I used to buy kits on impulse or I had grandiose plans of what subjects to model. Reality has struck though. I have more kits than I can ever hope to build and finish. So I have decided to sell some of my kits. I'm pricing them to move since my priority is to get them out of my house hehe...

OK... I'm done with the decals. But I didn't put too many anyways. Too much would have been overkill.

The decal on the shield is silvering abit. Damn cheapass decal sheet. Oh well. Hopefully another layer of gloss coat will reduce the silvering effect. Which I can't get to right now since it just stopped raining and it's super humid right now. Big no no for doing gloass coating.

Christ... I'm cutting the deadline so close. Ok... I'm done painting all the primary parts. I've also gloss coated all the parts which means I can start detailing tomorrow. I'm probably gonna do some simple panel lining and some decals and that's it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Let's hope nothing pops up to distract me.

The Singapore Gundam SEED Destiny Model Kit Challenge 2006 is here. This time, the sponsor has given a 2 month time limit to submit our works. Any additional time for me is good considering how damn slowly I work. So I've decided that, by hook or by crook, I'll submit an entry this time. And here's what I intend to submit, the 1/100 Destiny Gundam.

After initial assembly, I've been playing around with it and I realize while it's pretty poseable, it can't really do cool poses without heavy modifications, which is something I want to avoid. I haven't made up my mind, but I'm leaning towards Pose A although it's a pretty common pose for the Destiny Gundam.

Oh man... he's out early! Please welcome my bundle of joy!

Name: Matthew
Length: 51cm
Weight: 3.4kg
Rollout date: March 18, 2006 @ 7.38am

I'm still a bit 'bewildered' about being a dad to be frank but at this point, I can't imagine him not being around. A long and winding road ahead to be sure. But what the heck, it's gonna be a hella ride!

All the main colors are done. I would safely say 80% is done as of the end of today. I should be able to finish everything by the end of the week. Here's hoping.

To 'meld' the camo better, I decided to lightly sand the camo with a 4000 grit sandpaper. It does look better. At least, the paintjob looks more even now. Hahaha!

Right. Painting starts. I'm too much of a preshade slut so it's no different for this kit. What's different this time is that I'm trying to avoid using black for all my preshade. For the main body which is a desert sand color, I'm using a dark brown as a preshade. To be honest, I'm not sure whether it will work or not since it kinda didn't for my last project, the PGM.

For the two thrusters, I use a preshade of black with both gunmetal and silver for the main colors. The interiors of the thrusters are first colored in red. Then I add it a gob of blutack before spraying the outside colors. Saves a lot of time in masking.

I decided to handpaint the Flecktarn camo pattern onto the kit. It just seemed easier that way. I also decided to reduce the original's 5 colors into 4. [A] First a preshade of black then a light green/grey for the fill color. [B] The orange brown and the dark green come next. [C] And lastly is the dark grey.

The end result looks nothing like Flecktarn. Darn (hey it rhymes!). For one thing, the patterns I did are more patches than the dots that make Flectarn unique. I think the pattern also lost some 'impression' with the reduction of one color.

Being handbrushed, the camo itself is also very rough to the touch. I'm letting the paint cure for the night in an air-conditioned room and I plan to lightly sand the surface. Hopefully it'll do more than just smoothen the surface. :P

Given another go, I'd definitely take more time to do the camo properly. But Project WOOB's deadline is coming up real soon so I better just quickly finish this.

OK... after 3 straight days of puttying and sanding, I'm finally done and am ready to begin painting the darn thing. Man... I really need to brush up on my construction skills. It will seriously reduce the amount of time I spend on this stage.

I dipped the visor into Future to get a super-gloss (although I must say since it's so small the effect isn't as effective as I'd hoped) and masked it carefully.

Painting's next and I plan to do something new... we'll see how that turns out.

I did some initial sanding on the obvious seamlines. Then a quick primer coat to spot the minor gaps and seamlines. These gaps are then given a coat of putty and left to completely dry for about half a day. More sanding is done to even out the putty and ANOTHER coat of primer is put on the kit to make sure all the gaps are accounted for. Unfortunately, being the careless modeler I am, there ARE a ton of gaps to fix. Crap. Lucky for me I use a cheap-ass can of primer I got from a hardware shop.

Two things stand out from the build so far that'll be a challenge. One, how the heck do I paint the round vents on the shield properly? Masking something round is gonna be difficult. The other is the front skirt. Normally, I'll figure out a way to cut the skirt in the center so each side can flip independantly. I can't do that for this kit (per the WOOB rules) since in order to make it work, I'll need to add stuff to it and that's no go... I guess I'll just keep it as is.

OK... project is gearing up since the deadline is coming up fast (it's end of March). I decided to sand away the EFSF logo on the shield and replace it with a proper decal. Painting it would have been a pain in the ass. I haven't decided but I might not even put an EFSF logo on the shield at all.

Since this is a strictly Out of the Box build, I'm not allowed any modifications and much added details so I've decided to come up with a nice color scheme to make it stand out.

Looking around real-life units, I found the German Flecktarn to be an interesting scheme to try out. Flecktarn comprises of black, dark green, grey-green and rust-red clumps and spots on a light green background. It should be easy to pull off with a 1/144 scaled model.

And now, the sanding and covering of seamlines continue...