2S19 Msta-S during RAE 2013

Good day to you people. Hope you readers having a good day and all are good. 

As you all aware, I'm building a fleet of SPG and this is my sixth on the line after the Dana, Type 99, Pzh2000, AuF1 and the K9. The seventh and last will be the AS-90.

This beautiful baby is actually a gift from a friend. My most heart felt gratitude to my friend Paul Bicar who spent alot of money for this kit (£59.99 is not cheap ).

The kit is one of the Trumpeter's Early 2014 offering and the only kit in the plastic. I don't know the exact number of parts for the kit but the kit has over a 1000 pars including the tracks which the length and teeth are moulded separately. There are a total of 18 sprues and a lower hull, a upper hull and a  turret. Two piece of large photo etch fret are provided for the add on details. A long metal wire is provided to make to two smaller cables. The Barrel is in two halves but it looks beautiful and just a bit of extra care is needed. All the parts are moulded exquisitely, devoid of any flash and the details just stunning. Aftermarket upgrade sets are yet to be released for this beautiful lady but nothing would be needed. From the body to the tracks, it's a wonderful kit and worth every bit of penny. Very little cleanup is needed. Only a very small amount of filling is needed; by my count, only 4 places needed filling.   

The kit was painted with 2 colours from Vallejo Model Air and 2 Tamiya colours. I used Light Brown and Sand (Ivory) from Vallejo Model Air and Hull Red and Nato Green from Tamiya. The colour scheme is from the RAE 2013. I have wanted to paint it like this since last year but I don't know the colours until I managed to get the MENG terminator in my hands. There is a call out guide for the RAE 2013 show for the terminator so I jumped at the chance to apply that scheme on this. The amount of references I have are very limited and I can only find the pattern for the sides. I couldn't find any photos with the top view so I just winged the patterns on top of the turret and the hull. 

For weathering, I did it completely new and fresh without even a drop of pin wash but I had to dirty up the running gears a bit as these vehicles were shown going around the demonstration field during the RAE 2013. I also dirtied up the gun as the references photos show them as dirty with smoke stains. The same went for the exhaust. 

The build was really enjoyable. I made a full account of the W.I.P in the previous posts and you are welcome to look over at them if you are curious about how well the kit goes together. Actually, let me make a list here for the Work in Progress posts -

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
Part 4

Well, that's about as much I can sum up about the build. The exact steps can be found in the 4-part W.I.P. 

I'm vary satisfied with what I did, albeit it could look better but still, I'm happy.

It's time for the photos - 

(If you think some are small, just click on them ) 

The running gears -

 

Some close ups of the sights -

And the lights -

And the machine gun -

The smoke stains -

And as usual, my show case photos from various angles -

And as usual from me, the Gary Wintin Shot  -

Well, that's all I can say about this. As you all know, my patience is my bane so the usual hiccups are met but nothing I can complain. I could have done a better jobs on colouring the periscopes, some of the P.E works and also on some of the over- and under-sprays but at least it is presentable. All in all, this was a very enjoyable build apart from those hiccups but still, I am more than proud to have this on my shelf.

I couldn't keep building if not for my supporting friends and comrades. Thank you guys for always supporting me. Thank you dear readers for your patronage as well.

Until Next time.

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Closing days of the Bloody Valentine War: NG Providence Ver. Hummingbird

Hello all. Much to everybody's surprises, the Hummingbird has another finished gunpla kit to show off. This is a kit that has take me 1 year in the making.

As you all know, I have been building so many AFVs and weathering a lot of them and I wanted to put the same skills I acquired from going back into my root modelling back into gunpla

I considered a lot of camo scheme but Pawel/Mr.Zinc suggest no camo so scratching my head, I decided to go for a grey based scheme much like the original one, albeit taking off the bright red parts and lighter blue ones. 

For the colours, I used Nato Black, Dark Grey, IJN Arsenal Grey(Kure shipyard), Royal Blue which are all Tamiya and for the little green parts, I used Mr. Hobby Aqueons H303. The metallic are painted in Vallejo Model Air Steel and Brass. 

I did not do any big modifications but I have done a lot of small ones. These include; extending the waist, extending the thighs, changing the gun, making a double jointed MG elbow, putting on the big side-thrusters on the outside of the shins and making the shoulder armour separate pieces ( I'm sure you are aware of how the HG and NG shoulders are made )

I did make a full build log for 3 parts but I stopped midway but anyway, you can still check out the 3 blog posts that I have done -
Part 1
Part 2 
Part 3 
These 3 parts are basically for all the mods I have done so I guess it's not too bad. 

The weathering is made to depict the Providence in the closing days and hours of the Bloody Valentine War when and where the heaviest of fighting happened with too much debris flying around and the high level of action demanded only necessary maintenance thus leaving the surface dirty and un-maintained.

The Chippings were done in two colours, an underlying chips of primer red colour which I sponged on using AMMO '' Chipping '' and on top of it I brushed on Vallejo Air '' Steel '' to show the bare metal chippings. The entire suit has been pin-washed rather than only panel-lined with a thin down Burnt Umber Oil colour. MIG production black smoke was applied to every gun opening on the funnels and all the vents on the suit. I finished all the weathering by applying some oil rendering using a various combinations of grey shade mixed with black and white oil paints to add some chromatic richness and some fading. 

Here's the all around view -

and here's some of the close up -

 

Per the norm from me, here's a number of poses -

 

I am my own harshest critique and there are some aspect of it that I could have done better. I did get rid of the seams on the guns but it wasn't enough. I can still see a little bit of seam on some places on the gun. Another one is that I may have over done the chipping. I wasn't happy about that but two friends with great skills, Marc/Decay and Chris/BigZ, said that the chippings were not overdone but only rather placed too evenly but assured me that they look presentable and the technique is sound. Who am I to argue with two great builders... but still, I am not entirely happy about it. I could have done a better job with the oil paint rendering but I was running on fumes by the time I got that stage so it didn't come out as obvious as I have hoped. I could have done it better. 

There may have been some mistake ( big or small ) that I made but still  this is a little bit better then how I usually paint Gunpla... LOL ( I suck at painting in gunpla). Even with the flaws, I am happy to see this came out like this.

My sincerest thanks to these people for the continued support on my gunpla works and pushing me to finish this -
Simon Curry, Darren Ling , Derick Siu , Pawel Zynk, Marc Mayer, Chriz Z, Fransiska, Thanos and Paul Bicar. 

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