Complete

Full album here:
http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b109/whalegamer2000/Current%20Project/Airmaster/Complete/

Starting painting

1 WEEK UNTIL ANIME EXPO.

I HAVE 7 DAYS TO FINISH.

And study for my anatomy class -_-

FFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

CRUNCH TIME IS ONNNN

Idea Ho Ho!

Wow. These missiles suck balls. Time to make them better!




Here's my plan! Guess what I used for these shoulder mounted weapons!

Hobby Japan Shananigans 1

Not much time to work on Airmaster at the moment because of school. Here are some things I did recently. A lot of kits have certain areas that will eventually be covered by other parts, like the shoulder guards. This makes it extremely difficult to paint. So the solution is a Hobby Japan technique that's featured in almost every tip they use.

As you can see, there is a "C" on the piece on the left side. The male peg can now slide into that space from the side. Here's another picture for the wings. The red portion of the wings can now be painted separately and inserted into the 2 halves.

Here's a schematic showcasing this. Normally the wings are composed of 3 parts. The red portion is sandwiched in the middle between 2 white pieces. Using the C joint mod, the white part can be assembled first, and the red portion can simply be inserted in. This allows SUPER easy painting without masking.

Hands

Quick update today!

So the hands are composed of 2 halves with some interesting molding detail on them. Uh...okay, if I fix that seam those details will disappear. Hmmmah what will I do?

So! I'll get rid of ALL the detail and rescribe it!

Righto, so I had to put back the detail I sanded off. No prob. I traced the shape out on some paper, then taped it to some plastic card and cut it out with a knife.






Voila!

Arms!!!!! part 2

Comparison of my first arm on the left, and the new arm on the right. The joint was originally too long and gave a rather weird appearance. Right side also shows how much better the guy looks with a longer neck.

Here are some additional pictures of the arm

Now I just have to add details to the joint. CycloneX suggests I use the semi-circular sprues, so I'll have to see how that goes. I will also have to prime this to see how off the axis is.



I also now have a schematic in case anyone wants to replicate this:

The holes use a 7/64 size drill bit and are the right size to use plastic sprue.

Speaking of which. The quality of this Airmaster is pretty bad. There were a lot of instances of flash on the parts trees and it looks like various panel lines are not as deep as they should be.

Arms!!!!! part 1

Ha, no updates for a week because I've been busy perfecting my joint substitution trick. Photo below is the prototype I first came up with. It was a little on the thin side, but had a large range of movement compared to the original polycap arm. New one looks slightly different from this.

Essentially, my arm joint consists of credit card plastic, with the shiny stuff/magnetic bar sanded off. A shell is constructed, while the cavity is filled with epoxy putty. 2 sets of holes are made to allow a rod to pass through. The top uses the kit's own molded rod, while the bottom is simply inserted

The rod is a sprue from the plastic tree the parts were cut from. I'm using one of the ABS plastic trees from another kit, since I don't trust this kit's plastic. More on this later...

Buster Rifles 2, Neck

The neck is SCRAWNY.






So I'll just add a few more layers after determining the height roughly with a pin. Then, just add some credit card plastic to extend the height.






After some putty, Voila!




The little holsters for the guns on the side are really loose. They pop out quite easily, so I'm going to make them a bit more secure by inserting a pin in the hole. And there happens to be a convenient depression inside the holster for the pin to go in.



So I drilled a hole using my pin vise, and then proceeded to use staples as my "pin."



To figure out where the pin would fit on the gun, I coated the end of the pin with some vaseline after inserting it in the holster. I then placed the gun in there. Where the vaseline appeared is where I would drill the other hole.




Ah, and you can see the preview for the arm joint modification =D

Buster Rifles 1

First order of business is to modify the muzzle. Normally, they come the tip filled in when clearly it's supposed to be an open space. So using my trusty pin vise, I poke a few holes and then have my hobby knife make the slit.

Here's some other shots of it.

Blog Reopened

It's been a while since I've updated, and I'm back!


I need to update the look of the thing, but first an update. My next project is the 1/100 Airmaster from Gundam X. Updates will follow since I'm modding it into something special. If you would like me to link to your site on the side, please tell me, I'd be more than happy to do so!