“Finished” my strike a couple days ago, this is what I call a beta version, why?! Well because I didn’t put any decals on it and the reason is that I want to paint it some day after I try painting a smaller kit that I have here already assembled. Took a few pictures of him alone and with the grand slam, got lazy to take some more with the the shield and beam rifle and so here they are.
The led is on, the led itself is weak so I’ll be getting a stronger one and will try to connect it via USB but most likely it’ll be off all the time. The circuit itself is a bit weird because it consumes too much battery, left it on for like 2 or 3 nights and the battery died which is supposed to hold 2 years inside a watch.
The grand slam sword, this never appeared on the tv series, only on the Gundam Evolve DVD
Proceed at your own risk because something “bad” happened to my Strike
If you watched Gundam Seed than you know that Kira has the seed ability which grants him super high senses, for those that didn’t watch imagine the pilot transforming into a super saiyan but only the eyes change. Well Kira did invoke his seed ability but something else happened to Strike as well, it appears the dark side of Kira took the best out of him transforming Strike into a “Dark” Gundam XD.
More pictures of Strike and Dark Strike to come in a near future.
nice strike! how are you planning to paint it?
Most likely it’ll be with color sprays, don’t have enough time and money to spend on an airbrush
your PG strike looks great and your pictures are awesome
Nicely done, B-san! Already I feel it was sold to good hands.
As for painting, airbrush is an expensive tool that makes sense for the long run, i.e., if you plan to paint all or most of your kits. Requires time, patience, and… time. And a lot more.
I think for now, spray cans are the best option, but I also advise you to do it with another kit first, so that you can get a hang of how it works, before moving to this masterpiece…
Great looks, great job!
WOW!!!!!
That’s so nice!!!!!
You build Gundam models way better then me…
WANT TO SEE MORE!!!!!!!!!
Kakkoiii!
pics 3 and 6 are priceless! Gundams are sure awesome. Each time I visit AnimeStuff, it reminds me I have to start building my own kit hehe ^^;
Wow great pics, the darkness really brings out the figure.
Was that kira thing only in the TV series??
@nakano: yeah I know it takes lots of time and patience, for painting I have loads of patience ^_^, for building…sometimes I loose it XD.
@rin: yes…I…am…a…Gundam Master mwahahahaha, no really I’m pretty much still a noob building gunpla. Building them is easy, you just need to be very careful not to mess up.
@lu-k: can’t wait to see yours ^_^, don’t forget to make the panel lines or else it won’t have the same impact.
@domino: I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Kira only appeared on TV series, there’s nothing more about Gundam Seed, no movie, only one OVA but Kira doesn’t appear on it (I think). If you’re asking if it was Kira the only one who had the seed ability then no, his twin sister also had it (Cagally), Lacus Clyne had it as well and Athrun had it to.
Well painting is probably one of the fastest tasks you do when building a kit like this
.
Anyway you have to carefully consider the cost of an airbrush vs spray cans. A typical gundam will have around 5 different colors (assuming no mixing is needed) that mean 5 spray cans costing around 7€ each. Of these you will spend around 3 full cans worth of paint putting the actual cost at 21€. To this you still have to add the cost of the clear coat (about 8€ a can), which will eat more or less half a can for 4€ effective cost. And finally the primer which goes for 9€ (yes you will spend a full can more often than not).
This totals 34€ just in cans for a tipical gundam model.
If you use an airbrush the same 5 colors will cost just 2.6€ each and at most you will spend 1.5 bottles worth of paint, costing 3.9€ plus thinner (4 € a bottle and lasts enough for about 8-10 kits ) which will put the cost at 4.3. Adding the primer and clear coat assuming you are using bottled versions they go for 6€ for primer (lasts for some 6 kits or so) and 3€ for the clear coat (should last for 2 kits) for an added cost of 2.5€. Thinner is included for these two in the first estimate above but i you use acrylics you will save even more here since you can use the dirt cheap isopropil alcohol.
