After 7 months , I finally got the main ship done (still working on those tiny Cosmo Tiger II and Cosmo Falcons. I will add photos later) . It actually took me a month and a half to decide the colour scheme of the model. I personally don't agree with the colour scheme they employed in the OVA. Dark naval blue will diminish all panel lines. At first , I didn't like having Yamato colour scheme on Andromeda, not only it is harder to paint the red on this ship, having a Yamato colour scheme also takes away the differentiations between Andromeda and Yamato.
My next project will either be the Figure-Rise SSGSS Vegetto or 1/100 EX-S Gundam. With the very "relaxing" speed I make models, the latter will probably take me the rest of the year to complete, good grief~~~~~~
This is a bit of 豆知識 (trivia). Do you know why ships are painted red at and below the waterline?
Several reasons :
1) The red paint contains cuprous oxide (or some copper compounds) which will impede the growth of sea organisms or barnacles on the bottom of the ship. If the population of these organisms is large , they cause drag and the ship spends more fuel. In modern days, Teflon or silicone based coating is used because cuprous oxide is a nerotoxin, harmful to marine life.
2) When the ship is capsized , the red gives a better contrast to the darker colour of sea water.
3) It provides the loading condition of the ship. For example, if one sees the red waterline at the back but not the front of the ship, the ship is loaded more heavily in the front.
...but are these applicable to space ships???
The model is not glued , so the gaps between parts are not sealed. I intentionally allow the ship to be taken apart, so that I could remove the lighting unit if desired. It is because the way Bandai designed the kit , you can not remove the ship from its stand while having the lighting unit installed , the ribbon cable between the power (and sound unit) and lighting unit will dangle out of the bottom of the ship. If you are skilled with the soldering iron , you can always cut the ribbon cable and make new connector arrangements to the electronics so that the ship collect to the power/sound unit at the top of the stand at where the ship is collecting to the display stand. You need to get two connectors (male and female connectors) at some electronics stores for that. You have to make sure the wire connection to each pin in the male connector correspond to the correct wire/pin in the female connector. The male/female connectors must be aligned when the ship sits on the display stand. If you are not familiar with electronics , this is a lot of work and could be disastrous if it is not done correctly. I don't understand why Bandai did not use the same connection arrangement as in the old 1/700 Andromeda kit (1980) .
For the above mentioned reason, I did not apply all decals to the ship; also I do not want to overwhelmed the ship with decals.
Like the purple.
I like to leave those red clear parts unpainted except painting the panel lines. I might add some LEDs to light up those parts using some battery-resistor-LED arrangements.
The wave motion cannon exhibits different shades of colour at different stages of the firing sequence.
The 重子力スプレード (Gravity Spread) panels are removeable to that I could replace them with regular panels if desired.
I never like this "quasi" Quaduple Wave Motion Cannon design (beam splitter ?? ) or purposely designed for Bandai , so that they can resell the model kit as new with minimum modifications in old parts
Personally , I never understand why it has to be a duel Wave Motion Cannon design when you can have a more powerful design by having a much large "firing" opening or simply having the same sized opening but say it is a "Transit Wave Motion Cannon" or similar type . Bandai will love that, re-using diecast moulds!
From this angle , it really looks like there are four Wave Motion Cannons.
I made the "beam splitters" for 1/1000 Andromeda AAA-0001-2202 in last November (2018) BEFORE the release this Andromeda kit. The beam splitters are not merely two pieces of plastic but there are some mechanical details on them. In retrospect, I was surprised to have guessed correctly on the mechanical details on the beam splitters. The beam splitters are removeable so that I can return AAA-0001-2202 to its original duel Wave Motion Cannon version.
No comments:
Post a Comment