Icarus's blog: "Somantics"

Go ahead and ask me.
I have NO idea what I did today.

Uuuh...

Disassembling my Zaku I took about 5 seconds.
Snapping the left hip joint off...

Oh my FUCKING god... *sigh*
Really pissed about that.
Damn thing was way too firm fitting, and just like a dozey episode of genshiken, the damn thing just clicked and fell off when I forced the issue.

I didn't cry.
I'm surprised that I didn't.

Then I masked every freaking contact point on my kit while the hip joint's super glue set.

It's ready to paint...
Kinda.
I need about ... a dozen more clips and more skewers.

I think I'll be happy if I get primer down on all the parts.

I isolated all the unique parts (center)

all the left side parts
all the right side parts
all the internal parts (the skeleton of the torso) (not being painted)
all the head parts

The head and hands are going to be the most complicated
though

due to the unique nature of the shins, I decided to mask the knees rather than remove them

but back to the head

Alright, the head consists of
2 small rubber joints
1  mouth vent
2 Jaw/skull panels
1 top/crown piece
and about 30 internal pieces for the eye and internal frame
1 clear visor.

Okay... the eye isn't THAT complicated, but it does consist of 3 interlocking gear parts (so you can turn the eye) 2 parts for the housing of the eye, the clear lens, and the small thing the lens connects to on the gears.

Rather than fucking with ALL of this, I removed it.
Think of the jaw/skull panels as skin they will be painted.

and this set aside part as an intact skull with eye and eyelid.

These parts aren't being painted.

Don't ever let me talk myself into painting the internals of any head.
Ever.

Then there's the hands.
Oh boy... oh boy
the hands.

The hands consist of
1 index finger
1 thumb
1 3-fingers piece
2 palm housing halves.

The way these assemble (and this is the old generation of MG's mind you) is you place the thumb in a trench on one half of the palm, you insert the index finger next in a tiny TINY fucking pinhead dot on the three finger piece, you set the index finger on the palm half with the thumb trench, and then you fit the second palm-half and seal the fist.
The fingers move, the thumb can rotate on a full ball joint, the pointer can move independently.
Yay!
...

do you realise how many times I've dropped fingers, lost fingers, rocketed them off when cutting them or housing them in their sockets?

I fucking HATE
HATE
HATE!

Hands.

And I realised the only way I'm going to get these hands done will be to disassemble, isolate, and paint individually.

That means one of the kits SMALLEST pieces has to be seperated, and individually mounted and painted.
I need wall-tack.

And a human sacrifice.

The second generation fingers... if they're not individual, with one joint each, they're pointer, threes and thumb.
With individual sockets.

Granted that's a BIG plus on poseability, but ... those sockets like to rocket. And that's 2 teeny parts where once there was 1 tiny.

My Gyan launched one finger about 10 times.
Nearly lost my god damn mind.

I really shouldn't be doing this without deciding on a color scheme huh?

*shrug*

There's no real timeline on this. And if its primed. Its primed.
I could paint this in a year if I wanted to, just now all the prep is done.

So... yeah.
Need a gun design.
I may or may not use my shield with this kit.
It'll depend on the HUGENESS of the gun.

I'm leaning towards not.
... Damn I have no gray.

And I have no idea what will happen if I mix my shiny black and my white primer.