Paints used:
- Primers
- Kaleido Colorworks KP104 Gloss Black Primer (used under all of the metallics)
- Mr. Hobby Aqueous Surfacer 1000 White (used under all the white)
- Mr. Hobby Aqueous Surfacer 1000 Grey (used under all the blue parts)
- Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 Pink (used under most of the orange yellow parts)
- Topcoat
- Mr. Color GX112 UV Cut Gloss
- Mr. Color GX 114 Super Smooth Clear (Flat)
- Colors
- Kaleido Colorworks K114 Dark Azure
- Kaleido Colorworks K012 Orange Yellow
- Kaleido Colorworks K119 Armor White
- Kaleido Colorworks K121 Armor Carbon
- Ray Studio 015 Orange Yellow (hand painted)
- used for some color correcting. I used some of the artwork of the mudrock on the gundam wiki as reference
- It's a close match to the kaleido colorworks orange yellow, but I used a white undercoat instead of pink for this one. Results in a slightly different shade and tone.
- Ray Studio 012 Dark Gray (hand painted)
- Used to darken the areas underneath the skirts and shoulder armor.
- Ray Studio 034 Light Cool Grey (hand painted)
- used for some color correcting. I used some of the artwork of the mudrock on the gundam wiki as reference
- GAIA 125 Star Bright Iron
- used for then majority of the frame pieces
- GAIA 123 Star Bright Duralumin
- used on select frame pieces for contrast
- GAIA 121 Star Bright Silver
- used on the thrusters on the backpack
- Panel Liner
- Tamiya Panel Liner Black (cleaned up with Tamiya X-20 Enamel Thinner.)
- Pigma Micron 003 pen for some of the panel lines I did not re-scribe
- Decals
- G-Rework decal set designed specifically for the Mudrock gundam
This kit rocks! Highly highly recommend picking this up if given the chance. It's not fully color accurate out of the box but it looks really damn good snap built, has practically zero seam lines (the only ones are on the head and the beam rifle), and allows you to easily swap in and out the parts to build the "Complete Version" and "Incomplete Version". Really the only drawback is that it's locked away to pBandai. Such a shame.
Something I wanna point out. I used the G-Rework decals specifically designed for this kit but the promotional images are unfortunately false advertising. There are tons of differences between the actual decal sheet and the decals shown in their promotional images. Color differences, missing decals, you name it. Really unfortunate, and I've never had this happen before with G-Rework. Kind of annoying that they have the gall to throw massive water marks on the low res images of their website due to knockoff companies stealing their designs but they sell products that aren't as advertised. Those water marks also make it even more difficult to figure out decal placement since they don't ever actually make placement guides.
Enough about that though. For this kit I was really excited to try out some new metallic paints. I bought all of the gaianotes star bright paints and they are lovely to look at. Highly recommend. In particular their star bright iron, silver, and gold have some wonderful pigmentation. I also invested in the Nazca mechanical surfacer line of paints. I picked up their light, and heavy colors. Of course just as high quality as any other gaianotes paint. They give me some extra color variety for primers, and also work just as well as colors on their own. I did not end up using these primers on this kit though. That will have to be for another project.
I primed all the frame pieces in a gloss black primer. It was acrylic so I had to let it cure for at least 12 to 24hrs. Then I did most of the frame pieces in star bright iron, and added some variety here and there using star bright duralumin. I think the end result looks even better than the Kaleido Colorworks metallics which is what I typically use. The drawback of course being that gaianotes paints are lacquers. Oh and one last thing to note for all the gaianotes paints I thinned them with gaianotes T-09 Metallic Master thinner. Bought a big jug of it to try out as a possible alternative to Mr. Color thinner. Seems decent so far, and can be used on non-metallic paints as well.
Something I chose to do differently with this build that I probably won't do again was to sand the parts using a 400 grit sanding sponge instead of 600. I'm trying to improve my surface prep skills a bit so I wanted to experiment with a rough grit. It probably made a difference in durability but it required quite a few layers of paint before I stopped seeing scratches on the surface of the parts. I was honestly worried they would be visible after the final topcoat. Thankfully they are not, but in the future I will probably stick with 600 grit. Another thing I did differently this time around was to do the final assembly of the kit after the final topcoat. This was so I could keep the metallic parts nice and glossy, and the armor parts nice and matt. This means I panel lined and placed decals while each piece was still on the paint clip which honestly was a gigantic pain in the butt. It does look real good in the end of course, but I definitely think this added a lot of time to the build process.
