Getting better at the “not destroy” thing

There are two things I should get out of the way right now so we can move on with our lives together:

• I love giant robots
• I like making plastic models

Recently these two items met again and fell in love, because apparently I am not the only person out there who likes big robots and model kits.

There’s a lot of folks doing model building out there (heretofore referred to as modeling¹), and a lot of said folks are focused on building mecha. But on top of that, there’s this other division of mecha modeling out there called Gunpla, and it is HUGE. Gunpla is short for Gundam Plastic models. You can read more about it here, or here, or here. It’s pretty much all over the place like an open bottle of glitter.

I heard about it because a buddy and I (heretofore referred to as Anthony, because this is his name) decided we we’re going to dust off some of our old model kits and have a “model night” once a week. We were both inadvertently developing a modeling queue. He had 3-4 car kits to build, and I had an old (late 80s) MPC Millenium Falcon, a Bandai kit from Brain Powerd, and a gorgeous Hasegawa VF-1A Super Valkyrie.

Anthony had just kind of amassed his kits with the intention of building them when he had time. I was amassing kits with the idea that I would build them when I was good enough to do them justice. Learned something, though: if you don’t actually build your models, you don’t get any better at them. Weird.

With that in mind, it was time to just start building and not sweat the inevitable butchering of the first kit (which is when I decided to open up the VF-1A and get cracking. More on that horror here).

Needing supplies, we walked into our local hobby store, and my mecha-sense went wild. There are shelves full of these awesome looking robot kits. Anthony weathers it pretty well. He’s a car guy. I am a robot/spaceship guy, so I keep my cool and only pass out for like 15 or 16 seconds.

I didn’t buy any new kits that day, but later on that evening, with the internet’s help (thank you, The Internet!), I learned about gunpla. This is noteworthy in its contrast to other evenings, when things happen with the internet’s help that we are better off not talking about (thank you, The Internet!).

Fast forward about a week, and I’d gotten permission from my wife to buy a little $5 SD Gundam kit. Does it qualify as gunpla even if it has only 16 pieces? I dunno.

I decided to make it as good as I possibly could and give it the full treatment: I washed the pieces, sanded down the nubs, filled the seams, and primed it. Even glued the thing together (most of the modern Gundam kits are snap-fit from what I hear, even the complicated ones). Then I painted it, attached the stickers (yup, they were stickers, not decals), and gave the whole guy a coat of clear matte lacquer.

It actually turned out okay, and definitely gave me a confidence boost after killing the Valkyrie. I also learned about preshading, seam lines, and panel lining by doing all 3 wrong.

The panel lines are from a Micron 005 pen². Definitely going to do a panel-line-wash next time — doing it like this was excruciating, especially on a model this size.

I convinced myself that the color coat would hide the seam lines I thought I had filled and adequately sanded. Nope. If you see it on the primed version, you’re REALLY going to see it when the base color is layed down. Live and learn.

I thought if I did really light coats of the pink over the primer, I would get a cool effect where the recessed portions retained the darker color, making it look more three-dimensional. This actually worked. It also turns out I didn’t invent it: it’s one of the myriad “preshading” techniques that a lot of modelers use. The problem with the way I did mine is that I should have actually base coated the model (with, say, red, or darker pink) instead of using the primer as the base. I didn’t think about it in real-life terms, and expected the colors to multiply, Photoshop-style.

P.s. They don’t.

Problems aside, I am now hooked. My wife, who is lovely and awesome, got me this kit for my next try:

It’s slightly larger than the last one. I think I’m going to alternate work on this and repairing the Valkyrie. If you want to see some amazing modeling work, check these guys out:

http://fichtenfoo.net/blog/
http://www.ebasenet.com/index.htm (one of my fave builders on this site is Erix93)
http://gamerabaenre.com/completed_mecha.htm

Unlike me, they know what they’re doing.

I want to give you a small disclaimer: I’m actually not a big Gundam fan. I’m not anti-Gundam either, I just never really got into it. I had a friend in junior high³ named Santi, and that guy was into Gundam. That was my first exposure to Mobile Suits, and on first glance it had everything I’d be inclined to like. It was an anime, there were big robots…it probably even had a bunch of randomly sprayed missiles flying around — you know the ones, the swirly missiles with the vapor trails all over the place? God, I love those swirly missiles — and the mecha designs were really cool. In spite of this, I never really pursued it. But this was 1989, and between the availability issues (I really couldn’t get my hands on any imported shows at the local video place) and the I’m-13-and-have-no-money issue, it just wasn’t going to happen.

¹ I do this to eliminate confusion. While I am jaw-droppingly handsome, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. When you’re this good looking and you say the word “modeling” there’s only one thing that comes to people’s minds: that you are an asshole.

² If I was a rapper, my lyrics would almost definitely mention my vast collection of 005 and 01 Micron pens. When I wasn’t laying down tracks about compressed charcoal and bitches, I mean.

³ No, really, I did! People actually talk to me and everything.