laws and other boring nonsense, finally we come to the assembled kit, and he is quite a looker! It retains all the key features of the Kampfer, whilst subtly changing up the proportions. In the fluff, the Kampfer is an assault suit, having very little armour so that it can go at ludicrous speeds and carry a frankly concerning number of weapons.

Posing it at this stage was interesting, since it holds together really well, except for the spacers in the waist area, which would pop off at the worst times. Fortunately, we don’t live in the alternate reality where glue is never invented, so once I had painted the area beneath, I could secure them.

One of the downsides of this kit is the weird colour separation, so despite having red pistons, the monoeye has no clear piece, and not all the thrusters have the Kampfer’s iconic yellow inside them, requiring them (like the ones of the foot) to be painted. The chain mine (yes that is a chain of explosives, why do you ask Mr Health Inspector?) is a totally different colour to the proper one, and although that does bug me, there is no way I could be bothered to repaint the entire thing, so I ended up compromising.

I decided to try out using a dry transfer on this kit, since the chest just looked too empty without the Zeon symbol sitting proud, which quickly turned into using three dry transfers to eventually get it right. For those (like me, I can’t lie) not in the know, a dry transfer is like a water slide decal, but you apply pressure to the reverse side to get it to stick, which is waaay easier said than done, as I learned.

In some areas, like the leg, the inner frame is incomplete, as the thigh armour is built straight into it, but that did have the plus side of it not being comprised of as many assemblies when it came time to top coat it.

Speaking of top coats, I used a gloss for the first time on this guy, since the theory that I learnt was that if the mobile suit looks like a super car, it should be shiny, and I think the Kampfer Kai more than qualifies for that bracket! It looks superb, and really sets it apart from the flat coat I use most kits, like the ol’ RX.

I think I am now addicted to painting little details! If I am allowed to be super un-modest, his torso area looks gorgeous with all the added colour, from the thrusters, to the gray of the chest, and the white stripe on the crest. Now I have to go back to being hard on my work, so, er, I could have followed through and repainted the whole of the underside of the foot gray. That sure told me.

Looking more at the paint job, very rarely do I go for a specific look, but this time I weathered the kit with the intent of this being the Kampfer. In the entire Gundam franchise, only one Kampfer is seen in one show, and it is super awesome, being built in secret in the middle of an enemy colony. Then it pops out to ruin everyone’s day and destroy the show’s Gundam (called the Gundam Alex, I am dead serious), only (spoilers or whatever) to be annihilated by the Alex in a very realistically anti-climactic way. Therefore, it never really gets that damaged, right up until it gets totaled, so I wanted my Kampfer to look relatively fresh, with only minor scuffs and very little mud on it.

As I was saying earlier, this thing is a monster! It is meant to be roughly the same height as the RX, both hailing from the One Year War era. However I don’t might too much, since later mobile suits in the UC timeline routinely are this big, so he won’t look out of place in my collection amongst them (oooh teasing for later posts!). The articulation, as you can see on the arm, really isn’t hindered at all in most places, even though he has a winter coat of armour over the original frame. There are a few issues, like the knock off fingers are a little finicky compared to the proper ones, and…

…the mono-eye gimmick. To remind you all, the Zaku had this sweet thing where the eye tracked from left to right with the head as you turn it. The Kampfer, being based on the same internal head design, retains this feature, but there is a small problem…

The eye moves the wrong way! This has the unintentionally sinister effect that it will always be looking at you, but there is not way to adjust it so that the eye moves properly. This isn’t too much of an issue, since you can lift up the head section to turn the head without the eye going all mental on you.

The chain mine is a nightmare to pose, as all the individual mines are only slipped on, and so will slide up an down the wire at will. On the plus side, that really is the most difficult thing in my life at the moment, so I guess it isn’t too bad!

