A Million Variations of Viper....

So as you can see from this compilation of the plastic works of the late Nate "nnenn" Nielson, there are A LOT of alternate Viper color schemes to choose from. Almost.... no, not almost, there ARE too many. In the coming weeks, I'll select one for the resin kit and go from there. The reason I'm not painting the kit stock colors is simple; the highly collectible Revoltech will be coming in (yes, I caved) and the two will stand shoulder to shoulder. So, the kit will need to not only reflect its Gradius forbears, but also its ZOE incarnation. 

Sigh. 

I am not dead....

... I am building transforming robots. 

Because, when one reaches a point where one's 40k habit plateaus, and there's nothing new or exciting, that is what one does. 

The Vic Viper here is almost completely self-contained with no parts-swapping, except for the head, which is magnetized (a joint wouldn't fit in the slender torso with the shoulders and back assembly there) which swaps out with the main computer-nub in the chest when everything folds up. Now all that's left is the sanding and painting. 

The inspiration for me to finish this project came, in part, from Tears of Envy's Tumblr, which is full of all kinds of awesome. 

Also, I wanted to beat the toy's release, which is scheduled for  April, and does require the swapping of hip joints and such. 

Happy Saturday, people. 

Conundrum: Metallic, or Flat?

As you may know, I'm a huge fan of the Zone of the Enders series, and the resin kits of their mecha have been Holy Grails that I've been chasing for a while. Recently, Kaiyodo released a toy of the hero mecha, Jehuty, as part of their ongoing Revoltech line. He looks like this:

Sexy, right? I have the resin kit for this fellow, and they apparently used the exact same molds, and just swapped in a set of ratchet joints. My issue here is the paint job. See, in the game, things were matte, and not shiny at all. You'll recall my Dolores model was all matte, with none of the shiny you see in the above figure. I've been working on the kit of his adversary, Anubis, who looks like this in the art:

 I found a reference for my exact kit in a hobby mag: 

Yeah, it's quite an undertaking. Again, it's in the same scale as Jehuty, amazingly, so I've been replacing screw-joints with ratcheting joints as I go (not to mention having to contend with the INSANELY FRAGILE resin it was cast in) but for now the issue is that color. I've been agonizing over whether to go metallic as above and thus make him compliment Jehuty, or go all flat, which would result in something like this:

That impressive model is 90% scratchbuilt, and is from Sparrow Scratchbuilt Aviation, an absolutely amazing site out of Japan. His stuff is mind-blowing, so check him out. 

Those matte colors, on the other hand, are totally meh. Surprising, considering he does some nice airbrush work on his aviation models, but the color work on this figure is downright underwhelming. If I went this route, I'd definitely pay more attention to the highlighting in certain areas. 

So, what do you all think?