A Small Gunpla Step Forward
Nov. 2nd, 2025 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerAfter assembling my first Gundam model kit (and the first full-blown model kit I’d put together in quite a few years) I bought another “Entry Grade” Mobile Suit from the same hobby store and built it as well. I was a little inclined to ponder how both of these kits “left out accessories” from how their Gundams deployed in their anime, the better to motivate you to move up a grade, perhaps. With that in mind, when I saw a third Entry Grade kit that happened to be the very first Gundam and was labelled on the box (this time in Japanese and English) as including a “Full Weapon Set” extending to more fanciful armaments left out of the compilation movies, I was motivated to buy it.
That purchase, though, happened not that long before I broke a hip in a bicycle accident last year. During recovery I was conscious of how I’d built the kits crouching and squatting on my kitchen floor because the light was better through the patio door there. Eventually I did get to feeling I could manage that again. It still took a while to gather motivation anew. One thing that both pushed me forward and left me aware of reluctance to move was beginning to notice how many places I now could buy Gundam model kits in my city alone; more, I can suppose, than still sell anime Blu-Rays. Happening on and purchasing a recoloured Strike Gundam (the “Strike Rouge”) from a chain computer supply store as my fourth Entry Grade kit with much the same “why not?” perhaps-foolish defiance that had motivated me the first time around was a part of that, and it left me with two kits now waiting to be built.
By this point I was thinking a bit of how certain markers are sold for the specific purpose of “inking in the panel lines” on Gundam model kits. Years ago I’d seen a suggestion to just use an ultra-fine Sharpie. That had worked with the large “deluxe transforming Wing Gundam” I’d bought marked down as the initial fad of that particular series succeeding on American cable had begun to sputter out. When I turned to one of the smaller Gundam action figures I’d also bought, though (inspired by the understanding it was a cost-reduced variant of an import from Japan that had the panel lines inked in for you), the Sharpie ink went well over the fine lines and then turned kind of purple over the years. On trying to look up the subject again by going to the “Gunpla 101” site, I happened on a comment that one very simple way to change the look of a model a bit is to spray on “clear flat top coat.” Aware the two models I’d built retained a distinct “plastic” look, I decided to give that a try. I wound up ordering a few “Gundam markers” from an online store, but found a small spray can of top coat (with a lot of fine print in both Japanese and English on it) in the hobby store.
At last I got around to getting the original Gundam kit open. I was conscious it didn’t have a lot of obvious “panel lines” molded in; this got me thinking a bit of the 1979 design having been reinterpreted in multiple ways over the years separate from all the other “Gundams” out there. (I understand one recent kit recaptures the somehow piquant proportions of the very first Gundam model kit, although I believe it is moulded in multiple colours rather than being in all white and requiring paint.) After testing my markers on the runners, though, I did go ahead and black in some recesses on the head. That just happened to have been done in the artwork on the front of the box, if not in the artwork on the side, and it did seem to add a bit more character. I also blacked in some apparent rocket nozzles in the soles of the feet, aware similar features had seemed a little lacking on the Strike Gundam. Following the recommendation of the site, I built up limb and torso segments but didn’t connect those larger pieces together.
To make painting sticks I used bamboo skewers from the dollar store, some blue masking tape I found in my basement, and the smallest alligator clips Canadian Tire sold, which still seemed a little threatening when grabbing on to the model pieces. I was conscious of recommendations to avoid humidity when applying spray paint (which reminded me again of the chapter of the Genshiken manga where some of the characters are building Gunpla), but with rain sweeping through as the days got shorter and shorter and only so many alligator clips to work with it did take a while to get everything sprayed outside and assembled inside. The end result did look a bit different from the “plastic” appearance of before, anyway. I still have that fourth kit to work on, and daydreams of moving beyond Entry Grade. Elaborate painting and detailing still feels beyond my grasp, though, which might keep me from assembling too grand a lineup for all that I wonder how long the markers and spray can will last.
That purchase, though, happened not that long before I broke a hip in a bicycle accident last year. During recovery I was conscious of how I’d built the kits crouching and squatting on my kitchen floor because the light was better through the patio door there. Eventually I did get to feeling I could manage that again. It still took a while to gather motivation anew. One thing that both pushed me forward and left me aware of reluctance to move was beginning to notice how many places I now could buy Gundam model kits in my city alone; more, I can suppose, than still sell anime Blu-Rays. Happening on and purchasing a recoloured Strike Gundam (the “Strike Rouge”) from a chain computer supply store as my fourth Entry Grade kit with much the same “why not?” perhaps-foolish defiance that had motivated me the first time around was a part of that, and it left me with two kits now waiting to be built.
By this point I was thinking a bit of how certain markers are sold for the specific purpose of “inking in the panel lines” on Gundam model kits. Years ago I’d seen a suggestion to just use an ultra-fine Sharpie. That had worked with the large “deluxe transforming Wing Gundam” I’d bought marked down as the initial fad of that particular series succeeding on American cable had begun to sputter out. When I turned to one of the smaller Gundam action figures I’d also bought, though (inspired by the understanding it was a cost-reduced variant of an import from Japan that had the panel lines inked in for you), the Sharpie ink went well over the fine lines and then turned kind of purple over the years. On trying to look up the subject again by going to the “Gunpla 101” site, I happened on a comment that one very simple way to change the look of a model a bit is to spray on “clear flat top coat.” Aware the two models I’d built retained a distinct “plastic” look, I decided to give that a try. I wound up ordering a few “Gundam markers” from an online store, but found a small spray can of top coat (with a lot of fine print in both Japanese and English on it) in the hobby store.
At last I got around to getting the original Gundam kit open. I was conscious it didn’t have a lot of obvious “panel lines” molded in; this got me thinking a bit of the 1979 design having been reinterpreted in multiple ways over the years separate from all the other “Gundams” out there. (I understand one recent kit recaptures the somehow piquant proportions of the very first Gundam model kit, although I believe it is moulded in multiple colours rather than being in all white and requiring paint.) After testing my markers on the runners, though, I did go ahead and black in some recesses on the head. That just happened to have been done in the artwork on the front of the box, if not in the artwork on the side, and it did seem to add a bit more character. I also blacked in some apparent rocket nozzles in the soles of the feet, aware similar features had seemed a little lacking on the Strike Gundam. Following the recommendation of the site, I built up limb and torso segments but didn’t connect those larger pieces together.
To make painting sticks I used bamboo skewers from the dollar store, some blue masking tape I found in my basement, and the smallest alligator clips Canadian Tire sold, which still seemed a little threatening when grabbing on to the model pieces. I was conscious of recommendations to avoid humidity when applying spray paint (which reminded me again of the chapter of the Genshiken manga where some of the characters are building Gunpla), but with rain sweeping through as the days got shorter and shorter and only so many alligator clips to work with it did take a while to get everything sprayed outside and assembled inside. The end result did look a bit different from the “plastic” appearance of before, anyway. I still have that fourth kit to work on, and daydreams of moving beyond Entry Grade. Elaborate painting and detailing still feels beyond my grasp, though, which might keep me from assembling too grand a lineup for all that I wonder how long the markers and spray can will last.