EDIT: Cat girl done, sadly though she has no tail (when plugging in stand, it fell and the ball joint broke, so she's docked.) And this kit has been a bit iffy to say the least. But Kitt Cat Strudel is now done (to best of ability) and the jet should be done by tomorrow, I'm just losing patience and I don't want more things breaking on me mid build
EDIT2: PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!
I was trying to build the jet and some of the pieces started breaking under light pressure. This is not good, I can in no way recommend this or any Aoshima Kit due to the crap plastic used, its too brittle and breaks off too easily with little force. Such a shame because these kits retail for $100+ and it is not worth it... essentially, what I'm saying is this: DON'T BUY!
Final Edit: Jet is finished! Turns out it came with multi colored variant parts so I just used those and finally finished it. Still would not recommend, it transforms but im terrified something will snap off during those steps so its in jet mode for the time. Here's a picture of Strudel pointing to her jet, which I shall call The Shitty Gibbons.
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'm gonna go ahead and get that metallic Gundam Marker set but I'll probably use them like paint wells for a brush. If anything I can always go over any streaks with a gentle second coat of the marker after waiting for it to fully dry too. As long as I'm not rubbing it in but painting in a single direction and using a dry piece of a paper towel to softly suck up any areas where it might pool at corners I think I'll be okay. I got alligator clips I'll be shoving into a hard cardboard box for when I finish it up with the pearl clear top coat.
There were a few other ones, too. Newtype is the one that gave us a BLM kit thing so they're more memorable.
Which is funny considering all the Asian hate crimes are coming from Blacks.
Try buying some Tamiya acrylic paint and getting decent at handbrushing. It'll look objectively better than paint markers on any surface with detail, and you can get it looking good with practice.
Christmas came early! Today we will be going over the B.E.E. Assault Angels SS01 model kit from Nuke Matrix, a newcomer to the model scene. This is a recolor of their first kit. Both Nuke Matrix model kits are based on Chu Feng Bee, a Manhua from China that I know little about but I know the female's name is Liu Li and she is a bio engineered warrior that protects the perma virgin main character (because he's special) (its better explained in the Manhua and Anime). So let's get down to business
MAIN BUILD:
The build was simple and satisfying. The kit's plastic parts are slightly soft and smooth, allowing for it to withstand a bit of pressure during construction (my strength is wierd) and in my eyes Liu Li is a beautiful model kit to work with! The best thing is stickers are optional water slides so no need for stickers too unless you wanted to custom some things but its optional.
(Pictured after building it, yes it comes with a stand and many stand arm attatchments)
Only major faults i had was the joint for the ankle connecting the foot was too loose, but a small fix using packing tape and wrapping it around the peg helped fix that instantly, the other fault was the shoe. She wears high heels as standard battle gear (strange) but the heel on her foot broke at the peg... thankfully i was able to extract without issue and modify the other foot so it looked the same, just remove the heel part.
(Pictured with the Bee Abdomen attached, replaced neck cover with packed in floof that came with the model, for making her look like a queen bee)
The Bee abdomen was simple to build, and it also has weapon options included (not shown for time constraints) and it looks awesome and its a solid fit on Liu, so she won't fall off.
(Pictured with handgun in hand, also forgot to mention, she comes with a few pairs of hands and 3 faces pre made, and 3 faces for water slide customs)
Liu also has guns of her own (handgun shown due to time constraints) so she can keep the son of eden safe from other evil forces.
OVERALL THOUGHTS:
This is a pretty good kit, for the price I paid (I bought one from show z store, for 50 bucks, but due to fears of loss, I bought one for 80 bucks in America and had it shipped quickly.) When the show z store comes in, she has an alt armor kit parts as well, so I'll do that for that one, but overall this is a good kit would recommend!
