Before we start, if you haven't watched the build video yet I would strongly suggest you to do so first as this article will be complimentary whatever that was shown in the video :)
Read Time: 5 Minutes
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Before we begin with anything else, let's start what the design and the concept that goes behind this custom itself.
I was genuinely when I was trying to come up ways to customize the Eva Unit 02 simply because of one problem. She is too skinny like those Victoria Secret models hahahaha! And the main difference and challenge that lied ahead was the fact that she is very humanoid compared to gunplas which were robot based.
I had an idea initially in mind to kitbash her with the Psycho Zaku's fuel pack but what happened what, they looked ugly together as she isn't bulky enough... Oh well, money wasted but now I have extra parts to play with! Now armed with a new mission of coming up with a new concept, I took a break from building and instead went to rewatch the Eva movies. Yup, all three of them and during the 2.0 movie it struck me! In that movie the Eva Unit 02 had a hand cannon and immediately that has sparked some ideas already and... I continued watching the 3.0 before going back to building.
So that's the design philosophy. Sometimes we get stuck, and weirdly enough, to be "unstuck" what we have to do is to just relax. Now I learned something new! :)
WHAT HAVE I DONE:
- Custom Scribe Lines
- Custom Pla Plating
- Custom Weapons
- Painting
- Masking
- Panel Lining
- Water Decals
Now we know what has been done already then now let's highlight some features of the build. You can check out all of the tools I use right here.
CUSTOM SCRIBING
Everyone who knows me knows that I love scribing and this time, it's no different as well. But what's different this time around is the fact that the Eva Unit 02 is super curvy! Like I said, she is humanoid. So the challenge was to be able to get clean and nice lines all across her even when she's curvy! Okay, now that sounds a bit weird but let's move on...
This time I didn't exactly follow the rules or the general guidelines when I was scribing cause she isn't from the world of gunpla. So I went ahead and scribed out a lot of lines for to be highlighted as "Psycho Frame" type of inner frame glow through the armour. Hence, you see the red lines all across her. But, the result came out to be even better than I've expected. Yes, it was hard to scribe those, and yes I did make a lot of mistakes and some of them are "un-fixable" but I think I've done a pretty decent job in covering them up.
I think through the scribe work you can see that whole "Red Lines" flowing through her thighs, waist, body and then chest. And to be frank, I like it! :)
Some other scribe work was used to indicate that she is afterall, still a robot at the end, at least, a humanoid wearing robot armory? That explains the panels that has gone through her whole body and those are great for color separation when it comes to color schemes and painting.
COLOR SCHEME
I didn't want to lose the essence in the colors of the Eva Unit 02 and to be frank, I am planning to customize all of the existing RG Evas right now. Which means, you guys will be seeing the 00 and the 01 coming up in the next couple of weeks! :P
Anyway, for the color scheme, I went with light grey, medium gray, dark gray, salmon red, red, and dark red. Also just throw in some silver to stir things up and make it just a little bit more interesting to the eyes.
Here are the colors and their ratios:
Color #1:
Light Gray - Main color, used to paint the armour
Ratio: GPaint White 10ML + GPaint Dark Iron 2ML
Color #2:
Medium Gray - Secondary color, used to paint the panels on the armour for color separation
Ratio: GPaint White 10ML + GPaint Dark Iron 4ML
Color #3:
Dark Gray - Third color, used to paint some of the amour parts but mainly used for weapon system
Ratio: GPaint White 5ML + GPaint Dark Iron 5ML
Color #4:
Salmon Red - Accent color, used to paint the tiny parts that used to be yellow in color, as well as the neck muscles armour, and also the little tabs I've added all over the armour
Ratio: GPaint White 10ML + GPaint Red 2ML
Color #5:
Red - Accent color, used to paint the lines running through the body to indicate or to represent something like a "Psycho Frame" thingy
Ratio: GPaint Red 100%
Color #6:
Dark Red: Shading color, used to shade and add depth to the red color lines and parts
Ratio: GPaint Red 10ML + GPaint Dark Iron 2ML
Color #7:
Dark Iron - Inner frame color
Ratio: 100%
If you guys haven't tried GPaint yet, I would totally urge you to try it. They will be the easiest paint you will ever use and master!
All and ll it's not that hard to come up with this color scheme. And if you are stuck in figuring out what color scheme goes well with that, I would strongly suggest you to watch some Youtube videos on this topic. Here's one I found that's quite easy to understand that will help you to achieve awesome color schemes!
PAINTING
Now painting itself is pretty straight forward but I've made a rather silly mistake on swapping out the original airbrush needle with an aftermarket one and I've paid the price.
What happened was that the aftermarket needle although was sharp and pointy, but it wasn't well polished. We can really see with the naked eye but if you run your fingers through the needle you can definitely feel the difference in the quality, as well as the smoothness of the needle. Needless to say, I had to spend another 3 - 4 hours redoing most of the paint job by sanding down all of the parts affect by "orange peel" paint finish and learned my lesson hard.
The lesson: Buy metal polisher LOL :P
Anyway, when it comes to painting, it's really important to take note the order of your colors and plan on how you want to paint them. By doing this, you will save yourself from wasting too much airbrush cleaner or thinner, you will reduce wastage of paint and last but not least, you will not waste time. So, please bear that in mind!
When you plan your paint job, you would want to paint from light to dark, this way, you won't have to clean up your airbrush that thoroughly each time you switch colors.
MASKING
Now here comes the part where everybody screams NOOOOOOOOOOOO! To me personally, I would rather run down the streets naked shouting NOOOOOOOOOOO than doing masking cause it's just so.... hellish?
Now, it's also important to learn that the whole point of this hobby is to enjoy the entire build process, no matter you like it or not. If you don't like it, then make sure you find a better solution or, just take your own sweet time doing it. :)
This time around, I had to plan my paint job and also color line up in accordance to masking. Let me explain further.
First:
I would paint the light gray armour first, because it's the main and also the lightest color in my color scheme.
Second:
I would paint the dark gray because I would be using the medium gray to do color separation on both of them. So, the painted light gray armour would receive medium gray as color separation and the dark gray weapons would receive the medium gray color separation as well. And, by doing do, your whole kit would look really harmonized with no too contrasting colors. (Remember your color theory!)
Third:
I would paint the dark iron on all of the inner frames.
Fourth:
Start masking all of the light grey and dark grey parts for painting medium grey on them.
Fifth:
Paint the medium grey.
Sixth:
Start masking the parts that has the little tabs to be painted with salmon red.
Seventh:
Start painting salmon red.
Eighth:
Start masking all of the parts to get ready to paint in the red lines.
Ninth:
Paint the red lines with red, then shade with dark red and finish them off with a gloss top coat.
Tenth:
Watch Netflix.
And as you can see, this is really hard to do properly as there's so many steps involved only in masking itself. So if you hate doing this and would not do this, then I have to say sorry, but boy your custom job will only reach a certain level. :) <--- fake smile.
This hobby itself is more than the work that lies within them. It's more about training your mind, training your ability to stay focus and also to train your determination on starting and finishing something. Also, the spirit of doing the best of you can and also thriving for improvement. That's why, I would totally recommend this hobby to kids. It would be great for them. :)
So the above are some of the stuff that I want to personally highlight in this blog post. And I hope that you will, learn something from this. :)
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Until next time, have a nice day!
