#0080

MS-18E Kämpfer

Oil on canvas

Initially I was quite disappointed with the use of colour correcting stickers and lack of colour detail overall, since not even all the stickers allow it to be fully colour accurate. That's when I decided that I'll take the plunge to paint the details in myself, and I can absolutely recommend doing this if you want to take your model kits to the next level! It's very satisfying work and the sense of pride you get once you're done painting is fantastic. I decided to panel line the pieces as I built the kit for this, so I don't have a pure out of box picture for it, but I think the glow-up between building and painting it will make up for that! Here it is out of the box, with just panel lining done on it:

The kit itself is nothing to write home about. It's an old kit, and you can definitely feel it's age. The articulation is nothing special, the way the joints hold together can be quite loose and the shield loves to fall off of the arm. I think it holds up well enough to get it if you really like the Alex, but I don't think there's anything really here for you if you don't have the sentimental value going for it. The included armour pieces for it look pretty cool though:

But enough of that, here's what you all came for, the finished product:

I'm really really happy with how this turned out! I learned a lot about effective painting techniques while doing this and I'm excited to do more painting! In case you end up missing some of the details, I painted all of the verniers throughout the mobile suit, so on the shoulders, waist, chest and legs. I also painted in the details for the eyes using a metallic green, as well as the green sensors above the head and behind it. I also painted the venting and vulcan machine guns on the sides of the head with a dark gray. Lastly, I painted the tops of the knee armour with red.

One thing I can recommend if you are planning on doing any painting is to do it after panel lining kits, and to use acrylic paints if you are hand painting like me. The panel liner I use (gundam pour type markers) aren't water soluble, which means that cleaning up any excess paint is made very easy if you just dip a q-tip into some water.