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HG 1/144 Gundam Gundam
Seed - METEOR Unit |
Posted by Whitebase : 21tst March
2008, 1:00 am
This is the work in progress log for the 1/144 Meteor that I have been working on since 2005. Its probably my longest, most drawn our project ever, and I really hope to finish it soon, but I seem to keep getting distracted. It’s tiring, but I have to say it’s very fulfilling, and I’ve developed quite a few new techniques and tried out many new things for this build. Hope the WIP will be useful to some of you.
Some of the in-progress pics here may have been posted up in various forums before. I’ve progressed quite a bit more since then, and have lots of new pics to update. I’ll be gradually posting the updated WIPs as I sort through the mess. When fixing models, I have a bad habit of jumping from one part to another depending on mood. In this WIP, I’ve taken the liberty to group all the progress shots for specific parts together, so that is more logical and easier for the reader to follow. So as a result, what you see here is not really the actual sequence at which I built it. OK! Enough rambling already! Here goes!
From the onset of the build, I wanted to incorporate LEDs, and various lighting into the kit. So the first part I modded was the side cannons. I cut away the small window and placed an LED inside. |
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Due to the size of this kit, it was quite easy to ‘thread’ the wiring through the various parts. Shown here is a groove I cut into the connecting pegs on the part which links the side cannon to the main body. This way, I can lead the wiring via the connector pegs into the main body, where I will eventually store the battery. |
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I toyed around with some new materials to see how they can be incorporated into the model. Shown here is some experimentation using a piece of ‘cable tie’ to cover up the exposed window. Due to its semi translucent properties, light will still shine through when the LED is on, but the part will be opaque when the LED is off. Still experimenting, and won’t know if this works because the material doesn’t bond well with glue, and also doesn’t sand well. (This idea was eventually scrapped) |
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I wanted the main engine area to light up as well, so I started experimenting with light bulbs. I got lots of comments on how hot the light bulbs get and the danger of melting plastics etc. Actually, they weren’t really that hot, and I wasn’t expecting the lighting system to be switched on for prolonged periods. Shown here is another experiment I did to diffuse the lighting to get a very even and distributed lighting source. This is done with a Panadol bottle.. |
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I then proceeded to hollow out the internals for the main body and also the intake vents. This was an extremely tedious process because the plastics for this kit were extremely thick. Shown here is how the original parts look like before the surgery. |
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The intake parts were cut away using kotobukiya micro saws. I believe the thinnest set comes in 0.1mm, and are very flexible, ideal for cutting curved surfaces. I cut through this shape without destroying the inner parts. |
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I then roughly marked the areas which need to be removed and hollowed out in the main body. |
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Test fit with the lighting. |
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The vents which were removed earlier were then reconstructed using some spare parts I had, and some pla-plates. |
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Repeat the steps and make more fan blades… |
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