WiP: HGUC Kshatriya #5 (Final)

So, the HGUC Kshatriya.  Otherwise known as the Green Beast.  This ended up being a huge kit, and for those who aren’t familiar with things, could end up assuming this was an MG due to size alone.  As mentioned in the previous WiP, the Kshatriya took around 9 hours, or if you added in actual painting time, around 12 hours.  While not having an inner frame comparable to an MG, there are quite enough parts to snip out and clean up. 

As for colors, I had not planned to paint it originally, but towards the end of the build I figured what the hell, and well, you see what happened.  In actuality, not  the entire kit was painted, I didn’t paint the white and yellow parts, but for everything else I used the following paint:

Light green parts: Tamiya TS-20 Metallic Green, followed by TS-13 Glossy Clear
Dark green parts: TS-43 Racing Green, followed by TS-65 Pearl Clear
Black parts:  TS-40 Metallic Black
Blue parts: TS-64 Dark Mica Blue
Trim: Plated Silver Gundam Marker
Mono-eye: Fluorescent Pink Gundam Marker

I had mentioned before that I had thought the paint job didn’t come out as well as the Sinanju.  Mainly I say this because I moved from doing Gunpla in our living to our spare room, and with that I’ve vacated the balcony for painting.  So I tried spraying out the window, which while is good for top coating and clear coating, I found it harder to gauge the distances, which meant I oversprayed on a few parts.  However, the more I look at it, the more it looks like it came out fine, and for the most part you can’t tell.  As for color choices, the metalillic green was of course a no brainer.  The bigger problem was the dark green parts, and there are no metallic color sprays out there that would cover it.  So I went with Racing Green, and sprayed liberal coats of Pearl Clear to give it that flake/speck style that metallic colors give.  It came out fairly decent, albiet hard to see on pictures perhaps. Other than that the other colors worked out nice, and definitely gives the Kshatriya more life.

In regards to posing, the Kshatriya does end up being top heavy, depending on which way you pose the giant wings.  In fact, it’s so heavy it can tip over an action based depending on the postioning.  However, the wings give it considerable length, which ends up being bigger even than my poster sized piece of paper that I’m using for pictures.  The beam sabers can somewhat fit in the extending arms, but it’s more of a balancing act.  Unfortunately, since you only get two sabers, you can only go so far with multiple beam saber madness, unless you scrounge up some sabers from other kits.  Still, when paired with the upcoming HGUC Unicorn kits, I can imagine some great photo shoots will be appearing in magazines and online.

Overall, I found this to be a great kit, both to build, and pose.  It has near MG quality design and quality, and comes highly recommended.   I personally like the designs from this era of UC, and I will be looking forward to the Zulu and other forthcoming kits in the Unicorn Gundam series.

So, enough text, here’s pictures for you.  Questions, comments, and scathing criticism is always appreciated.

WiP: HGUC Kshatriya #4

As promised, here is the long awaited(?) continuation of the Kshatriya WiP.  We’ll finish up with the wings, which are probably the most impressive part of this kit.  Each wing along is bigger than the actual mobile suit itself, and comes pack with their own beam cannons, thrusters, funnels, and even extending arms for wielding extra beam sabers.  The kit itself only comes with two sabers, and also has no where in the kit to store them.  Most likely they would be stored under the forearm armor, just like the Sinanju does.  I would expect that each wing would have it’s own saber to tuck in somewhere as well. 

So, getting started, I snipped out all the parts of course.

Taken before I decided to take a few weeks to paint the kit.

And heres with the inner armor, thrusters, funnels, and cannons attached.

The extending arms themselves work out really nice, adding more length to an already impressive wing span.

One arm built and one not.

Once attached they tuck in really nice inside the wings.

And attached to the shoulder box, where you can lock the hinges into place for positioning purposes.

And with that, I’m finally done with the Kshatriya!  How did it turn out?

Say hello to this bad boy!

You know what, maybe the paint job wasn’t so bad after all?

More pictures (No, really, I promise) coming with the wrap up next post.