FINALLY! After much mishap and great danger autism I have finished my Barbatos recolor. A lot of you gave great suggestions regarding sprays, spray kits, telling me to boil it, etc. but I really don't have much money right now so I went with Gundam markers. I took a few nights carefully painting and repainting the parts separately and carefully choosing which colors should go where. I decided not to color up the inner frame because I didn't feel like itI might want to resell this at a later date I have my reasons. Thankfully I also had alligator clips and a full crisp can of Tamiya "Pearl Clear" top coat...which actually ended up completely decimating all my careful painting with both marker and brush.
At least it has a nice glossy finish
Anyway, I recalled the advice you guys gave before, how I should work with my failures, how I can turn a busted look into an aesthetic, how I should boil it, and ultimately after a bit of clever basic bitch painting I finally finished my magnum opus.
Here, submitted for the approval for everyone in the thread, is my one chance to redeem myself for having utterly destroyed my rare kit previously. I give to you... CHARBATOS!
i duD iT gUyz
No but really:
Because the top coat ruined the paint work, which I swear did look much better than this when I had finished it, I decided to give it a sort of worn, battle-damaged look. I snipped and frayed a cheap paint brush I had, rubbed it in a mix of silver and gold metallic acrylic and swished and stabbed it at the edges of every piece. I defaces a few parts, especially the feet, but didn't do anything to the inner-frame, which might make it seem a bit lacking compared to the very metallic armor, its mild sparkle effect somewhat helped by the top coat funnily enough.
I took some masking tape and put it over the already red-painted mouth armor. I like Gundams but I always preferred it when they didn't have the iconic Gundam mouth vents. I think the aesthetic works for certain models, like the original RX-78, the Unicorn or the Wing, but I like this Barbatos incarnation without it. Painting over the tape proved easy and with a bit of fiddling it worked. Thankfully the Barbatos's mouth is tiny and you never really touch it even when moving the head around.
Above was what it looked like with the camera flash. Below is what it looks like with natural light:
I did paint most of the inner parts of the armor as well but that's not shown here. At least these Gundam markers have tons of paint inside them. They never seem to run out.
Alright. Be brutal and honest. Tell me what you think. Did I redeem myself or should I just boil my life?
lol It's nipples are so hard they're basically its stingers. I really like this kit. If I was gonna go for a sexy cute bee gynoid this would be it. I really like that the fuzz around the neck is real fuzz. This got to you way faster than I thought it would and turned out even better than your other kit. Nicely done, mate.
FINALLY! After much mishap and great danger autism I have finished my Barbatos recolor. A lot of you gave great suggestions regarding sprays, spray kits, telling me to boil it, etc. but I really don't have much money right now so I went with Gundam markers. I took a few nights carefully painting and repainting the parts separately and carefully choosing which colors should go where. I decided not to color up the inner frame because I didn't feel like itI might want to resell this at a later date I have my reasons. Thankfully I also had alligator clips and a full crisp can of Tamiya "Pearl Clear" top coat...which actually ended up completely decimating all my careful painting with both marker and brush.
At least it has a nice glossy finish
Anyway, I recalled the advice you guys gave before, how I should work with my failures, how I can turn a busted look into an aesthetic, how I should boil it, and ultimately after a bit of clever basic bitch painting I finally finished my magnum opus.
Here, submitted for the approval for everyone in the thread, is my one chance to redeem myself for having utterly destroyed my rare kit previously. I give to you... CHARBATOS!
View attachment 2021570
Because the top coat ruined the paint work, which I swear did look much better than this when I had finished it, I decided to give it a sort of worn, battle-damaged look. I snipped and frayed a cheap paint brush I had, rubbed it in a mix of silver and gold metallic acrylic and swished and stabbed it at the edges of every piece. I defaces a few parts, especially the feet, but didn't do anything to the inner-frame, which might make it seem a bit lacking compared to the very metallic armor, its mild sparkle effect somewhat helped by the top coat funnily enough.
I took some masking tape and put it over the already red-painted mouth armor. I like Gundams but I always preferred it when they didn't have the iconic Gundam mouth vents. I think the aesthetic works for certain models, like the original RX-78, the Unicorn or the Wing, but I like this Barbatos incarnation without it. Painting over the tape proved easy and with a bit of fiddling it worked. Thankfully the Barbatos's mouth is tiny and you never really touch it even when moving the head around.
