Project 1 : Galaxy Empress Nobell part 2

Welcome back!

 The work on Galaxy Empress Nobell continues; this time around I'll be focusing on the restructuring of the Nobell's head and upper torso.

I had issue with both being far too girly for my taste, so I decided to rebuild them to suit my needs.

 First, I cut the rear of the Nobell's head off and filed it nice and flat. Second, I cut 7 small squares of 3mm plastic all about the same size but slightly larger then the Nobell's head. I then glued each piece together into a stack, took the Nobell's head and coated the shaved side to the top of the stack, and put it all in a small vice overnight.

Almost looks like a tiny hunting trophy!

7 Layers might be a little too much..

 Now I had more than enough raw material to carve a new head!

The actual carving was extremely tedious, and made more aggravating by a personal vow not to use any power tools! I also discovered that the v-fin on the forehead was constantly getting in my way, and I soon removed it, deciding to replace it later.

That's better! It looks terribly rough but that can be smoothed out with high grit sand paper and fine hobby files.

 I had already decided to exaggerate the crest on the top of the Nobell's head and give it a heavy lip around the bottom, like a very stylised Roman Centurion's helmet. I also didn't want the entire thing to be perfectly round (or at least, not fit into a sphere) and made sure to carve and file in a way that gave it noticeable length as well. 

 The crest was drawn and cut to fit across the top of the head and once I got it to fit snugly, I cut two more and used the 'sandwich' method to create the new material. Hobby glue was applied and the new crest was kept in place with a small vice overnight. 

 To add detail, I carefully cut two small pieces of 1mm plastic and glued one to each side of the front part of the crest. Afterward, I very carefully used scribbling chisel to carve a channel in the front to mimic an actual Gundam crest. Best advice I can give is take your time! 

The crest is in place (sorry I didn't take enough pictures of the process), and panels have been added to the sides to thicken it up and make it stand out.

 As you can see if the picture above, I also decided to use a little putty to fill in unwanted gaps and help smooth out the surfaces. When you use this kind of putty, always let it cure for at least 24 hours!

 Next was redesign of the torso. Since I had already decided to do away with the absurd bow that was normally far of the chest, what I was left with was rather uninspired.

Wow that's bland. And really not mecha-esque either..

 Having heard of Epoxy Putty and seen what could be achieved with it if you were cleaver enough, I decided to give it a try. 

 Since it comes as a two part compound, you need to prepare equal parts of each, and really mix them together. You're doing it right if it's becoming pretty sticky and it's fairly warm in your hand.

Yeah I know, it looks like chewing gum..

 Once it's had time to cure (I waited a good 24 hours just to be sure), it becomes a solid mass, and is pretty easy to sand and file. I used a 600 grit sandpaper wrapped tightly around an old pen, and on a small wood block to get the smooth planes and curves you can see in the picture below. 

With minimal work, chewing gum turns into brand new torso!

 Much better! it's still a little plain, but I'll add detail to it later. the important part right now is to get that new design down, because there's still a lot more heavy customising to be done! This is definitely a few steps in the right direction though. 

Here's the original head and torso vs the customised ones, side by side for comparison. Pretty drastic changes!

 That's it for now, but there's (much) more to come! And feel free to ask any questions!

Project 1 : Galaxy Empress Nobell part 1

I had already started kitbashing one of the 2 Gundam Nobell kits I had a friend bring back from Tokyo. At the time I really wasn't thinking grand enough, so you can imagine how fired up I got when my local club (Gunpla Ottawa) announced a contest.

'God Save the Queen' was our theme, and we had the better part of 4 months before Victoria Day weekend when our entries would be due.
It took me until the night before contest day to finish it, and I'm going to show you what I did, and how, as best I can.

The original Nobell (Berserker Mode) kit, straight built.

As you can see in the picture here, it's a pretty good rendition of the Mobile Suit from the anime. The reason I chose it was primarily because of the vastly different proportions; most Mobile Suits have decidedly male aspect to them because they are simply heavy looking machines. But a unit like the Nobell has a very female appearance, and that fit the contest theme perfectly.

 As I said before, I had already started kitbashing this model, so I felt I had a good start. Here's a list of what I intended to do;

• Rebuild the back of the head and get rid of that awful hair
• Do away with the ridiculous bow on the chest and build it up more without giving it boobs or something equally absurd (besides, it's been done to death already and is hardly original)
• Flare the shoulders out somehow
• Give it less dainty feet
• Give it a real backpack

After two big modifications and adding a real backpack!

