Introduction
This was an attempt to do get back into making kits
after Gundam Wing finished airing in the U.S. I
didn't paint any of the white areas and used sharpie to
panel line it. Also in hindsight, painting red
over blue doesn't work too well. Progress
NotesWell,
the first thing I did was disassemble the Shenlong as
much as possible. It was a very hard process since
the plastic had self adhered over the years. I
managed to get most of the parts separated however and
am satisfied that there's not a lot to worry about.
Not many
sites take the time to document their kits as thoroughly
as I do. So, I'm going to walk the majority of you
through this. This is the back of the manual:
The
picture below is the middle centerfold page of the
manual. I'll be using this to make comparisons of
the poses on my version.
I also noticed that this kit uses the same basic
ideology with making the clear pieces shiny and eye catching. Basically, a silver sticker was applied to the surface and then the clear green jewel piece over it. It gives the same depth effect as painting silver and clear green paint.
The
one detailing effect that seems to get asked most
frequently is how to get those black lines on the kit
in. First of all, when you go to inquire on this,
they are called panel lines. There are a
number of options to do this and they are all really
easy. Since, I am doing the 2000 gundam building
methods, I felt it would be most appropriate to do the
sharpie/micron pen/gundam marker version. Doing
panel lines with a pen of some sort requires either that
the model has not been painted yet or has a coat of
Future Floor Acrylic. The Future ensures you
have a nice glossy surface and allows you to clean up
your mistakes using alcohol. These particular
methods of panel lining require the surface be glossy,
not flat. The object is not to have the ink/paint
be absorbed by the plastic. On another note, FrichtenFoo
has another way of doing panel lines; check it
out.
Here
are some items you will need:
A
Sharpie
Masking
Tape (type specifically for paint)
An
eraser (this was originally a Staedtler eraser)
All
right, now we're ready to begin. Here is the knee
guard from the Shenlong. I've cleaned it up using
some isopropyl alcohol (70% is okay, but 91% works
better).
Now,
we're going to fill in the triangle at the top of the
piece first. Take your sharpie and color it
in. Don't worry about coloring outside the lines.
Next,
wipe the part you colored in with a tissue.
Sorry,
for the blurriness. Now, take your eraser and erase
the ugly black splotch that is left. The key is to
not treat the plastic like paper. Instead, using
your eraser, rub against the area in one direction.
After
1 rubbing:
After
some more:
It
is starting to look pretty good based on that
picture! Okay, now fill in that little triangle!
Okay,
now to fill in the rest of the lines. I'm going to
use some masking tape to get to the 2 protrusions in the
middle. The reason for this is to make the line as
thin as possible. Leave a little space between the
tape and the piece for the line.
Take
the sharpie and outline the part.
Now,
remove the tape. There should be some line around
the 2 parts.
Unfortunately,
the line is still too thick. So, we take the eraser
and go over it a bit. And voila! Sweet panel
lined goodness!
Here's
a comparison of what the piece looked like back in 2000 to
the current panel lined piece. See what a bit of
experience does?
And
finally, a picture of both pieces.
In
my quest for a color scheme I came up with 7 variations
of the Shenlong design. I used Mark Simmon's image
as a line art placeholder and used MS Paint for the
coloring.
In
the end, I was left with a couple of choices. I had
to go polling on other websites to help me decide on which
I wanted. Some of the comments included "the
blue is out of place" and "hey, the blue feeted
ones look like the Rising Gundam" along with "oooh
do sword impulse col0rs dude!"
I
ended up going with the last one here because it has a
little bit more variation than the other red models.
The first one has way too much red for an actual model to
look good. I wanted to do the Rising Gundam colors,
but I figured, it should be left to the Rising Gundam (by
the way, I'm fairly certain that the Shenlong was a
rejected Rising Gundam design). Many thanks to Mark
for the image! Now, because his drawings only cover
so much, I'm left to do the finer points myself. I
felt a little more yellow would spice things up a
bit. Also, the grey is a little bland; I'll make my
own shade of grey. Next step, painting!
Legs
and FeetAfter
starting with the knee cap, I figured I might as well do
the legs and feet. There are 2 colors which should
never be used. Pure white and pure black.
White is just a horrible pain in the butt to paint even
if you use an airbrush/spray can. Black is
unimpressive and uninspired. For those reasons,
mixing with another color is the best thing you can do
if you want white and black in your kits.
The
major draw of the model is the red base, but it would be
wrong to overlook that roughly 70% is white. The
legs contain the majority of this color, which led me to
conclude that it would not be worth the effort to paint
white over white.
All
paint used in this project were Testors Enamels. The
yellow on the feet is yellow gloss mixed with thinner in a
3-2 ratio. This ratio, allows the paint to be very
liquid which helps eliminates brush strokes. Careful
observers will notice the seam lines and sprue
scratches. There is a reason for that, but I will
discuss that later.
The
color for the joints is a mixture of grey, dark blue, and
thinner in a 4 to 2.5 to 1.3 ratio (yeah, I just violated
a math rule right there).
The
black on the feet is a mixture of 3-1-2 black and dark
blue plus thinner. The little bit of white on the
tip of the feet is a 2-1-2 white to grey to thinner
mix. All panel lines were Sharpied.
Torso
and arm pieces
I
dropped a heavy object on the the chest area...putty to
the rescue!!!!!
Side
The
black line on the crown of the head is a seam line, the
space leftover when you connect two pieces
together. This will be removed with putty.
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