It’s painting time ! As I usually try to do, I’ve put on “paper” several color scheme before settling for the one right below :

This will prove to be VERY helpful when disassembling the kit and separating it into different colors. I’ve mentioned it before but the deadline is a bit too close for comfort so I’ll have to paint a bit faster than usual. This means I’ll have to be extra careful not to paint a part (or worse, a bunch of parts) the wrong color ! Once everything is primed it’s very hard to tell the parts apart.

Some parts will have several colors, using masking tape to add details. I’ll have to keep that in mind when planning painting sessions. Speaking of sessions, I made a rough estimation of the time needed to paint all of this. Counting primer and gloss clear, I’ll need 14 sessions. I can usually fit 5 sessions per week, so I’d need more than two weeks to paint everything. Better get started !

Oh, and I forgot to consider the time needed for masking pieces, so add a session or two of masking :

The result, when it’s done correctly, is usually worth it :

Sorry for the pic quality, I took it quite late at night. I was excited when I removed the tape, the lines where cleaner than what I usually achieve.

As long as I’m on the topic of unplanned painting sessions, remember the shoulders I detailed last post ? I was hoping the primer wouldn’t show too much mistakes ? Well, there’s good news and bad news :

Looking pretty good so far. I swear, one of these days I’ll leave a kit in full primer color and a coat of flat clear to protect it. Anyway, when I looked at these shoulders from another angle :

Well, shit. I used some extra fine cement but that clearly wasn’t enough. I’ll need to putty it and sand it. The end result after all that is actually pretty good (no pics, sorry) but that was quite a lot of work, pretty late during the build. Lesson learned, I guess.

A bit more masking, for the other weapons :

That one was pretty straight-forward. When there’s a big physical gap between parts it’s easy to make a clean mask. I also tried something I’ve never done before :

I’ve always wanted to add some clear blue at the tip of gun barrels, to simulate extreme heat. I’m not sure if that makes sense on a clean build like I’m making (meaning, not weathered), but that’s a pretty cool sight IMO.

I have one last pic of everything painted before tackling the next (and last !) big part : decals !

The light grey is quite nice, IMO. It’s very close to the primer grey color I like so much. The medium grey is a bit dark for my taste, and is a bit too close to the dark grey I chose. Too late to start over though !

On that pic you can see that I finally gave up on those shoulders radiators I wanted to make. After 3 unsuccessful prototypes and the deadline looming over my head, I went for something simpler. I’ll try again another time when I have more experience (and no deadline).