For the most part of the painting of this kit, it’s been a case of masking, masking and more masking! For the blue pieces, I undercoated with Alclad white because that is the colour I wanted to reveal when the mask was removed, and it also makes the blue I was going to put on top come out nice and bright.So rather than take umpteen pictures of pieces covered in masking tape, we’re now seeing the mostly complete model. Being a High Grade, there’s not the greatest level of detail, but some of the parts, like these thrusters are quite nice. I painted them with Alclad polished aluminium over a base coat of Alclad gloss black primer.  You can see here where I’ve followed the theme through from the upper part where the kit has separate white trapezoidal pieces. These trapezoidal designs on the “legs” are all just blue plastic, so I carefully masked them to allow them to come through in white. The pop-out wings were undercoated with Alclad grey primer, masked and then painted with the Alclad white primer. Removing the masking brings the grey through without resorting to stickers.Similarly on the main body of the wings, rather than add white stickers, I masked and allowed the white undercoat to come through. Around white sections I panel lined in black. On blue sections I panel lined in white. I liked the panel line detail on these top sections so I masked them to leave them white giving a nice contrast edge for the pop-up thrusters. I also used my pin vice to make small holes to allow me to add the small metal parts. I thought this section of the kit a bit plain and needed spicing up.  The kit is actually quite a size when complete – a bit bigger than the Armored Messiah I just completed. I’m really pleased I added more white details via the masking otherwise the relatively low level of detail on the kit wouldn’t look that good at this size.

I’ve ordered some laser water-slide paper to try making some custom decals for this kit. Again, I think that will add some well needed extra detail. While I wait for that to arrive in the post, I guess it’s RG Exia next!