As far as other acessories go, he also comes with a par of oddly tiny fists and holding hands (not pictured, good job me) for the two shotguns. Additionally, there are two bazookas that can be mounted on the back, but don’t have tabs on the handles so they can’t be held, a bracket to put a shotgun on his bum, and two rockets on the sides of the shins (also not pictured, I are professional). Somehow, this actually means the Kampfer is incomplete, since the proper kit also comes with a single beam saber so that he can ‘show people how to fight’ (references, yay!), but the Kai does not have one. Honestly, I think I will survive somehow.

And that is the Kampfer Kai! He is a mighty, beautiful looking mobile suit which I very pleased to own! Hopefully you all managed to endure the talkathon that was trying to explain exactly what it is! I already have next weeks item finished, so look forward to an almost guaranteed not going to be late post then! Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – 1/100 Kampfer Kai Just when you thought that I had gotten out of the habit of posting on Sundays, I reveal my trickery and unveil yet another non-40k model kit, perfectly capitalising on the 8th ed sort of anti hype.

[renegade-girl-blog]

Woah, that was longer than anticipated! Somehow I was totally prepared, had a backlog of things to post, went to a convention, and then bloody GW decided to turn 40k upside down so I had to rethink my schedule! As the title says, I went to Salute 2017 on Saturday, for those not in the know it is a huge wargaming convention held in London every year, with my brother, and I thought I’d take some pictures! WARNING: FUCKLOADS OF PICTURES AHEAD

Queuing outside!

Theme 1: Cosplay

Unfortunately my on the fly camera skills need some work, but there was a surprising amount of cosplay going on. I missed taking a picture of someone dressed as soldier 76 from Overwatch, but he was probably at the wrong con anyway!

Theme 2: Warhammer

I thought I’d get the boring and familiar out the way early, since although the actual GW presence was fairly small (probably fearing for their life after the new 40k email went out in the afternoon), various GW models were pretty evenly smattered throughout.

Theme 3: Star Wars

I didn’t feel particularly bothered to photograph Star Wars stuff, but there was this great demo game based around the climax of Rogue One! On a side note, X-Wing is absolutlely everywhere! Seriously, more stands were selling it than 40k!

Theme 4: Other licensed stuffs

There was more, but I was pretty exhausted of seeing Halo and Star Wars that I ended up tuning it out. I did snap some pics of the AvP mini’s, which tempts the part of me that loved Alien as a teenager, but as with loads of stuff of Salute, it looked cool but I had no idea what I would do with it!

Theme 5: Giant Spaceship!

I think this was advertising Dropfleet Commander, who I swear the team for that didn’t show up until the afternoon, and it is so big that I thought it deserved it’s own spot!

Theme 6: Lions, Tigers, and Enormous Dragons, Oh My!

So many monsters! It was at this point that I really wished I could use these models for stuff in Sigmar and 40k, but alas I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything expensive! Seriously, these were the highlight of the con for me, since I love seeing beautifully sculpted gribblies!

Theme 7: Giant Robots!

Everyone loves robots. Wargamers have a goddamn fetish for robots it seems. I was pleased to see them, and had great fun seeing the different influences they had taken for each company; from the clunky more Robocop universe styled ones, the generic modern sci-fi hyper detailed ones, to even a few graceful, sleek Gundam ones. I wish I had the heart (and bank account) to buy them all.

Theme 8: WW2, but with mechs!

I didn’t take pictures of one or two more of these sorts of game systems, but mechs in WW2 was definitely the most prevalent niche sub genre of game. I can see why, since historical wargaming was almost bigger than fantasy and sci-fi put together at Salute, so combing these things was sure to be a winner! And really obvious.

Thew, I think that’s it! Sorry for the picture dump, but I just don’t have the time to comb through them all individually. To sum up Salute, as someone who is only really interested in 40k these days, it was really cool to look at all the other stuff out there, but I wasn’t that bothered about it. On a side note, it is interesting to note that Warmahordes was only being sold at one stand, which I thought rather odd.

The Haul!

I did still get some stuff though! In the goody bag I got these things, which I can safetly say will never be built!

I picked up two sets of these generic little sci-fi men for some Renegade conversions, as well as some dice and a dice bag (exciting!).

