I Love Gold!

I've been playing too much Starcraft 2 and L4D2 lately. Too much, that I haven't had time to finish my remaining kits: the MG Strike Freedom and the MG RX78-2 v2.0.

After the MG Freedom, I think it's only right that the next kit I build is the MS that replaced it: the golden-framed Strike Freedom.
I've completed the frame and the white armor parts so here are pics on my progress so far.



First of all, I think I need a macro lens to take better pics of these.

Anyway, the manual shows the Strike Freedom's frame being composed of mostly gold with silver accents here and there, which I decided not to follow. One of the main distinguishing features of the Strike Freedom is that its internal frame is made out of gold.
So instead, I decided to use gold as a base, topcoated it with clear yellow, then painted on gold and brass for the details. Hence, I have 3 shades of goldish colors to work with.

The 1st pic at the start of this article is of the leg. I find it a bit disappointing since it's way less detailed than the leg from the MG Destiny.

Here's the arm and the ankle. Near the wrist of the arm, you should see the brass and gold highlights.
The ankle part has more of these.

Two-sectioned feet. The thruster (or at least I think it's a thruster) of the front part, I used gold and brass again. I just used gold for the thruster at the heel.

The hip's 3-toned scheme isn't as noticeable I suppose.
For the wing frame, I simply used masking tape for the thruster part that will peek at the back of the wings. Basically, my theme is that if it peeks out of the armor, it will be plain gold (as opposed to clear-yellow-covered-gold) and any further accents will be brass.

The collar "bone" and the left part of the chest. Again, masking tape was used to prevent the clear yellow from affecting the vents.

Here are the funnels! For the barrel of the beam cannon, I painted it in red just to give it a distinguishing color. It's similar thinking what I did for the Qubeley's thruster (which I don't have a clear pic of). I was actually tempted to paint it in different colors since the Strike Freedom's blasts are quite colorful.

I also got the idea from the PG Strike Freedom to give gold accents to the funnel. Annoyingly, the PG Strike Freedom uses stickers for the gold. Here, I painted gold on the middle recess and on the thrusters of the funnel.
I was actually thinking of painting the inside of the funnel gold but decided not to in the end. For one thing, this isn't the Full Burst so the funnels are usually stuck on the Strike Freedom's wings.

Here's the thrusters on the shoulders that I decided to paint gold in following the manual's art.

And finally, here's some gold accents on the ankle guard that I again copied off the manual.
I also decided to paint the vents on the back of the head in gold, since the vents on the front will be gold (it's a separate piece from the same runner as the frame).

Metallic blue i used for the forehead and back-of-the-head sensors, which is the same one that I used for Freedom. I never paint these right and I always wonder why I bother...

That's it for now. Next step is to clear coat the frame with gloss and panel line it! Until next time (or when I can't find anyone to play with in SC2)!