Although I've been mostly focused on fantasy miniatures this year, when starter sets of the Gundam Trading Card Game began shipping earlier in the summer, I couldn't resist the opportunity to give the card game a go and get hold of some of the minis from the forthcoming Gundam Assemble a little bit early as well and I have to say that the miniatures (and the card game) have not disappointed.
Like most other plastic miniatures (and full size Gunpla kits), the Gundam Assemble kits come on sprues and are push fit assembly. Clean up of mould lines didn't take very long either and if you were so inclined, you could have them fully built and ready to use for gaming mere minutes after opening the packaging.
Although initially I wasn't sure about the design of the Principality of Zeon's mobile suits, they've really grown on me, so of the four Assemble sets available, I went for Zeon's Rush which contains one MS-06F 'commander suit' (distinguished by the 'horn-like' decoration on the head) and armed with armed with an M-120A1 machine gun and two MS-06F 'grunt suits', one armed with a heat hawk for melee combat and the other armed with a variant of the A2 MS Bazooka for ranged punch.
I think the sculptors at Bandai have done a brilliant job of balancing staying true to the designs of the mobile suits and ease of assembly, but in some cases the scaling down the designs from 1/144th scale has resulted in compromises - most notably on three I've painted up there is no gap between the cabling on the legs and the legs themselves. While I'm ok with this and it's nothing some careful painting won't hide, I felt it was worth pointing out because other kits may contain similar wee compromises as the miniatures range is expanded when the Assemble tabletop game is released next year.
NOTE - In the following sections, most paints are Citadel Colour, but a few are from the Two Thin Coats range as I'd picked a few up at the recent Inverness Comicon and wanted to test them out - I'll distinguish these by adding "TTC" to the names.
Painting the MS-06 S-Type
Full disclosure, I've not watched the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, being a relative latecomer to the fandom, but I knew I wanted to try and paint the S-Type suit in the custom red colour scheme used by Char Aznable in the One Year War. Prior to breaking out my paints and brushes, I stumbled across this video by The Esper Brush on YouTube which was incredibly helpful in planning out quite a few elements of the paint scheme, so I just wanted to give them a shout out for the brilliant tutorial they put together.
Char's custom colours consist of three shades of red: scarlet on the back pack casing, ruby red for the torso and skirt armour and pink for pretty much everything else.
For the scarlet of the backpack casing, I began with a basecoat of Mephiston Red which I shaded with Carroberg Crimson. Once the shade was completely dry, I feathered Mephiston Red back onto the armour plating, before picking out the hard edges with Evil Sunz Scarlet. I reinforced these initial highlights with some Wild Rider Red which was only used on the upper edges of the casing which would catch the most light before using Kislev Flesh as a pin highlight on the corners.
The ruby red of the torso and skirting was basecoated with Khorne Red before being shaded with Carroberg Crimson. Once the shade had dried, I cleaned up the plating by feathering some thinned Khorne Red back onto the flat areas, before highlighting all of the edges with Wazdakka Red. A second highlight of Squig Orange was used to pick out the uppermost edges of the plating which was rounded out with a pin highlight of Cadian Fleshtone.
For the pink, I started with a basecoat of TTC Punisher Pink*. This is a really vibrant colour, but it's a little wanting in terms of opacity, so it took somewhere between three and five thin layers to get a smooth basecoat, but I'm not going to hold that against it. Once I was happy with the basecoat, I mixed a glaze of Mephiston Red and Lahmian Medium and applied it over all of the pink areas. This was then reinforced with a more selective glaze of Khorne Red thinned with Lahmian Medium which was mainly focused on the lower areas of the model. From here, I feathered the pink back up a little using TTC Punisher Pink before picking out all of the edges of the various armour panels with Emperor's Children. A more refined highlight of Fulgrim Pink was then added to the areas that would naturally be brighter, before Pallid Wych Flesh was applied as a pin highlight to the corners of the panels.
*NOTE: After doing a few tests while working out the highlights for the pink, I can confirm that TCC Punisher Pink is a very good colour match for Citadel Pink Horror, so much so that the two are fairly indistinguishable from one another. I figure this might be useful for folks to know (and as a helpful aide memoir for future me)
Painting the MS-06 F-Types
The livery of the mass produced F-Type suits consists of two shades of green, a darker forest green on the torso and skirting and a brighter chartreuse over the rest of the armour.
The forest green was basecoated with Castellan Green before being shaded with Athonian Camo. With the shade fully dry, I layered up the armour plates with Castellan Green before using Straken Green to pick out all of the edges. Once I was happy with these highlights, I refined them with some Nurgle Green before adding pin highlights with Ionrach Skin.
For the chartreuse I began with a basecoat of Orruk Flesh which was glazed all over with a mix of Lupercal Green and Lahmian Medium. Once this first glaze was dry, I went back and deepened the shading in some of the areas which would be in shadow to create a more natural colour gradient across the armour, before I shaded all of the recesses using Coelia Green. Once I was happy with everything, I feathered Orruk Flesh back on to some of the uppermost areas of the armour panels before picking out all of the edges with Ogryn Camo. Fine highlights of Krieg Khaki were then applied to the edges that would catch the most light and then pin highlights were dotted in with Screaming Skull.
