GN-X III - Lance work

Since Blogger is TOTALLY lame when it comes to pictures, I'm doing this post through Imageshack. Blogger likes to take your uploaded photos and rotate them anyway it sees fit despite the orientation at the time of the uploading. To make matters worse, Blogger does NOT have a "rotate image' function. I made this post with Imageshack and it worked perfectly the first time. Man you'd think they'd be able to sort something as simple as rotating images out in their programing. Ugh... maybe I should have stuck with Wordpress. Oh well. Too late now.

Now onto today's post. Back to work on my GN-X III. Today will deal with the lance.

Test painted without primer to see how it'd look. It's acceptable. Glued the pieces together and let it sit.


I sanded and I repainted to test the seam lock. It was good but I sanded a bit too much so I covered it up with an extra layer of paint.


I'm going for a complete lance without the rifle ports so it's epoxy putty time! It works by combining the pale green and white ones together until its malleable enough to work with.

Puttied. Epoxy on the base and tip, basic putty on the edge of the lance because I wanted to cover up those lines as well.


Shaving the putty off. I tried sanding it with the thicker base but realized it would take a long time to get it uniform, so I shaved it down to it's base surface.


Sanded again. It was pretty good, but I did way more work than I needed to. Basic putty would have done the job a lot faster and cleaner. Live and learn! Tip length extension is negligible.


Primed the lance to test for errors. There were a couple of imperfections.


More basic putty to cover up the trouble spots. Will do a more gentle sanding job to get it the way I want.

GN-X III - Priming

Primed my seam lined parts to check for errors. The results speak for themselves. Some good, some bad, but mostly on the good side. Probably won't go back to fix the errors but will just cover it up with a couple coats of paint. Well... try to do that at least.

GN-X III - Stage 2 - Seam lines

Alright so now I'm going to try and tackle the seam lines. There are a bunch but I'm not going to hit all of them. Just the lower legs, forearms and upper arm armor. Everything else isn't so bad. I'm spraying the off white-grey pieces with the standard Gundam white that I used on the Red Astay's Gerbera Straight. No primer. Just make the grey-white a bit more white and more of a matte finish with a touch of grainy texture. Looks pretty much the way I want it. Haven't tried it on the puttied pieces yet and I'm not sure if it's going to work. I like the light spray but if I do that on the puttied pieces the putty will probably show through. Unless I use a heavy coat which is still an option.

So I'm kinda on the fence now. The metallic brown I got looks heavy enough to go right over top of the base purple and not let much if any of those undertones out. And the white might be able to go right over top of my puttied seam line parts. Don't know why I'm anti primer. Just want to leave as many steps out so I can finish this build faster. MGIJ should be coming out at the end of this week but I won't be able to pick it up right away since I'll be out of town.

Anyways I'll post a couple most pics of this process so you can see the changes as they happen.

GN-X III 609-T - Basic build complete

Didn't take long to make at all. Three panels, a couple of hours. Was thinking of timing myself but then I realized that I'm usually doing 3 things at once and the times wouldn't be accurate. Zero stickers and no sanding yet. Just standard nipping and scraping/cutting with my exacto knife. Not a lot of flexibility in the design. Head barely moves. This is no Gundam! and its no MG that's for sure. That said... I was kind of impressed with it considering that its just a HG. Range of motion isn't great. I thought the legs were built the same but they actually weren't. I put the left one on the right side and vice versa just to realize that the flexibility is different. Aesthetically they look the same however. Little details matter!

Speaking of little details... there aren't that many. Shouldn't expect many from a mass produced suit I suppose. Gonna have fun bringing the few that are there out though. Saw a couple of areas that I can really hit and make look good. Gonna make the GN Tau Drive really pop. Proportion of the legs to the torso is a bit weird though. Couldn't do the "throwing lance" pose the way I wanted to though. Too bad... Don't really feel like modding this kit to get the effects I want. But you never know. Might just decide to say '**** it' and just do it.

Biggest issue so far is the seam lines. Going to have to do something about them this time. Especially if I'm planning on painting this thing. They stand out a lot and in some places the pieces don't fit together exactly right... It'll take some time, but I have it. Gonna need some more paints too. Gonna go back and get the bronze and this... pretty hardcore bright silver I found.

The real joy of this kit is going to be the lance. I've got crazy ideas for that and I'm going to spare no expense in making it look as sweet as I can. Just like Red Astay's Gerbera Straight. Gonna hit that lance hard. It's been the funnest part of the build so far.

Kind of looking forward to making this one but debating on whether or not to go back to the G04 since I was kinda on a roll with it. I'll sleep on it. Finish up the shield and rifle, look at the kit for a bit longer and see if it says anything else to me.