Above was what it looked like with the camera flash. Below is what it looks like with natural light: View attachment 2021571
I did paint most of the inner parts of the armor as well but that's not shown here. At least these Gundam markers have tons of paint inside them. They never seem to run out.
Alright. Be brutal and honest. Tell me what you think. Did I redeem myself or should I just boil my life?
lol It's nipples are so hard they're basically its stingers. I really like this kit. If I was gonna go for a sexy cute bee gynoid this would be it. I really like that the fuzz around the neck is real fuzz. This got to you way faster than I thought it would and turned out even better than your other kit. Nicely done, mate.
Did you prime beforehand? Because IMO the red isn’t quite vibrant enough, the pictures make it look like you painted it on the bare plastic.
Design-wise, I’d add in some more color variation, even if it’s just areas of SLIGHTLY darker red. Makes it look a bit more visually interesting than all being just the same shade.
I got an airbrush kit off Amazon for about $125 (comes with a compressor, brush, hose, etc) and it’s perfectly serviceable for a beginner. That’s only about 2-3 kit’s worth of dough.
Did you prime beforehand? Because IMO the red isn’t quite vibrant enough, the pictures make it look like you painted it on the bare plastic.
Design-wise, I’d add in some more color variation, even if it’s just areas of SLIGHTLY darker red. Makes it look a bit more visually interesting than all being just the same shade.
Excellent eyes. I did indeed paint on bare plastic since I didn't have enough primer and didn't want to end up with too much of a disparity. However, the color issue is more a problem with the marker itself. It looks darker in person but in most light the Gundam metallic red, or at least what I have, is more pinkish.
As an aside, I used the gold on another kit with primer and it came out the same shade as the Tamiya TS-81 light gold I had sprayed on it, more of a gold leaf than darker gold. I honestly have no idea how it came out so dark on the Barbatos, likely because the plastic parts were mostly yellow or red to begin with. Maybe the primer on that kit made it come out lighter.
As for color variation, I did that actually. Since everything is metallic I couldn't use a darker red that wasn't metallic or it'd look odd, so I simply triple coated certain parts. No point in mentioning which ones if it's unnoticeable, though.
What killed it was the top coat, guaranteed. Then again I might just be making excuses since maybe the primer would have protected the marker and brush strokes from just melting under the top coat and Oooooh....
Next time I'll stick to sprays for broader surfaces and won't pigeonhole myself to metallic colors.
FINALLY! After much mishap and great danger autism I have finished my Barbatos recolor. A lot of you gave great suggestions regarding sprays, spray kits, telling me to boil it, etc. but I really don't have much money right now so I went with Gundam markers. I took a few nights carefully painting and repainting the parts separately and carefully choosing which colors should go where. I decided not to color up the inner frame because I didn't feel like itI might want to resell this at a later date I have my reasons. Thankfully I also had alligator clips and a full crisp can of Tamiya "Pearl Clear" top coat...which actually ended up completely decimating all my careful painting with both marker and brush.
At least it has a nice glossy finish
Anyway, I recalled the advice you guys gave before, how I should work with my failures, how I can turn a busted look into an aesthetic, how I should boil it, and ultimately after a bit of clever basic bitch painting I finally finished my magnum opus.
Here, submitted for the approval for everyone in the thread, is my one chance to redeem myself for having utterly destroyed my rare kit previously. I give to you... CHARBATOS!
View attachment 2021570
Because the top coat ruined the paint work, which I swear did look much better than this when I had finished it, I decided to give it a sort of worn, battle-damaged look. I snipped and frayed a cheap paint brush I had, rubbed it in a mix of silver and gold metallic acrylic and swished and stabbed it at the edges of every piece. I defaces a few parts, especially the feet, but didn't do anything to the inner-frame, which might make it seem a bit lacking compared to the very metallic armor, its mild sparkle effect somewhat helped by the top coat funnily enough.
