PLAMO DIARIES

Here's the promised photoshoot for my HGUC Zaku II. To be honest, I was quite disappointed by the articulation and proportions of this kit when I had first snapped it together years ago. But now that it's detailed up like this, I'm appreciating it a bit more. Improving the derpy-looking monoeye helped the look quite a bit. I'm hoping to do a similar mod to my Origin Zaku II and HGUC Gouf. 2022 Update - I decided to change the monoeye piece and I thought to paint the heat hawk. New photos added at the bottom. I'd have done a few more action poses, but I was afraid of scratching the paint. Same reason the leg rockets got left off, even though I fixed them up too. New photos with the replaced monoeye and painted heat hawk are below:

I bought this kit on sale a few years ago for just $9 with the intention of using it as cheap practice. I had built it and sanded and welded the seams (not very well), but I couldn't find the right green colors in spray cans, so this project got shelved (literally) for some time. Now that I had a respectable painting setup and some new tools, I thought that this kit might finally serve as a warmup before tackling more recent and expensive kits. My plan was to improve the monoeye and maybe add some more surface detail. So after disassembling the parts, I started with modifying the head. I couldn't stand how ugly the monoeye was, so I thought to try to make it look more like the MG 2.0 or RG. I found a curved piece of clear plastic that I measured and cut to fit in front of the monoeye. This clear plastic was soaked in Pledge to make it shinier. Next, I replaced the crappy monoeye sticker with a 4mm pink rhinestone. But because of the new protrusion, it wouldn't fit behind th

Merry Christmas, everyone! Hard to believe it's been months since my last post. But no, I haven't forgotten about this blog. I just took a break until my new air compressor with a tank and proper moisture trap could arrive. And since then, I've actually gotten more into this hobby than I ever have. Unfortunately, a fitting on the air regulator of my air compressor recently broke, so no painting for me until the replacement parts arrive from China. That's probably why I'm back here typing instead of actually building.  So I just wanted to make a quick post about new stuff that I may or may not make posts about in the future. New kits for the backlog : HGUC RX-78-2 Gudnam Beyond Global HGUC FA-78-3 Full Armor Gundam 7th HGUC RX-93-V2 Hi-Nu Gundam New equipment: Homemade spray booth with exhaust fan Air compressor with 24L tank Respirator mask Generic 181 airbrush Recently completed projects: Painted SD Neo Zeong with painted Customize Scene Base #4 Modified and painte

Here I am with another SD SD - Gundam post after a Star Wars kit. (But I swear, I build other things too.)  As I mentioned in a previous post , I like practicing on SD kits primarily because of the cheap price, but also because the large exaggerated surface areas are easy to work with. It helps that they're cute, too. For this entry, I decided to do a combined post for both my SD EX-Standard and SD Cross Silhouette RX-78-2 builds since I don't think either is interesting enough on its own. I guess you can consider this a comparison post. RX-78-2 Gundam SD Cross Silhouette with Cross Silhouette Frame As you may know, the SDCS line is the latest in SD kits. Their main gimmick is the swappable inner frame where the Cross Silhouette frame option gives SD kits more height and articulation. I bought this kit because I was curious about this new CS frame. But I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of color separation here compared to older SD kits. Only the usual yellow on t

Here is my completed Bandai 1/72 scale T-70 Resistance X-Wing Fighter as piloted by Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If you'd care to read about the kit and the build process, you can check out my build log post on this X-Wing . Otherwise, I'll spare you guys from my usual long-winded rambling by just going straight to the pictures.

I used to be a big Star Wars fan. I had watched the movies, kept up with the expanded universe, and played the games. Some of my favorite games were those in the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter series because of how you could experience and geek out on the fictional technical aspects of various ships in the Star Wars universe. And because of those games, I grew more attached to designs like the Tie Interceptor and of course, the X-Wing. I'll digress a bit to mention that what often amuses me is how game designers (and fans like me) seem to give ship and starfighter tech specs more thought than the movie directors or visual-effects guys. Nerds gonna nerd, I guess.

For a kit first released way back in 2000, the G Generation-F SD BB (No. 209) RX-93 Nu Gundam  can still be an impressive model if you take the time to do some basic painting and panel-lining work. And because of how cheap it is, you probably won't feel too bad if you screw up with things like seam-line removal and masking. In case you missed it, you can see the build process here .