1/144th Gelgoog WiP part 3

In part 2, I took you through the head modifications and the arm joints. In this part, I'll concentrate on the primer and minor fixing of overlooked mistakes made during building.

I'm currently painting these with Mr. Surfacer 1000, thinned with Lacquer thinner and sprayed through an airbrush. Doing this means I get generally smooth surfaces and a chance to see where the mistakes I made in regards to seamline filling and sanding.

 Here are the various parts in primer on my makeshift parts holder; a styrofoam block, which I can stick my steak skewers into (these have w/alligator clips on the ends to hold onto the various parts). A must have for any Gunpla-painting session! I'm primering this one right along with a Gundam and a Zaku Marine type from ZZ. Stay tuned for these in upcoming posts!

 The Gelgoog head next to a Gundam head! These look damned awesome in primer! Now if I can just finish painting these... 😅

 It sometimes takes two or three sessions in the primer stage to get everything covered. Some are way more efficient in this stage. Not me! I have to take my time, if I rush this stuff, it tends to look bad in the end. 🙀

 Above you can see the various lighter splotches of light grey primer in various places. This is the "touchup" I do using Mr. Surfacer 500 with a brush, I go over the very fine seams and cracks that tend to show up in these models. It's impossible to see everything when just building, a process I did not use before, and usually guaranteed lousy results in my finishes. Hopefully doing these in primer will help me in that regard.

What it looks like now! Very happy with how it's coming along, and I've got most of the mistakes fixed. There are a couple more, but hoping to get some painting done on this very soon!

A preview of the shield... 😁

~Sean "Zakuformer" Kneeland

1/144th Gelgoog WiP part 2

In part 1, I discussed several items I had to chop up on this kit. So far it's been a trial of patience and error, trying to see what would work and what would not. Unfortunately I did not create "working" elbow joints, but may be able to tear it back apart later and figure something out. The best part of this so far has been the head, or more specifically, the "nose". This will become easier to see in part 3 when I show off the primered parts!

The head was the easiest part to fix so far. The original kit part was merely a "beak", which just doesn't cut it for a Gelgoog! Above you can see the original styrene shapes glues into place, below shows what they look like after sanding and in place on the dry-fitted Gelgoog!

 Above, before sanding and drilling out the "vents", below is after;

You can also see the nasty kit "elbows" above. Just little ball joints, and don't allow for any articulated bend at the elbow at all. The only good thing it allows is a "swivel", which I took care of on the right arm only, with the help of some styrene rod and a spare PC cap;

The above photos are basically my "failed" attempt to recreate any sore of working elbow joint that becomes hidden when the arm is straight. You can also see where I cut the upper arm at the rounded shoulder, basically separating into a shoulder and bicep. These would become the swivel joint bicep!

Above, the workings of the upper arm swivel bicep on the right arm, as well as the faux elbow joints. These are glued into place for now. Below, the look of the assembled arms on the dry-fitted (and primered) Gelgoog!

I had quite a bit of sanding to do on the added styrene parts. But it came out beautifully, which was amazing because I eye-balled everything on this! Usually I can't get results that look this sharp! 😅

Next post will be the primered parts and the various degrees to what I'm going through to get this thing back together. If I'd have known it was going to be this bad, I probably would not have bothered! 😨😅😴

In part 3, I go through my primer process. 🙀😹😷

~Sean "Zakuformer" Kneeland

1/144th Gelgoog WiP part 1

Entering the initial post on what I hope will be a nicely done version of the original Gelgoog from the original 1/144th Gundam lineup;

Image from Scalemates.com

Most of the original Gundam kits have some construction issues, fit issues, and may be missing some details. To complain about these issues would be kind of dopey, as these kits were done at a time when technology wasn't all that great. Besides, these kits represent what would be the start of a huge model kit and toy empire by Bandai! A lot of these kits had some really cool things about them, too. For one, it wasn't uncommon for these kits to come in multiple colors, even though the Gelgoog here is simply salmon pink. The other thing was poseability, although most of the 1/144th kits were severely limited. It wasn't until the 1/100 kits where you started to see some really awesome steps in this category. Not bad for a first lineup of models based on a popular anime!

I'll get into the bad with this kit; The shoulder armor pieces are molded directly onto the chest pieces. A really odd choice as one assumes you'd want to be able to pose the arms in the same vein as the what you'd see in the anime. I started by sawing off the shoulder armor pieces, then simply glued the separated halves together. Later I would modify these to simply snap on to some tubing;

Another really odd thing is the "beak" on the head; It was molded on as a sloped triangle, and makes for a way inaccurate representation of the standard Gelgoog head. I started on this by filing down the "beak", then added styrene bits to it and would later sand these into shape, then add the iconic "holes" into the front of the added bits;

Not bad for a start! The process hasn't been smooth, but I am liking how it's coming along so far. The only other bit of the kit I can't stand, and will be making major changes to, are the elbows. The original Gelgoog kits all have criminally dumb elbow assemblies. More on that in the next post. Here are some more WiP pics showing the progress made on the head, shoulders, and chest;

In part 2, a more through look into the head and the right arm.



~Sean "Zakuformer" Kneeland