[WIP] RG Unicorn LED mod WIP3

So I was done working on my RG Unicorn but I didn't like displaying it as is. I wanted to be able to present it neatly when I display it. So I decided to work on a display base for this.

My previous wiring design had the connectors at the crotch area of the kit. this is good for displaying the kit with an action base. But for standing poses, the wires are obvious and sometimes a sore to the overall presentation of the kit. Also having the power bank lying beside the kit doesn't look too presentable.

1st thing that I worked on was the power supply for the kit. I had an extra power bank lying around so I just tore it apart to make it as small as possible. 20000mah is a bit of an overkill for this kind of project. :P

I tried tested running the kit for at least 2 days straight and it didn't even drain 1/4 the power bank's capacity. 

On to the kit itself.

Next thing I worked on was replacing the power connectors from the crotch area to one of the feet. I just cut off the connectors from the crotch area and hid the wires in the waist area. I then disassembled on of the feet and soldered a new pair of wires to one of the LEDs in the foot.

For the base, I used a wall clock that looks good with the kit and fit the power bank I used.

I replaced the front glass with 1mm plaplate since I can't drill on glass without risking breaking it. I just cut a hole where the feet would be placed and passed the wire through. Then I just taped the power bank in side the base so I can still remove it easily whenever I need to.

Now it looks much more presentable. And since it has no wires showing, turning it on looks more awesome. :D

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[WIP] RG Unicorn LED mod WIP2

Picking up where we left off, I've already finished building and modding the lower half of the kit. So now its time to continue.

One major difference of this kit with it's MG or PG counterparts is its head transformation gimmick. Good thing there's still plenty of room to put the LED. Again, modding this area will mean that the transformation gimmick will be sacrificed.

Next that I worked on was the backpack. Like the MG kit, it also has plenty of space for LED and wiring. I didn't bother to adding LEDs to the thrusters since it would require a lot of work, smalled LEDs that I currently don't have, and the light from the LEDs shine through the thrusters anyway.

Next that I worked on was the chest area of the kit. The hard part about this area is that this is where wires from other areas pass through. So I had to take into consideration all the sections as I build this. What I did is I passed the wires through the chest first before putting the armor pieces.Good thing there's just enough space to pass the wires through.

Last part for this build was the arms. I think the forearms was the hardest part of this project. There was just no space there to pass the wires through, plus the pieces are designed to lock into each other, assembling only in a certain order. To address the issue, I made grooves on the pegs so that they can still be inserted even with the wire in place.

 The elbow joints was also another headache, which was solved by scribing a groove onto the joint to make some space.

Once everything is done and assembled, I did a little bit of detailing and marked the panel lines. It really brought out the RG details of this kit.

Considering the 2 week deadline, I'm really satisfied with the result of this project. Some areas can still be improved with enough planning though. 

The panel lines really broke the plain design of the kit so I'm still considering whether to some decals to it.

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[WIP] RG Unicorn LED mod WIP1

Been a while since I did a WIP post. So here's one.

So the RG Unicorn that I ordered finally came 2 weeks ago. And I was actually saving this until after a local group event I was co-organizing. I should have tucked it away instead of keeping it on top of my workbench but the excitement got the best of me, hence this WIP post.

I wanted to finish it in time for the event so I decided not to paint it. I lost most, of my "preview" pics but most of the armor pieces are under-gated. So I'm expecting a lot ov variation of this kit to be released some time in the future.

Since this will be the first time I'll be building this, I decided to do the LED mods as I build the kit.

Following the manual, I started working on the feet. As soon as I started working on this kit, the build process felt familiar. It's as if I'm building an MG Unicorn kit. Of course there are some design variations but the basic build process is almost the same.

Even the legs' build process closely resembles the MG version. Mod wise, the leg area has plenty of space to accommodate the wiring. Unfortunately, there isn't enough space to keep the transformation gimmick. Either I keep it in Unicorn mode or NT-D mode. I decided to display this in its NT-D mode. 

 One of the hardest section of the kit was the upper thigh area where the psychoframe wraps around the thigh area. I had to use 4 LEDs there, one on each side for proper illumination.

Next up was the waist area. Pretty straightforward here. I'm utilizing the areas designed for the transformation gimmick as much as I can to help hide the wiring. Again plenty of space around these parts to work through the wiring.

I guess I'll stop here for now to give myself some rest. Considering this has a 2 week build deadline, I can say that I'm quite on schedule with the current status of the kit. Not bad for working 2-3 hours on this kit per day.

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[RANDOM] Toy Photographer Wannabe

Been down with some cough and colds this past week. Literally slept the whole weekend off so I didn't get to work on anything. 

Now I'm feeling a bit better but still not up to going back to sniffing paint or soldering lead. So instead I tried to do some toy photography with my kits.

Damn... Cameras really do add 10 lbs. :P

The setup. Don't have any fancy equipment. But my laptop hooked to my tv for the background works just as well. Also I can easily change backgrounds as fast as my internet loads them. :P Also I'm using just my phone, a Samsung S6 as the camera, set to auto. :P The kits I used here are the RG Sinanju ans HG Unicorn Destroy Mode.

Those are some of the best shots I got. It's was hard to get a good shot of the Sinanju specially when I want to focus on its thrusters (because whats the point of lighting them up if they're not shown right :P). 

The shots are not edited in any way, just cropped and trimmed the edges. I don't like editing my pics. 

This is the inspiration for this photoshoot. This is a scene from both the OVA and the series. Episode 2 in the OVA and Episode 5 in the series.

Close enough.

The RG Sinanju's waist was really weak making posing difficult. The HG Unicorn was a tight build so posing wasn't an issue but as can be seen in the pics there are already areas where the LEDs stopped working. I might have broken a connection somewhere. Unfortunately, it's really hard to troubleshoot these kinds of issues once the kit was already fully assembled. Overall it was a very satisfying experience since I was able to get good shots. I'll have to do this more often.

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[WIP] HG Unicorn Gundam (Unicorn Mode) WIP 3

It's been 10 months since I last worked on this. I've put this project on hold for quite a few reasons. 

1.) This project required some painting to deal with the light bleeding and to make the kit look better.

2.) I didn't have the right size of LED I wanted to use.

3.) I haven't worked out a plan how to pace and wire the LED.

Obviously, there has been some improvements with this project hence the update.

After working on so many other kits, I think I've thought of a way how to light the kit. 

For the head part, I'm using 0603 SMD LEDs. These are white LEDs and I just painted them with clear paints to get the color I need. Here I used Tamiya clear green. The number of coats depend on how intense the required color.

The chest part was one of the easiest part to do since it just needed minimal cutting to make space inside. I used 3528 SMD LED here because the I need to light up a big bit of seam here. The consequence here would be the ugly light bleeding which would be fixed by painting.

Next thing I worked on would be one of the hardest parts of the project, the legs. I had to do multiple trials to get the appropriate LED positions to get the lighting I wanted.

So far the pieces look a bit dirty due to the black paints I put on the insides to deal with the light bleeding. This will still be cleaned up and painted. Hopefully by the next blog update I've finished wiring the whole kit so this project can proceed to the painting phase. I'm still unable to do paint sessions due to busy work-life stuff so I might have to commission the painting for this.

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