Thursday, May 19, 2011

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? 


4 comments:

The Inner Geek said...

Not familiar with the series or robots involved (more of a Five Star Stories geek myself). Judging by the shots you have on the blog though, I'd say the metallic looks better. I find it amazing how good metallic or pearlized colors can look on mechs. I don't seem them a ton, but when done right they are amazing.

Dave Garbe said...

I like the metallic look. I used a metallic airbrush paint on my buggy

http://www.wargamingtradecraft.com/2011/04/postapocalyptibuggy-final.html

And if you don't have an airbrush, you could pick up some automotive touch up paint

Nick Oba said...

Never heard of those but they look amazing! The fusion of Egyptian god and Japanese mecha robot is a wild idea that I'd think would go either horribly wrong or result in a sublime, fascinating concept, and it's definitely the latter.

re: paint job. This is too subjective a topic. Personally I prefer matte because shiny is too ostentatious and I suspect it's the same deal with the aviation dude. Hey, post pics when done!

Mark said...

To pat myself on the back for finally getting a full-time job, I ordered one of the figures (also, I am a HUGE ZoE fanboy) so we'll see how it looks in the flesh.

@Dave G Nplusplus: your buggy is amazing. I love the little detail touches, like the weathered interior and the bolter in the glove box. I'd have to resurrect my old Thayer & Chandler airbrush, and work with canned propellant, I suppose. I don't know if I have the confidence to just dive into using it on a grail kit like that, but I've been meaning to break it out for vehicle projects.

@The Inner Geek: I think the key is moderate your use and not overdo it. I liked how one of the modelers mixed metallic and matte colors, so the thing isn't entirely done up in metals (like, say, a Grey Knight).

@Nick Oba: is you have a PS2 and some spare time, you definitely check out the game. I'll definitely post pics when he's complete.