I have a pretty bad habit of saving the kits of all my favourite designs until I feel like I’m absolutely ready for them and have some back materials in-case I mess things up. Part of why I never built the Freedom was the lack of readily available Bandai decals for them. You do get a sheet if you buy either the weapon effects set or the Providence Special Edition (which I had), but it wasn’t until the excellent 3rd party Delpidecal appeared that I finally felt I had that safety net to fall back on.
Being dead smack of the Australian winter it was a bit of a risk for me to start building this kit now, but being stuck in quarantine I felt like it was pretty much now or never. Having finished it now I remember why I hate building Gunpla in the middle of this season, not only do I have to paint in my garage where it’s pretty chilly, but there seems to be more mistakes in everything I do from the painting and especially in applying decals. It’s been a while since I last used anything Delpidecals and my first attempts at placing the large “Aeroplastic Wing” decals reuslted in quite alot of silvering, requiring me to borrow a spare decal sheet from my colleague Mild Customs. After some experimentation I found that I using hot water and only dipping the decal briefly instead of submerging it for an extended time resulted in much better results. I also found that a super heavy gloss coat on top can also kind of help blend it in even further.
This kit is also somewhat notorious for the hip joints breaking, so I acquired some metal replacement parts. These however were a bit loose and I had to tighten them with some super glue before they could hold the weight of the wings. Speaking of which, the kit can just barely stand, as long as you tilt the whole body forward.
Painting
White – Mr Color 306 Grey FS (???) base coat, Mr Color GX Cool White is used for shading/highlight effect
Blue – Mr Cobor Cobalt Blue (90%) + Purple (10%). White added for shading effect. I was quite worried about this mix since Cobalt Blue has a somewhat flourescent effect and can be overpowering if used on a suit that has alot of blue on it. The blue also looks different under daylight when compared to in my photobooth, but in the end I quite like how it turned out.
Dark Blue – Mr Color Russian Aircraft Blue 2 + Mr Color Blue FS 15044. The Russian Aircraft Blue is a dark almost purplish/reddish blue, and the FS 15044 is a dark navy-ish colour. This was the same kind of mix that I used for the FAZZ backpack.
Red – Mr Color Shine Red, yellow + white added for shading effect.
Yellow – Base coat Mr Color Orange (100%), followed by starter white technique, then Mr Color GX Yellow (30%) + Mr Color Orange Yellow (70%) mist coat. White and yellow added for further hightlights.
Blue Grey – Mr Color 306 Grey FS (97%) + Purple (3%). White added for shading effect
number of color please？