If you are growing up in Asia in the 80s, most boys knows Gundam. Eventhough I have never watched the Gundam cartoon when I was little or ever own a Gundam plastic model ( I'm more of Saint Seiya fan) , it is still something special in my heart. While shopping Saint Seiya toys at HLJ website, I saw the PG OO gundam was on sale as well as the MG Exia ignition mode. Those became my first Gunplas ever. I was amazed how well those plastic model were designed and were very well made. The engineering for each parts are amazing, and it was such a big difference than the gunpla I see when I was growing up. I was hook by Gunpla after owning the OO and Exia.
One of my current gunpla project is the PG Strike and man it was nice to work on 1/60 scale. With the amazing detail and each piece fit together and all the joints consider the kit came out back in 2004.
I love the simple and slim design of the strike and a lot of the inner frames were exposed, it really gave the Strike the industrial and rawness of this gundam. I used the metallic storm gray for the inner frame and with the flat outer armer, it really gave a nice contrast. I am really happy with the way it came out.
I try to panel line with the "washing" technique on one of the legs. I don't think the paint flow too well on the flat white paint, but the line came out much thinner than using the Gundam panel markers.
The waist section has a lot of mobility to allow for legs movements, and I love how the armer parts design are so simple. I had fun painting them.
Here is the legs and waist section put together, I need to sand the armer parts for the right leg, but I like how it looks now with one side full armer and one side just the inner frame. Sometimes I felt it is almost a waste that a lot of nice details on the inner frame were covered, I guess that is why Baidai is releasing all the gunpla with clear parts at their 30th anniversary.
The head is one of my favorite section and it has the most parts for such small assembly. The eyes will light up by a small LED inside, but I just need to find the right battery to make it work. I am debating how much panel lining I will put on the head. I do not like the panel lining shown on the box art, it felt way too many black lining for my taste, and it felt like too comicky with that many hard lines on the head.
The strike too me about 1 month now and it took me a long time because Gunpla is not meant for people who have 2 kids, and usually gunpla building happens in the late night. I am trying new techniques on the Strike and one of them is cutting all the parts from the runner first, separate them into different bags base on the construction manual. I think it is more time effective doing all the rough cutting at once, them fine cutting after all the parts are separate into their groups. Then, fine trimming and sanding before second layers of paint. I think I might try not to paint the runner next time and just paint after all the sanding is done. All I have left is the 2 arms and the weapon, panel lines, stickers and top coating...........when is this going to end ????