 As you can see here, I've skipped a few steps that should have been documented in photos, but I had no idea I'd be making a blog about this new hobby later on, so you'll have to forgive me. 

 ANYway, I managed to apply the feet from a Duel Gundam but not without some difficulty; the ball on the upper ankle of the Blu's foot was far too big for the Nobell's socket, so I cut both off, and grafted the ball from Nobell's ankle joint onto the Blu's ankle stump. To reinforce the connection, I drilled a small hole into the ball and another into the peg the ball would sit on, then cut a very short length of paperclip, and glued it into the ball with normal super glue. The reason? The paperclip is metal and regular model cement would not have gripped it at all.

 Once the metal pin was in place, I connected peg and ball together and used model cement to fuse the plastic surfaces together. This way, the metal pin connecting both would help give it rigidity when twisted or turned. After checking that everything fit, I repeated the process for the other foot.

 The shoulders were a little stroke of luck; I very badly wanted to bulk up the Nobell's shoulders and give them a more regal appearance, and was even prepared to scratch build them if need be, but after looking at other models that I wasn't satisfied with, I came upon the Raphael from 00 Gundam (Awakening of the Trailblazer). 

 It came with 2 sets of Bits: one closed, and one open and articulated. I disassembled one of the closed Bits and to my surprise, the negative space inside each half was almost big enough for the Nobell's tiny shoulders!

 I set about cutting and filing until I could (very snugly) slip each half onto the Nobell's shoulders and they would not pop off. Once I was sure I had modified each one the same way so that they matched positions perfectly, I added generous amounts of plastic cement and waited, smugly pleased with myself.

 The backpack I originally wanted to use was enormous (as you can see in the second photo) and rightly so; I was creating a royal Mobile Suit after all! However, with the new shoulders in place, Nobell's arm movement was much more limited, but I was willing to make the sacrifice.

 The Head was my next issue to tackle..

 Stay tuned for part two!

Halloo!

Scratch build

verb (used with object), scratch building.

The process of building a scale model "from scratch", i.e. from raw materials, rather than building it from a commercial kit, kitbashing or buying it pre-assembled.

Kitbash 

verb (used with object), kitbashing.

Kitbashing or model bashing is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of two or more existing commercial kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit.

Gunpla

Noun, slang.

A Japanese term combining the two words Gundam and plastic (model). Refers specifically to plastic models from the various Gundam animated series, also from Japan.

There are a lot of Gundam blogs out there.

 Like a lot of them. Have you looked? It’s crazy.

 Of course that begs the question; why am I adding another one to the pile?

 Okay, fair enough. Well, I think the main reason I’m doing it, is because I haven’t found one that tends to focus more the specific areas that appeal most to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some amazing things out there across the internet. But when I go looking for aspects of the hobby that I want to focus on, so I can learn more and get better at it, I tend to find rather basic and uninspired stuff.

 Well fine, I’ll just have to do it myself and hope I get some feedback. Maybe I’ll even learn a few new tricks along the way that I can share too.

 So what am I going to do that’s going to make this blog different than all the other ones out there? Well, here’s a few things about the way I build Gunpla that you should know:

1)   I only build HG kits. Bummer huh? I can hear half of you saying that’s just beginner/basic/kiddie stuff!  Consider this though; they are (mostly) inexpensive, simple to modify, and most importantly, there are hundreds of them! That last one is really important because it gives me a lot of options for customising, without eating my paycheck! Can’t say that about any of the other classes of Gunpla can you? Okay, SDs but they’re special..        

2)   I can’t do a straight build. HG kits practically BEG to be modified once they’re built, and I am happy to accommodate them.

3)   I don’t do reviews. I’ll happily speak about a kit that I’m working on but only if it’s part of my current project, not just because it just came out. There are literally hundreds of sites out there for that, but this isn’t one of them.

4)   Names are really important! I’ll probably write a small article just about this at some point, but coming up with a name before you start building can make a big difference, and I name all my custom kits.

5)   I draw a lot of my scratch build projects, and I’ll post them! I studied animation in college for 2 years so I do know how to draw and that really helps the creative process. I will gladly share my ideas and show you how I make them into solid plastic. Feel free to use them yourselves, or build on the ideas that I don’t use.

 So there you go! If you think this might be the kind of stuff you’d be interested, by all means bookmark it or just hang around. I promise weekly updates, and I will answer every (real) question I get!

 Oh yeah, there'll be pictures to go along with everything, so it's easier to follow what I'm talking about too.