[WIP] HG Unicorn Gundam [Destroy Mode] WIP 1

Since most of my projects only require a few minor touch ups or just plain photo ops, I think it’s time to work on something else.

I recently got a well painted Bandai HG unicorn gundam Destroy Mode for cheap. I'm still having trouble making time for painting sessions so for now, I'm just looking for well painted kits to buy. That way, I wouldn't have to worry about painting my kits and I get them cheap. Though this setup limits my options to what's the original owners paint scheme is. I'm more of a "default/original" kind of collector. Meaning I like my collection as how they appear in the anime/manga. I like the original colors and configurations of my Gunpla and I'm not much into custom or kitbash builds.

Anyway, another factor that made me buy this kit was that the kit was not glued so I can still disassemble it to do my work. I have forgotten how many HG Unicorns I've worked on (I actually still have an HG Unicorn UM in my WIP pile. :P). But after gaining some experience with my past projects, I think this will go a bit differently. 

Since I'm only able to work on this for short periods of time, I decided to work on smaller pieces at a time, not following any particular section of the kit, depending on the time I have at that moment.

For now here's what I've already worked on so far this past week. I've had around 1-2 hours of WIP time a day for this.

Unfortunately the head was already glued so disassembling this was out of the question. Luckily the "inner frame" of the head was a clear piece so all I need is to put the LED as close to the clear piece and the light should reflect throughout the head. I decided to glue the LED to the ball joint in the neck so as too retain the articulation of the head. the LED is placed slightly forward pointing towards the eye area of the head for maximum illumination.

Next area that I worked on was the shoulder areas. The 0603 SMD LEDs were small enough to fit in areas I wasn't able to work on before. Here I was able to light the shoulders with minimal modding. And the best part is that articulation is not affected.

I was also able to work on the lower leg and rear skirt verniers. Again, the size of the 0603 SMD LEDs proved to be very helpful in lighting up this kinds of areas. Before, I used 3mm LEDs to light up the verniers which required lots of modding. but now I can directly drill a hole in the existing peg to pass the wires and the LED could just sit inside the vernier.

I also finished working on the feet areas. For the feet, I used 3528 SMD LEDs. They're quite bigger then the 0603 LEDs but I find the 3528 to fit perfectly in the space in the feet. I also put some terminal pins under the feet. Those will be used as power supply connectors whenever I want to display the kit in a standing pose so the wires are hidden. Aside from the feet, I'll be putting another connector in the crotch area for display base use.

The last part that I've already worked on was the backpack. Aside from the psycho frame, I also had to light up 4 verniers. For the verniers, I used 0603 SMD LEDs, but for the psycho frame, 3528 SMD LEDs was used. So far this section had the most mod done to it. For the verniers, like the other verniers, was just drilling a hole through the pegs and gluing the LED inside the vernier. For the psycho frame, I had to cut off the pegs and remove some plastic inside so that the LEDs could be positions properly.