BlrwestSiR

I have a number of Dspaie's tools as well. The only one I have been slightly disappointed with us their stainless T-square. It's nicely made but is two parts that you super glue together. That took me by surprise. Hopefully it stays together. They also make paint which I have some but haven't tried yet.

Paul, I use it over a lacquer base coat. It can be either a clear lacquer or just paint. Here's an example from my Millennium Falcon build. Before the X20A: After: Like you did, I left it alone to dry. They're pretty soft and easily tear if you try to move it. Just to be sure, it's the one with the white cap for acrylic paint. .

Nice works there Paul. For really stubborn decals, my weapon of last resort is Tamiya X20A thinner. It works but you have to careful using it as things can go wrong very quickly. If you've got a lacquer or enamel base, then it can work miracles.

Thanks Martin! The plain white would have been just too stark. I'm planning on doing some washes as well to further highlight some of the details that are hard to see.

It seems I missed a couple parts of the armour that go around the forearms as well as some trim in yellow for the shoulders. These were duly painted. Then installed. Next up was the hands. Each ad previously mentioned had individual fingers and thumbs with full articulation. They were then snapped into place on the arms. Peace out! Everything 's A-OK!

Time for some actual assembly. First up, I got the arms assembled to the point where they matched. Then I started on the armour sections. Inner side to the shoulder armour. Inspection by the carpet (lap really) monster. Then the arms with the first set of armour bits on. For the paint job, I did some post shading to add some depth and break up all the white.

Here's some of the sprues getting painted. Bandai groups all the same coloured sprues together when number them which makes it easier to find stuff. As posted in the 'What's on your bench?" thread, here's one sprue where Bandai manages to mould moving parts in a single piece. The fingers can all bend at the individual digits. Here's the wrist mount. Removed from the sprue, you can see the articulation possible.

Ok, here's probably my favourite mecha from the Gundam universe. It's the A.E.U.G. version of the RX-178 Gundam MkII. As part of Bandai's Perfect Grade series of kits, it's in 1/60 and has the most moving features ("gimmicks" they like to call them,) in the kit. Also the highest price tag. This one came out in 2001 and has been lurking in my stash since about that time. Here's the box. It's about as big as one of Tamiya's 1/32 jet kits so a decent size. Most sprues are moulded in colour so it could be built OOB without paint. In fact there's a subset of Gundam builders who do exactly that. For the rest of us, Mr Color makes matched paints in both acrylic and lacquer. Shortly after I picked up the kit, I started on building the kit but only got as far as the frame for the arms. Time to pick up from there. First thing was airbrushing all the parts in their respective colours. There's more but these are the ones I needed to finish the arms.

The intake splitters look great. A nice sharp edge like you said. The burner can section is excellent. The toning down has helped tie it together nicely. As for the reinforcement plate on the stabs, they were not always there. Some planes had them, some didn't. They could even be mismatched.

Those bomb racks look fantastic! Glad to see progress on your build.

Talk about a gloss finish. I only wish I could get something with that sheen.

Doesn't it?

So here's the wrist piece removed from the sprues. And the movement available. I didn't notice at first but there are piston rods inside that can extend as well.

If you have either Tamiya or Mr Color lacquer thinner, you can use either one to wipe the paint off. They're cool enough that they won't harm the plastic. Don't use their tool cleaner though as that will eat plastic.

Fingers! Somehow Bandai manages to mould fingers in 1 piece from two different types of plastic so they can move once you cut them free from the sprue. Here's the wrist joint. On the other side, you can see the pivots to allow it to articulate. Now if we could get them to do some tank tracks using this technology that would be awesome.

I think the paint is drying too quickly. This can happen with lacquer based paints if they're too thick or if the pressure is too high on the compressor. The first one would be odd with Alclad though as it's fairly thin. @ScottsGT would probably know best as he used to be a paint guy.

Like Peter said, nice to see a Spitfire in the Med scheme. I should do one in this camo one day.

The slats are correct as Hubert said.

I've got one sensor that cuts in and out on our '07 Element. Might have to bite the bullet as well and get them swapped out.

Haven't seen those in years. Along with the trucker girl ones.

Carpet Monster!!

How about Cutlass? Congrats on the puppy. We wanted a 40-50 lb dog but Jimmy wasn't having any of that and decided to aim for triple digits. He's 115 lbs.

They've gone on sale a couple times so the last time they did, I also broke down a grabbed one.

Threw a coat of primer on. I think the cloth I used to wipe it down was a bit static-y (is that a word?) as I had so much dust and fur stuck to it. It's going to need another sanding and some small areas need touch-ups but it's getting there.

I got both ailerons made and scribed in some panel lines. Next step, I mounted them to the wings. The wing tips will need a bit of aligning once the main joint dries but otherwise the fit is much better than my first try. With the tail surfaces dry fitted, it's really looking the part.