Where to start... I originally built this MG Gouf Custom way back in the day, pre 2002, and pre me learning to clip the pieces from the runners and sand down the nubs. It was a shame to let such a beautiful model collect dust in such a sad state.
I'm not sure which came first, the decal purchase or the idea for this guy. When I built my
RX-78-4/5 I saw the nifty Soviet decals from
Microscale. So, after finishing the other projects I was working on at the time, I got to work on this guy.
I started by taking the kit apart piece by piece. I'm sure a lot of people looking to spruce up an old kit would much rather just leave it alone and work from the outside. It might be a lot quicker, but it won't turn out nearly as well. With a razor and a bit of wiggle most of the parts came out without a hitch. Unfortunately there's always going to be the connector who just refuses to come lose until it breaks all together. Nothing a little bit of glue won't fix in the end.
If you're planning on doing a custom paint job it's very important to plan what color goes where from the very beginning. Luckily I was able to found a clean line drawing that was perfect for the paint bucket tool. If you can't find a simular one for your project just
scan a page from the guide and clean it up as best you can.
I happened upon a few cool things during this project. The first was during the color transofrmation. Testors primer + white paint on top? The norm for getting white from a colored plastic, yet highly overrated, especially for a lazy fuck like me. I'd say 70% of the white was done in this method. The rest was taken care of with some Krylon Flat White, which can be found at craft and home improvement stores nation wide. I found no noticeable difference in the results between either method. The best part? You can get one 12oz bottle of Krylon for only a dollar more than a 3oz bottle of Testors white primer. I dare say the Krylon coat is more durable too.
The only other bit of first timing I did with this kit was the use of a pencil to do the lines. I wanted to see how the pencil would work against a painted surface (as I don't like how it works on straight plastic). Turns out, it works fantastically. There's one downside though, it smudges very easily. This is a huge pain when when working with a white surface. However, just as I was about to get frustrated with this aspect, I noticed how nice it looked from a wear prospective. For any part that I wanted to apply some weathering I just scribbled on some graphite and smudged with my finger until I had the look I desired. If I applied too much an eraser came to the rescue.
I did make the silly mistake of doing the weathering before applying the decals. It's not very noticeable on this kit but it would have looked ridiculous on a heavily weathered project.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips for me please comment bellow.
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