ARC-2R
(Spartan)
COMPLETE
070117
PURCHASED:
061115
BEGUN:
061225
061113
Arrived today! This one is molded green. I'll have to determine a paint scheme. Base white? Davion colors? Lots of pieces. I'll have to be very procedural on this one.
061224.00
Laid out for base white. Going to give this one some Irish. Complete with sprue shillelagh. Despite this initial work, it is taking the back burner until I clear several other kit's first, also have to shop for some green paint.
061225
The plastic was molded dark forest green, no good. The white covers that nicely, but I need to kelly green the entire thing and then mask for rest of white body. No. Go green, mask for black then mask for white. White should utterly beyond top. Then the decals and markings. matte spray?
070115.23
No kelly green available so I got 'metal' green and primed with that. This paint simulates a hammered metal. I don't know if it will work, but what the hell. Last night I began assembly and immediately realized that I needed to paint some parts white. I didn't bother with masking.
This evening I began assembly again. The whole process went startlingly fast and by the time I'd completed the first arm, I knew I'd be done in a couple hours.
Assembly was smooth enough, the one problem I did have was that all the paint thickened up the joint so much that I had to file some parts down.
On the left arm, I got the elbow and shoulder joints reversed. I drilled open the socket at the lower arm for the shoulder joint, rather than the elbow. Upon discovering the problem, I flipped the upper arm around. Now the elbow is far too loose, allowing the lower arm to swing freely.
So I decided that this would be the first battle damaged part of the three mecha I've got. I simply left the lower left arm off. After finishing the whole mech, I drilled up the arm stump in the elbow area.
The melted plastic was reinforced with crazy glue and I stuck some sprue in the arm to represent the superstructure. Looks good, but I've got to fill the open space with more junk. At this point, I thought I only had decals to do. That was until I began painting some guns black. That led to some carbon scoring over damaged areas. That led to the tertiary color of gold.
So, I spent some time painting with a yellow bronze mix. That was pretty nicely, though I smudged a couple spots. The gold that I couldn't remove, I'll battle damage afterwards. After this, I silvered up the arm and then dry brushed silver over the whole body. I finally just put it all down to dry the night.
There's still more black and silver to do, but the decals must go down next. Then, paint over that, to help with realism. But essentially, this kit is done. About 10 hours from start to finish.
070116.22
Threw the decals down -- which added massive realism to it. Then began drilling up the body to simulate missile hits. Concentrating on the left side for damage to go with the missing arm. Now I'm letting it sit for a bit. Next, more painting.
070128.22
Black wash the body and that is it. The only other possible mod is the seams. Do I really want to do that?