So in the end painting with an airbrush will cost for a typical gundam around 6.8€ saving some 27€ over spray cans. You actually have to add the cost of the stuff to clean the airbrush but these are typical cheap things like cotton buds toothpics, paper towels, hardware store lacquer thinner (if using lacquers) or isopropil alcohol, so you won’t add more than maybe an euro or two.
So saving 27€ a kit if you buy a good ab like the Iwata Eclipse CS Airbrush for 160-170€ plus a decent compressor that you can get at around 150€ you will have the investment paid in 13 kits. If you choose a cheaper airbrush (many decent choices out there, iwata is really top of the line, my procon boy cost me 70€ and has more and better features than my iwata) and a hardware store compressor you can cut this cost in half.
Adding to all this the finish and control you can get from an AB is simply far superior to what you get from spray cans.
I’m not trying to say that you must buy an airbrush
I’m just giving you some info to help you make an informed decision, which I hope it helps. btw these costs are rough estimates the values will vary but the differences will be very close to what I showed.
I know ravhin, but I discussed that with Nakano and we have the same opinion on painting it with spray cans because most gundam artists paint these PG with spray cans because of the size of the pieces and with an airbrush it would consume much more paint and much more time.
On this kit you would spend around 2 cans of white and 2 of dark gray of black, the red and blue one would still be used for another kit
Don’t forget the gray
. I never saw the size of PG pieces but even if they are double that of a typical MG there will still be a ton of wasted paint from sprays. If it’s faster ? Well of course but that is true when painting 1/144 as well . Airbrush will always be slower going (setup and cleaning time add a fair bit of overhead as well) but it will always be cheaper in the end and produce better results.
If you are saying even then that for a big kit like a bandai PG spray paints are better, then I will have to disagree and will need to have a word with mister Nakano there
. But I will have to keep in mind that different people naturally favor different techniques and materials, so I will admit that that approach is perfectly valid, it’s just one I don’t agree with .
Quoting an omake from one of the Kamen Rider Kabuto episodes, Mister Nakano would say something like “Spray cans are stronger, but Airbrushes are strongest!” (bah, typical japanese word play).
What I mean gives reason to something Rahvin is basically trying to say: different results require different tools. Spray cans require less technique than airbrushes to provide a good balance in the final paint job; it’s pretty straight forward too, if you keep in mind that you’re still painting plastic pieces and not a wall graffiti.
The down side is cost. I’m happy with a 1/100 Saviour Gundam and my girlfriend sprayed an 1/100 Aegis Gundam with good results, in both cases we used Tamiya’s cans. But we probably used 2 and a half cans for a 3-coat system… That’s 33€ for you, my friend.
And (correction, Rahvin, I sell Gunze’s acrylics at 2.10€
) with a single bottle of diluted “H1 white” it more than gets a MG Strike done.
Airbrushing is a choice, not a requirement. I’ve seen marvels done with normal brushes, something I dare not say I can master. But “practice makes perfect”, or so they say. Investing in an airbrushing system means you’re committing yourself to the art and customization of your kit. It broadens your creativity, but it’s also time consuming.
At my shop, customers by action figures of anything but mechs. And those to get into mechs, prefer a plamo, even if they don’t paint a bit of it. Bandai is hated by retailers, but loved by consumers because of the easy of assembly process and lack of true need to paint their plamo, and B-san’s photo sessions prove just that.
So why do we modelers paint our kits? Well, it’s like the Matrix: “Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.” Once we start painting kits, there’s no turning back: we just get hooked to it
Whichever method one choses to do so.
Awesome Strike! I love the lighting you used for the photos. Did you get the Skygrasper + Aile pack as well?
I haven’t started on my PG Strike yet.. any advice on building it?
No, I didn’t get the aile pack, I’ll get it one of these days.
There’s really no need to give any advice about building this kit, if you have experience building MG that this won’t be a problem
Wow awesome
I would so love to have this one , but i won’t try building one ^^
Can’t wait to see more after you finish it !