Common elements
Outside of the armour panels, all three mobile suits have a number of areas which were all painted the same way:
- The dark grey of the feet, knees, elbows, chest, hands and back pack thrusters were all based with TTC Death Reaper and then shaded with Nuln Oil. With the shade fully dried, TTC Death Reaper was then layered back in before initial highlights were painted with Eshin Grey and refined with Dawnstone. Finally, I used some Administratum Grey to add pin highlights.
- Meanwhile the blue-grey of the weaponry and the armoured joints was started out with a basecoat of TTC Cold Corpse Blue** before being shaded with Nuln Oil. I then lightly feathered TTC Cold Corpse Blue back on to these areas before using Thunderhawk Blue for the main highlights. A more refined pass of Fenrisian Grey helped to define the very brightest areas with final pin highlights being completed with Celestra Grey.
**NOTE: The Two Thin Coats conversion chart suggests that Cold Corpse Blue is the equivalent of Citadel's The Fang - it's actually a very close match to Dark Reaper though
- The slightly sinister 'mono-eyes' of all three suits were started with a basecoat of Trollslayer Orange which was shaded down with Fuegan Orange. A sliver of Trollslayer Orange was painted back into the lower right of the lenses, before a finer sliver of Fire Dragon Bright and an even finer sliver of Lugganath Orange were used as highlights. To help tie everything together a bit more smoothly, I thinned down some Fuegan Orange with Lahmian Medium and painted a light glaze over each eye lens, bringing the brush diagonally upwards from right to left so that the greatest concentration of pigment was in the upper left.
- The gun cameras of the M-120A1 machine gun and A2 MS Bazooka were both painted in the same way, beginning with a smooth basecoat of Abaddon Black across the whole lens. A crescent slightly thinned down Khorne Red was then painted around the lower right third of the camera lens, with a finer crescent of Wazdakka Red applied in the lower right of the first crescent and a very fine crescent of Squig Orange painted at the lower right edge of the previous one. To finish the camera lenses off, a fine dot of Pallid Wych Flesh was added to the upper left area to represent light being reflected from the armoured glass.
As more miniatures are released, I will probably retain these common elements across other Zeon suits to help tie them together despite the different colours of their armour plating.
The heat hawk
Across multiple Gundam universes, the heat hawk close combat weapon is described as using a superheated blade to cut through mobile suit armour, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a go at something I'd never tried before - painting a 'hot' weapon surface. To make sure I'd get a nice bright yellow, I began by basecoating the blade with a few thin layers of Corax White. Once I had a nice smooth off-white in place, I thinned some Yriel Yellow down a bit so it would flow nicely and built up a nice solid, bright yellow across the whole blade over several layers.
With this in place, I was ready to start playing with more colours, beginning with Trollslayer Orange which I used to pick our all of the edges of the axe blade. With that done, I mixed Lahmian Medium into Trollslayer Orange to create a glaze, which was painted around the edges of the blade until I was happy with the transition from yellow to orange. From here, the edges of the axe were picked back out, first with Wazdakka Red, then Gal Vorbak Red and finally with flecks of Rhinox Hide, with the darker colours focused towards the edges that were furthest away from where the axe blade joined the haft as I reasoned that's where the heating elements would be located, so that would be the hottest part of the weapon.
Now that the cooler areas of the blade were established, I took some Corax White and stippled in some 'hot spots' towards the middle of the flat areas of the blade. Once I was happy with where these were located, they were glazed down with Flash Gitz Yellow so that the colour transition wasn't as stark. While applying the glaze I had caught some of the darker edges I'd painted earlier, so I reapplied some flecks of Rhinox Hide where this had happened to darken things back down again.
Markings
Although the mobile suits in the early Gundam series didn't have markings applied to them, I wanted to add some appropriate insignia to mine to finish them off and make them look a little bit more 'realistic'. Thankfully, it only took a little research before I found the "Bandai Gundam Decal GD-29 1/144 HGUC Multiuse Zeon MS Decal Set #2" which had both Zeon crests and unit numbers which would work at the scale of the miniatures for just a few quid, which was perfect.
The decals are great quality, although the backing film is a little thick, so when applying them, I used a couple of generous applications of Microsol to help bed them down and I'd recommend doing the same if you pick some up - in combination with gloss and matt varnish, the frustration of frosting has been completely avoided.
I've really enjoyed working on this wee project and I'm really pleased with the results I've been able to get from pushing myself a little bit harder on painting quality and on trying a couple of things out that I've not done before. It'll be great to see which other mobile suits are added to the range in future, both from the Principality of Zeon and from other factions too - I've been really enjoying watching the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury series as well as building the 1/144th scale kits of the suits from the anime, so hopefully some of those make an appearance in Assemble down the line.
In the meantime though, I'm not sure what's up next, but it might be something with a little less edge highlighting to help give my elbows a rest! As always, thanks for reading and happy hobbying.
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