Shenlong WIP

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 Notes

Well, 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 Feet

After 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.