Painting eyes is the most nerve-wracking part of building garage kits. One can do an excellent paint job and assembly on a garage kit (aka GK, or gareki in Japanese), but if the eyes look weird, it’ll ruin the entire figure. You’ve gotta paint the eyes well, otherwise it’s crap and the whole build is no good.
I’m using Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paints, which are typical craft store paints. White, Black, and Mediterranean. I added some white to Mediterranean to add highlights to her irises. I didn’t notice imperfections in the molded surface of her face until I started painting. I tried to imitate Sadamoto’s art style. His distinct eyes are always great. I’m probably going to upload this build’s videos directly to Odysee rather than YouTube.
Arii’s 1:100 scale model of Roy Fokker’s VF-1S. Well, actually Hikaru is piloting it at this point in the story. It’s rather nice box art, but notice that the thruster pod in the center is facing the wrong direction! Oops. The decals for this kit do not seem to be usable. I am thinking I might build this up as Jetfire from Transformers instead. I have plenty of Autobot emblem decals to use.
Unfortunately, the Spy Family movie won’t be out until December! By that time, it will have been a year since the 2nd season on TV ended. They’re making us wait a whole year.
I completed the old 1:100 Arii Heavy Missile Regult plamo this week. Surface detail is in some ways better than the old Imai kit, with how there is molded detail for the lights on the head for this smaller Arii kit, whereas Imai’s larger Regult model only provides decals to represent those lights. As it is though, proportions on the missile pods is off and makes the model look a bit awkward because they are too large. I drilled out the cannons because those parts instead had protruding ends rather than resembling actual gun barrells. I used Wave’s H-Eyes parts for lenses and Kotobukiya’s M.S.G. verniers for the thrusters. This kit has molded detail for the lights on the feet, but they protrude way too much. I cut them off and used Wave’s lenses instead. The mono eye is simply molded into the face of the pod, so I first painted it silver and then clear red to give it more of a lens look.
I used Mr. Color 323 Light blue and 311 Gray for the white parts. The gray was a mixture of 32 Dark Gray and 72 Intermediate Blue. the decals were still usable after all these years. They were a bit yellowed, but I taped them to my window for several days to bleach them. They went on fairly well. I have a pre-order for the 1:72 Hasegawa version of this kit, which will be released after the first of September.
The proportions on the Regult itself seem fine, but Arii made the missile pods a bit too tall. It makes the model look a bit awkward. Also, there is no ball socket articulation with the cannons. They must be glued into place. I might add a bit of weathering to this. One thing I need to do is repair the knee joint. I had to replace the broken piece with brass rod, but the 2-part epoxy putty I used turned out to be soft because I didn’t make it the proper ratio. I might try polyester putty instead.
“Please, show us mercy and forgive us. Don’t let the way ahead be one of darkness. As we stumble down the path of our sinful history, let there always be one shining star to show the way.”
Royal Space Force was a masterpiece movie that was woefully underappreciated. Plus the soundtrack was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who recently passed away. Shiro becomes the first man into space, and there as he is enveloped in peace and tranquility, he finds solace with God and understands the message of salvation he had been struggling with throughout the movie.
On the chalkboard outside of a bar near one of the schools I work at, this big drawing of Jiji from Kiki’s Delivery Service welcomes customers. This is one of the many things you’ll never see in the United States. I can’t imagine anything as cute and charming at a bar where I am from, nor even a chalkboard, really.
Unless I am mistaken, Bubblegum Crisis was the first non-dubbed anime I watched back in the very early ’90s.
I frickin’ LOVE BGC. Also, during high school and college, Linna Yamazaki was my imaginary girlfriend. I’ve always loved black hair, and I just LOVE her hairstyle.