And I also got these two boxes, again for parts, from a very enthusiastic young company. Although, there is something a little familiar about those covers…

I won’t tell if you don’t.

But anyway, speaking of divisive things regarding 40k, the news then? I don’t want to go into depth about it, but I wanted to share my thoughts, even if you don’t want me to. I personally am encouraged by the new, proactive, community oriented approach that GW is taking, and I think I sort of trust them with this. Erasing all past rules makes to most sense to me, since every new edition has had to deal with the hangover of the past, which always is frustrating. I know it feels shitty to have new stuff invalidated, but I hope this pays off in the long run. I do however, have two concerns:

Listening too closely to the community. I think it is no mystery that the 40k community can be a pretty crappy place, with everyone whining about their least favourite ‘game breaking’ rules and units. I hope GW doesn’t go too far the other way in actually taking all the moaning into account, and give us a wishy washy mass appeal game that attempts to keep everyone happy, but loses all semblance of style and flavour.

New units. Having gone throught this sort of thing with Sigmar, there was a ‘golden period’ where there only the rewritten rules for units, and it was fun. There weren’t that many crazy powerful combinations, and it felt like a level playing field. Now in AoS it is dominated by the new factions, who really are a cut above the old ones and will mop the floor with fantasy units, even with a points system. Please don’t do the same with 40k

Any way I am done, sorry for walls of pictures and then text. Thanks for yadda yadda something about an AA pun, I’ll see you at the end of the week!

Thoughts – Salute 2017 and New 40k! Woah, that was longer than anticipated! Somehow I was totally prepared, had a backlog of things to post, went to a convention, and then bloody GW decided to turn 40k upside down so I had to rethink my schedule!

[renegade-girl-blog]

What is going down in funky town? I am not entirely sure, but what I do know is that I have finished working on the MG Gundam Mk 2, who is a hot slice of awesome. So, if it isn’t going to be a problem, I would like to share him with y’all.

Here is the Mk 2 before I did anything to him. As some of you regulars might notice, he is a different colour to the picture of the Mk 2 I based the Doom Scythes on, but that is because in the show it is from, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, a group called the Titans develops the Mk 2, only for it to be stolen by the good guys of the show the AEUG, who repaint it into more traditional Gundam colours.

Normally I don’t talk to much about the build of these Gundam model kits, since there isn’t too they can be compared to, but this kit is even more different, since it features chromed pistons and a long piece of rope like cloth that you cut into sections and use as cables. All of this is totally unnecessary but makes the kit feel more unique and special, like what my Mum told me I was.

Like with the GP01, there are quite a few areas that I wanted to paint, and this time I remembered to take pictures of them before I started working on it proper, such as the eyes, vents, thrusters, and a big patch on the shield. It should probably be mentioned that you are given stickers for most of these, but I am a purest wierdo who wants their tiny plastic robots to be perfect.

Lastly, the AEUG colours version of this kit comes with this little replica of a dock inside the spaceship where repairs are made on the mobile suits. It really is only interesting to someone like me who gets excited over little details like this, but not enough to take pictures with the kit on top of it. To clarify, we aren’t going to see this again during this post.

Mid way through the weathering process, and I have the Mk 2 in its birthday suit. Something I have never seen before is that the inner frame is this weird lavender colour, which matches the show, but is different to every other kit I have built. As a result, I didn’t dry brush it silver like I usually do.

Bosh, done! I went for sponging on the battle damage, and I think it looks way better than straight dry-brushing. Anyway, let’s move on since we have much to cover.

These are most of the areas that I painted after all is said and done. I think I have an odd fetish for dirt on shields though, which I may or may not have to notify neighbours to when I move.

For gimmick he has the usual suspects, as well as the return of the sliding shield from the GP01, but this time way better because of the rail it slides along. Well worth mentioning is the mental moving leg armour, since there are not less than 4 pieces that shift when you bend the knee: the thigh, the knee, a tiny piece below the knee, and the front of the shin armour. I goddamn love it.

