Sanding and some painting

Pretty sure I've said it before, but sanding is my least favorite part of building gunpla, but that's like saying sprinkles are my least favorite part about cupcakes, and I love cupcakes...

Moving on, I used the following two sanding sticks for the majority of the work:

I got these at Hobby Lobby about 6 months ago, went there today and they don't carry them anymore... so I'll have to find another source or a similar tool because I love these guys!

320 then a jump up to 600 grit. The 320 worked well enough for removing the seam lines from the cement and the 600 gave everything a nice finish.

Here's where I got into a bit of fun. When I started sanding the knee joint, I'm not sure if I sanded too much or if I just decided I didn't like the shape of that thruster...

Okay, I may have sanded it too much...

Luckily I had a bunch of Kotobukiya option part thrusters left over from the HGUC Dom Tropen/0079 Rick-Dom kitbash I did way back in 2003 or so...

So, I sliced off the thruster with my trusty hobby knife...

Then I took my diamond files and started grinding away to make an opening.

There we go, that made a nice track for the thruster... took a while, I need to get a dremel tool. I'll add that to my Christmas list for my fiance to get me :-P.

Not quite enough room for the thruster, yet.

I used a wider file and angled out the opening a bit.

Now, the thruster nozzle should fit nicely.

Bingo!

Now I used the gel form of Testor's plastic cement, I use the liquid form for most assembly projects, but I thought the gel would keep the nozzle in place better while it dries.

Wash, rinse, and repeat for the other leg.

I also decided to thin out the blade a little on the beam saber, this is a comparison of the sanded one and a spare from an old 1/144 Wing Gundam.

And there we have it, all the parts are sanded and ready for painting and detailing.

Legs

Arms and Wings

And the main body

And the weapons

And the head and shield

First up, the gold details, I painted everything that is yellow (or supposed to be) in gold, I'm not sure why, but I feel gold works really well for the Gundams from the Wing series better than yellow.

Alright, all the gold details are painted!

Up next will be an entire post on something that has ALWAYS bugged me!

But until then: Happy Building!