I took some masking tape and put it over the already red-painted mouth armor. I like Gundams but I always preferred it when they didn't have the iconic Gundam mouth vents. I think the aesthetic works for certain models, like the original RX-78, the Unicorn or the Wing, but I like this Barbatos incarnation without it. Painting over the tape proved easy and with a bit of fiddling it worked. Thankfully the Barbatos's mouth is tiny and you never really touch it even when moving the head around.
Above was what it looked like with the camera flash. Below is what it looks like with natural light: View attachment 2021571
I did paint most of the inner parts of the armor as well but that's not shown here. At least these Gundam markers have tons of paint inside them. They never seem to run out.
Alright. Be brutal and honest. Tell me what you think. Did I redeem myself or should I just boil my life?
lol It's nipples are so hard they're basically its stingers. I really like this kit. If I was gonna go for a sexy cute bee gynoid this would be it. I really like that the fuzz around the neck is real fuzz. This got to you way faster than I thought it would and turned out even better than your other kit. Nicely done, mate.
Thanks I even did a bit of filing with it because I found a tiny nail file to make it work. Also your kit looks rocking! I actually liked Char from the original Gundam from what I remember of it and the coloring is so good, sadly I'm flipper handed when it comes to paint so seeing great paint apps makes me happy
Now, I decided to build my other model kit I had. Now I was warned about some of the quality and I was expecting it to be wierd. But I finished building it and it looks a lot better than I thought
MAIN THOUGHTS:
As I was opening the runners I was thinking I'd experiment with the water slides I got with Liu Li, but...
JESUS! Bandai, do you like kigurumi so much you had to do this!? That basically shot down any and all attempts for water slides and shot my opinion quickly. So I went to building it and I did something the instructions didn't say to do, I used the short eye pegs at first with the clear lense, but then one fell out and I popped the other out and it improved the face, probably due to the depth giving it a less kigurumi look.
It still is disappointing that Bandai did their kigurumi stuff like they do with some anime figures (Bandai can catch realistic faces but anime faces are hard). But still I finished it and it looks ok.
From the side it looks a little better, the stickers didn't give me a rough time (building minipla helps because that is stickers hell, my dyna dragon minipla had stickers so small they were hard for me to see how I was putting them on). So I decided to put her into AA mode and that also turned out ok
(NOTE: I forgot a few stickers originally so the next few pics have those missing stickers on it.)
And back to the normal mode.
So hopefully you enjoyed my review of this kit. Do I recommend it? Eh... maybe? Its not horrible my disappointment comes from the face being too uncanny because Bandai can't capture an anime face on anything except DragonBall (probably due to license agreements). But if you want mommy milkers because you're into that (I won't kink shame I prefer older women too but that's due to me being near 30) and don't mind the kigurumi look too much (only thing I'd recommend is short eye pegs without clear parts on eyes for some depth of field in face for less uncanny issues) then its a good kit. Just understand its a tad lackluster but if you're patient with the stickers and filing, it will look good. (Hell I managed to go a whole model kit without lacerating my fingers with an exacto knife I'm happy.)
From a distance it looks good but I still like Liu Li just a little more, oh well, mom ship still good lookin tho.
Thanks I even did a bit of filing with it because I found a tiny nail file to make it work. Also your kit looks rocking! I actually liked Char from the original Gundam from what I remember of it and the coloring is so good, sadly I'm flipper handed when it comes to paint so seeing great paint apps makes me happy
Great review. Yeah, the bee girl is definitely a better choice. She's more unique and really well modeled. You did good with her, too. It's cool to have the mombot also but man, what Bandai did with that face...
As for painting I've got backwards hands for it, too, but really painting is best done in sprays. You can look back earlier in the thread for suggestions on what and how to get into it. If you don't live on a budget of saltines and chewing gum like I do you can really do marvelous stuff with sprays since they cover broader surfaces, cling nicely to any crevasses in the plastic and--especially if you use primer and a very light top coat afterward, if needed--it looks so professionally done you could swear it was made in a factory. Sprays aren't just the lazy way, they're the best way. Smaller details for markers or hand painting is best though.
