Build process: FM Kimaris Pt 2

Hello zesties! It's been a while but I finally finished my first 1/100 scale kit (though it had more to do with waiting for my holiday to China to buy the tools I wanted for customization than actually working on it). To be honest this isn't my favorite finished work, but I guess its a learning process too

TOOLS USED

Building

-Stedi MS-104 nippers

-d

-StyleX sanding sticks (I am definitely switching these out after this build)

-craft knife

-Dspiae glass file

-Mr Hobby cement

-tweezers

-dspiae joint strengthening pen

Detailing

-gundam panel line markers (black pour type, black liner type, eraser)

-Dspiae markers (black, metallic black, metallic silver, gunmetal, metallic purple, chartreuse, eraser)

-q-tips

-eraser

-painting sticks

-paint brushes

-raystudio quick idea acrylic colours (white, purple, dark grey, off white, wheat yellow, dark cool grey)

-water slide decals

-mr hobby super clear matte top coat uv cut

SANDING

This part of the process begain with cutting out and cleaning the parts for the outer armour and weapons and I must say there is really an unforgivable amount of seam lines. I get that this kit is meant to be kitbashed with other IBO FM kits but many of them were not easy to close (i gave up on some eventually, even considered buying a scriber to make them look like panel lines instead). The worst offender is the lance, which has 1 running downe the middle and at the tip. Because of its dark blue colour, sanding would very badly scratch it. The curves surface also means a glass file was out of the picture. In the end, I decided that I will just sand it paint over to get a 2 tone finish (fortunately the right decision, and one of the best ones)

PAINTING (MARKERS)

Before moving onto the painting section I knew that painting this kit was non-negotiable, especially given how many of the parts were just large plain surfaces, especially the booster unit. Dspiae markers are the only metallic paints I have, so I used them even to cover larger surfaces which they are not meant for. This meant a lot of scratching off which I had to keep touching up up until topcoating. The patterns I followed to keep things consistent:

-verniers are metallic black outside, metallic purple inside

-booster unit accent colour was gunmetal

-interior of armour that is exposed was metallic black, gunmetal, and silver. I would carry this over to paint chipping to go with the idea that the base colour of the metal is gunmetal/metallic black

-chartreuse as an accent at some points for extra bling

PAINTING (PAINT)

Given how plain the kit was colour wise I wanted to do RG style 2 tones for this kit. Problem was that none of the default colours for raystudio's paints match the tones i wanted (even after a lot of mixing). In the end, this is what I settled for:

-dark cool grey for the dark blue

-purple (3:1 purple:white) for purple

-a light grey (a lot of off white to dark grey) for white

-wheat yellow to colour correct the yellow at the back of the head

MISTAKES WHEN PAINTING

Here is where the problems came in

1. paints were not thoroughly mixed, caused this marbling effect when painting the purple

2. incomplete sanding of excess plastic from cementing was still visible after painting the lance

3. sticking masking tape in small pieces rather than 1 stretch for 1 part allowed for paint to seep between and into areas I didn't want to paint. Thin pieces of masking tape were also easy to paint over

4. Using pour type panel line marker at painted parts. The ink itself does not damage the paint, its the eraser marker that does. I had to be very light with removing excess panel line ink, and in the end left a lot on the parts. Lesson learnt, use liner type.

DECALS

This part held up the build the longest as I was waiting for a trip to China to buy 1/100 and IBO specific decals on taobao for a better price than shopee. On hindsight, most of the markings didn't add too much detail as they were mostly very small and blended into the kit (specifically the grey on white). The main value adder was the gjallahorn and balduin crest, though I should have put the larger crests on the booster unit since they had the empty space to accomodate it.

WEATHERING

Wasn't planning to do paint chipping at first, but after seeing the mess that was the paint job I wanted to use it to blend the errors. Since this version of the kimaris operates exclusively in space, the only logical weathering was paint chipping. I used my usual method of applying bits of dspiae silver and gunmetal via satay sticks onto the parts. Silver looked quite nice, but gunmetal was harder to apply as the curved surfaces did not provide much edges to apply chipping. There ended up being thick splothes of ink on many surfaces, which i cleaned up by scratching off or using eraser marker. Now all that was left was waiting for the ideal humidity to topcoat.

CONCLUSION

For my first 1/100 (and since this is one of my favourite gundam designs), I wanted to go above and beyond and apply everything I have learnt from the past 1+ year of building. However impatience in seeing the finished product got the better of me at key points (even though this whole process took 3 months to complete) and I ended up rushing where I shouldn't. The finished product still looks nice especially from a distance, but up close is a little bit more ehhh especially since I know where I went wrong

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