WiP Part #1 time: 2 hours
WiP Part #2 time: 2.5 hours
WiP Part #3 time: 3 hours
WiP Part #4 time: 0.5 hours
Total WiP total time: 9 hours, not including time for painting, add three weeks for that =p

Kshatriya update

After a couple of healthy doses of “life” over the last few weeks, I was finally able to sit down and move forward on a couple of things.  One being the long overdue Kshatriya, which I left you all hanging on right at the near end.  As I mentioend, I decided to go ahead and paint it, and finally wrapped that up.  I will say right off the bat that this paint job didn’t turn out as well as the Sinanju at all, due to a variety of reasons, one being probably a lack of initial painting process this time around, coupled with the change in location from apartment balcony to spraying out a window.  But I’ll write up about that further during the wrapup.

WiP HGUC Kshatriya -> WiSP

I apologize to those looking forward to the next installment of my Kshatriya WiP, it will be a little delayed for a few reasons.  Mainly Batman (sooo good) and a couple of other things.  I am planning on making it up though, so I should be finished with it by next weekend depending on how late work keeps me this week.

Riddle me this, what’s the slight delay for…? 

WiP: HGUC Kshatriya #3

Onwards with the WiP, today we’ll be finishing up the feet, legs, and waist.  This ended up taking up around 3 hours, just for the sheer sprue gate cleaning and panel lining needed for the again, large amout of pieces for a HGUC.  Looking at the feet, it follows a Sinanju style, and here I actually went ahead and painted the dark blue parks with my left over Tamiya Dark Mica Blue paint.  It came out fairly nice.

Again, one completed, with the parts on the left.

Next up we move into the leg, and boy, can we say Thunder Thighs?  Well, more like thunder calves maybe.  For some reason, the think armor on the left and right side of the legs remind me of the ZZ and FAZZ, but it could just be me.  Again, here was a lot parts which meant more panel lining needed.  Its not so long to build, it’s just the cleaning before hand.

Leg stuff 1

Leg stuff 2, with a completed leg

And here’s both legs with feet

Moving on the the waist, Kshatriya’s a fat one, they’d say he’s a metabo here in Japan. (metabolic syndrome, do they even use that word abroad?  No? I think they just call it fat!)  In general the skirt armor was fine, save for the giant ass dark green cod piece thing in front, nice of Bandai to stick a sprue gate snipping point in the smack dab middle of the cod piece.  Thankfully I had a dark green copic marker in my Gundam can of pens and markers so I don’t think you can tell.

Inner waist parts

And all the various skirt armor.

And done

So, with this we’re actually done with the body! 

Front

Side

Oh, and I said he’s a big boy right?  Yep, dwarves the HGUC Gundam, and stands about as tall as an MG Zaku II.  In fact, he’s fairly up there with his big brother Sinanju.  The only thing I don’t like is the head, honestly, when looking at the Sinanju, Zaku and Gundam the heads seem appropiately big enough.  Poor old Kshatriya though, looks like he was stunted of growth in the head area. 

Comparison shot

All that’s left is the wings, and more importantly, cleaning up around 30 fin funnels….  That’s on the plate for tomorrow.

WiP Part #1 time: 2 hours
WiP Part #2 time: 2.5 hours
WiP Part #3 time: 3 hours
Current WiP total time: 8.5 hours

WiP: HGUC Kshatriya #2

Continuing on with the WiP, today we finish up the arms and shoulders.  You’d think this wouldn’t take so much time, but all together with part snipping, cleaning, panel lining, minor painting, and the trim, today’s pieces took about 2 and a half hours to do.  The first time consumer were the shoulders include the connecting arms for the… wings? So that was four sets to build right there.

The connecting arms, with the ability to lock in place.

From there I finished up the trim for the wrist area, thankfully this is the last of the black pieces with trim.

Again, with the Gundam marker.

I will say that the marker again came out great, especially considering the trim on these pieces were smaller than anything I worked with on the Sinanju.  From there it’s the actually arm and shoulder pieces.  With the panel lining that took some time as well.

Parts needed, plus a completed arm.

Close-up on the finished parts.

I’ve decided to go with a semi-gloss for the top coat this time around.  My Sinanju has a glossy coat, and I figured a flat coated Kshatriya would stand out too much, so I went down the middle.  Here’s the main body with the arms and shoulders.

Front view

Side view

And here’s with the connecting arms connected to the shoulders.

Front view

Somewhat top view

Tomorrow we’ll move into the waist and legs. 

WiP Part #1 time: 2 hours
WiP Part #2 time: 2.5 hours
Current WiP total time: 5.5 hours