Commission WIP - MG Kampfer

Good day plamo fanatics! It's going to be a hectic week once again, thanks to a ton of commission projects I've got lined up. Next on my itinerary is an MG Kampfer. Here's where I am at the moment...

Click on the Read More link for the rest of this post...

I built an MG Kampfer two years ago, but I don't recall it being so difficult to prep for paint. The curvy surfaces means cleaning of nubs with a knife will be limited. There are troublesome seams on the shoulder armors, and I had to do some surgery to fix them..

The light-purple part that holds the shoulder thrusters are sandwiched by the armor pieces. I thought it would be difficult to mask around the thing later on, so I decided to trim some of the plastic that holds it in place...

with those bits removed, I can fix the seam, paint the parts separately and attach the light-purple part afterwards.

That's not even the half of my troubles with this kit. The butt thrusters also have seams (red arrows), and your only options are A: to fix the seam over the inner thigh parts (green arrow), locking them in place, or B: paint the inner thigh, mask it off, then assemble the butt armor, fix the seam, paint and unmask.

I went with option A before and didn't like the results - I couldn't paint the internals properly after fixing the seam - so I'm going to try option B this time. It will be more work, but at least you won't see any unpainted plastic under the skirt. The seams on the bazookas and shotguns also had to be dealt with. After all the pre-paint work was done, I primed everything with Mr. Surfacer...

The client ordered a weathered metallic look, close to bare metal with a slightly bluish hue, similar to this guy...

(pic borrowed from google, credit to the owner)

I'm laying down a base of gloss black for the armor, to be followed by a custom mix of silver, blue and black. I'll pick out some details with straight silver and gold to break up the monotony, and for weathering - some clear smoke, dry brushing and the ever-dependable tamiya weathering compacts will be employed.

I'll be assembling an MG Zaku 1 in between painting sessions, and this little bunch will be heading to paint prep really soon as well.

A number of planned painting sessions have already been called off on account of rain, making my delivery schedule slide a bit. I'm glad my clients understand and want their kits built and painted to the best of my abilities rather than rushed and half-assed only to meet a deadline. Fingers crossed for good weather in the coming weeks. Busy busy busy!

Till next time, keep building plamo!