For accessories he has the generic gun, hyper bazooka (the hyper means it’s Japanese), and shield, but then he has a head unit that has vulcans in it, because for some reason the Mk 2 removed the inbuilt vulcans only for them to be strapped back on. There are also additional ammo packs for each weapon, and rather satisfyingly all of the weapons can be stored of the Mk 2 at once.

Does he have beam sabers? Yeah, yeah he does.

The backpack is really the Mk 2’s distinguishing feature, which the handles come away from.

The articulation of this guy is really great, and was one the earlier ‘super articulated’ gunpla kits, from the ancient year of 2005.

The Mk 2 is oddly tall, standing much taller than his Mk 1 counterpart, the RX-78-2. I love the design differences, especially when you read into the real life history of this guy. The story goes that in the 6 or so years between the original show that the RX was in and the second show, Zeta, that the Mk 2 was in, the director, something Tomino, developed a pretty serious depression, which is responsible for the very dark and mean spirited tone of Zeta, and can be seen in the rather spiteful look of the Mk 2 compared to the cheery RX.

And GP01 is also there. Anyone wondering how GP01 could be developed before something called the Mk 2, it is because GP01’s show, Stardust Memory, came after Zeta, but was set before it, so there was some fanangaling going on between real life continuity and in universe continuity.

My UC Gundam family as it stands right now. I have to say, as much as the similar colour colour scheme is a little uninspiring, I am loving building up the various versions of the UC G man.

Just in case you forgot, I do own non-Gundam master grades, such as this Gelgoog, for mandatory action poses.

Wow, that was a lot of writing about one little model kit, wasn’t it? I hope you at least tried to enjoy it, since I will unfortunately be on holiday next week, so I am unlikely to be able to write a post. But then I will be back! Be sure to check out my Tumblr at renegade-girl-blog for more sporadic updates on whatever I’m working on. Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – MG Gundam Mk 2, 2.0 (AEUG Colours) What is going down in funky town? I am not entirely sure, but what I do know is that I have finished working on the MG Gundam Mk 2, who is a hot slice of awesome.

[renegade-girl-blog]

I know that from the ending of the last blog post it may have looked like I was going to be working on the MG Gundam Thunderbolt, but I am nothing if not unpredictable, and I have instead built and weathered the Master Grade Rx-78GP01, but his friends call him GP01.

As per usual, here is the GP01 before I did anything to it. As an older master grade (like really old, nearly older than me old!) he is missing a whole bunch of little details, but he still looks ok just snapped together.

Being in the show essentially a modified version of the RX-78-2, the GP01 (jesus, please just give them names) has a core fighter, which houses the pilot and transforms into the middle of the Gundam, but more on that later.

Yet another sign of his age is that this is all the inner frame he has. Please, don’t mock his only party trick being to remove his trousers, he is special in his own way. Maybe.

And then he was done! This is why I wanted this kit despite its age and the impact that has on things like articulation; he looks like rad as all dads!

“GP01, you son of a bitch!” Anyway, here he is next to his Daddy, the Grand-daddy Gundam (don’t think about it too much), and I really like how the GP01 looks like a futuristic version of the original, whilst still retaining all the key features that distinguish him as a Gundam.

As far as painting goes, this is the most I’ve ever done on a Gundam model kit, the yellow, clear green, red on the lens, thrusters and knees, as well as the grey on the inside of the shield are all things I had to add. The shield also houses the spare removable ammo packs for the beam rifle.

For gimmicks, he has multiple flavours of opening cockpit, spare hands, a flip down shield (which truthfully is a little underwhelming), and incredibly rudimentary knee shifting armour.

But then there was also a tiny little plane inside him along! I don’t know why this thing is so cute to me, but this mini jet is quite a nice little touch, that redeems some of the kits less subtle flaws for me.

Why not end on some good old fashioned Zaku abuse? I hope you have enjoyed another little foray into the world of Gundam, which I think might continue for a little while, seeing as I am working on the Gundam Mk2 at the moment, with at least 4 others I need to work on at some point. Eventually I will come back to 40k, but I just feel like doing gunpla for now. Be sure to check out my Tumblr at renegade-girl-blog for more sporadic updates on whatever I’m working on. Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – MG GP01 I know that from the ending of the last blog post it may have looked like I was going to be working on the MG Gundam Thunderbolt, but I am nothing if not unpredictable, and I have instead built and weathered the Master Grade Rx-78GP01, but his friends call him GP01.