I wouldn't touch a thing on that bee robot, though. If you have a kit with good part separation, color, plastic quality and especially if it has unique details like that fuzz collar she has, I say there's no reason to do a thing more to it. Sometimes all you gotta do with a Gundam or something is just panel line it. The best kits are those that barely need detailing at all.
Great review. Yeah, the bee girl is definitely a better choice. She's more unique and really well modeled. You did good with her, too. It's cool to have the mombot also but man, what Bandai did with that face...
As for painting I've got backwards hands for it, too, but really painting is best done in sprays. You can look back earlier in the thread for suggestions on what and how to get into it. If you don't live on a budget of saltines and chewing gum like I do you can really do marvelous stuff with sprays since they cover broader surfaces, cling nicely to any crevasses in the plastic and--especially if you use primer and a very light top coat afterward, if needed--it looks so professionally done you could swear it was made in a factory. Sprays aren't just the lazy way, they're the best way. Smaller details for markers or hand painting is best though.
I wouldn't touch a thing on that bee robot, though. If you have a kit with good part separation, color, plastic quality and especially if it has unique details like that fuzz collar she has, I say there's no reason to do a thing more to it. Sometimes all you gotta do with a Gundam or something is just panel line it. The best kits are those that barely need detailing at all.
I agree and my budget is screwy to begin with (fixed income because my mental state is shit... it would take a lot of explanation but to put it simply im on ssi due to severe mental issues, best way to explain it.) And the bee had special armor pieces included i just didn't build them at the time (I ordered the same kit, fear of not getting it from China, so that one is gonna be the full armor version.) Still though you are good at painting, a lot better than me but that may be due to me last time painting something (a model car kit) getting chewed out by my dad because he didn't like the fact I painted it like a destruction derby car... yea that put me off models for a while till I did minipla then regular kits.
Zeta MG 2.0? I have that one half finished in the box still. Ill probably get to it late next month sadly, I got frustrated with the chest and decided to do a few HGs instead.
My Penelope gundam just arrived. Just waiting for my tamiya cement, pain brushes and sandpapers. View attachment 2024179
Zeta should be arriving sometime this week View attachment 2024181
This right here is why the Penelope is the superior Gundam of the Hathaway's Flash duo. It's a great looking and huge mech with a swan costume for the flight unit that gives it twice the bulk. I know it's no the "hero" Gundam of the story but I mean come on. How can anyone not prefer this?
With the Xi Gundam design for the movie going waaaaaaaaaaaay back to the earliest roots of Yasuhiro Moriki's design, I think a lot of people are going to end up liking the Penelope more. You can really see his style in the movie design, but the white chest is too much, there's so little to break it up, and with the shoulders being all white too it just looks like one giant ugly block. There's a reason the chest was colored blue in virtually every design iteration after the first, because without BITCHIN' 90s SHADING you can't balance out that much white.
Oh well, guess I just have to sit on my ass for the next two years and wait for the inevitable >P-Bandai VerKa Xi.
I like both Penelope and Xi over Full Armor and Atlas.
While i appreciate the design for FA it feels a bit boring in some ways even though i usually find the neatness in simplicity (ala P and Xi) and Atlas Gundam seems strange for the timeline. Seems like it would of been a gundam that would appear after the Unicorn gundam series because of how advanced its design is. Way more advanced than Zeta/Double Z, Nu, Alex, GT gundam from 8th MS, and even Unicorn/Banshee
I bought the lootcrate from Jojo Hobby. You get a random kit of any grade (including a very low chance of PG), plus a couple of tools or accessories. Unfortunately, I just got a weird looking HGUC Hygogg, some blue energy projectile accessories, and a really cool action base that makes it look like the Gundam is flying out of water. I'll try it one more time, and if the results are crap again, I'll stop buying it.