[renegade-girl-blog]

Well hello there. It certainly has been a while, hasn’t it? I hope you aren’t too offended by this, but you really are the only one that I want to share this with, so sit back and don’t be afraid of staring at my pair of PAINTED DOOM SCYTHES. Control your erections, for its about to get steamy in here.

Boom, there they are, done and dusted. No foreplay or anything. Sorry, I promise to stop this oddly sexual post, and get back to normal. They took a little bit, but I have finished the big boys, and lets have a good old gander.

As you should all be aware of, I like to add a pinch of Gundam inspired colour scheme to the more important models in this army, so for these guys I decided to go four levels of nerdery deep by having:

40k models

Based on Gundams

Painted like the Gundam Mk 2

Titans colours!

The included pictures are of a stage before layering where they were really the spitting image of the old evil Mk 2.

By now you are probably very familiar with these models, so one last spin before they disappear into some dusty corner for all eternity.

I did paint the little glowing thingies for optional Night Scythe action, although I am not particularly pleased with them. Guess I’ll just have to use them as Doom Scythes more often then.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I actually like to put some sort of effort into the bases of my models, so here is a rare example of just that. Most of these pieces are from the large model basing kit from GW, which is actually pretty class.

The Doom Scythe Zero with his father the MG Wing Zero…

… and the Doom Scythe Thu – Oh dear. This won’t end well, will it?

Well there we are, all finished! Hopefully the next post won’t be 3 weeks after this one, although I am done being optimistic about that. Be sure to check out my Tumblr at renegade-girl-blog for more sporadic updates on whatever I’m working on. Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

Model Showcase – Finished Doom Scythes! Well hello there. It certainly has been a while, hasn't it? I hope you aren't too offended by this, but you really are the only one that I want to share this with, so sit back and don't be afraid of staring at my pair of PAINTED DOOM SCYTHES.

[renegade-girl-blog]

What up? So as I hinted at last week, I was going to make another Doom Scythe Gundam conversion thing, and indeed I have! Those of you who did your homework will already know that it is based off of the Thunderbolt Gundam, which is an evil piece of work, but for those who didn’t, here is a reminder:

The key elements to copy draw inspiration from are the quadruple shields and the extra armour, which I made the focus of the conversion. Without further adieu, here is the Thunderscythe, or Doombolt, or whatever!

As you can see, he is a little busier looking than his brother, with extra armour panels on the legs and torso area, as well as the Thunderbolt’s shields. Considering how badly it could have gone, I think he doesn’t look too overcrowded!

Speaking of that other thing I made the other week, here are the two of them together, looking rather formidable! I have already used them in a game, and they exceeded my expectations, which is always a relief to not have wasted effort on a pants unit.

I haven’t changed much on the Wing Zero from last week, only the verniers on the back of the legs, since I wasn’t feeling the tesla carbines.

Both of them have the counts as Death Ray weapon magnetized so they can be swapped out for these non-harmful generic lighty thingies for when they want to cosplay as a poor excuse for Night Scythes. I like to think they are teleport beacons of some description, but I reckon there are probably better ways to apply that sort of tech than strapping it to a giant flying murder bot.

Now for a closer look at the Wing Zero since it is complete at last!

It occurs to me at this point that you could be forgiven for thinking they didn’t have faces, so I wanted to confirm that they did, however they are very difficult to photograph! That’s all for now, I have already made progress on the bases for these two, so expect a progress report next week! Be sure to check out my Tumblr at  renegade-girl-blog for more sporadic updates on whatever I’m working on. Thanks for attending Antagonists Anonymous!

  Model Showcase – Doom Scythe Duo What up? So as I hinted at last week, I was going to make another Doom Scythe Gundam conversion thing, and indeed I have!