ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam (HG scale)

 Well, this has been a while...

To long actually.  So in the middle of past march, I finally cracked open a Gunpla set, almost 4 years after I build my last one.

And of course, what else was there to build then Freedom, for me still the most gorgeous suit ever made in the franchise.  At first, I build the set from the box, only needing some glue to keep one of the beamsabers in check, and to better attach the blue / darkblue finpoint connections.

After getting a base to place the model, I posed it accordingly to how I envision Freedom usually, with the wings open but the shoulder and hip cannons retracted, shield up and it's beam rifle firing away at the enemy. 

And then I started the painting on the model, for which I went for my "traditional" manner of three tones with bold highlights for contrast.  Because face it, the straight out of the box, while colorrepresentative for these kits, is still a bit bland after all....

But before the actual painting started, I first had to select a pose, put him on the base, and start glueing some joints and things like the wings firmer into position, so that he doesn`t fall apart once the paintjob is done.

 

 

Paint wise, I decided to go for my trusted "3 layer colour" style.  I started with doing all the parts that will become white at the end with a layer of Vallejo Cold Grey.

 

 

Next up, Vallejo Imperial Blue was used as the basecoat for the blue parts on the model.

 

 

While Black was then added to the dark parts for the chest, wings and shield center.

 

 

The next base layers where the Dark Rubber and blue greys for the gun barrels and joints of the model, together with Coat D'Arms Brown red and Sand Brown to complete the first layer to start working on. 

That was started with Sky Grey by Vallejo in all the cold grey areas.  This already "livened up" the model seriously.

The next session saw the black and blue areas coloured up, with respectively Vallejo Black Grey and Intense Blue.

 

 

A few sessions later, the complete second, or "main colour" layer was added.  The last colours added for this layer being Sun Yellow and German Fieldgrey both by Vallejo.

 

 

So time for highlighting colours now!  The first part is the biggest, as all the white was put on, done at places in two layers.

With that completed, the next areas to be highlighted where all the blue and black sections, respectively done with Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue and Armypainter Necromancer Cloak.

 

 

With that, the large areas of the model where done, and I could move to smaller sections and colours.  This was first done on the smaller grey areas, with Cold Grey by Vallejo for the weapons and joints, and Fog Grey from Army Painter for the railguns on the hips and the collar.

And that meant a final session would do all the reds and the bit of yellow, respectively with British Scarlet by Coat D'Arms and Moon Yellow by Vallejo.

After a coat of Matte Varnish from AK Interactive, the Freedom model itself is ready, so next it is to make a base for it to improve the stability with the spread open wings.

Once that was done on an official MechaTop base, the whole base was sanded next, and a layer of Warm Grey again from the Amsterdam art acrylics painted over it, before adding a drybrush of the Olive Green.  

 

 

 

I then proceeded with adding some things to the base, like rocks, tufts of flowers, and the likes to round it out nice and smoothly.

So this was a fun build for sure.  For those looking for the paints, MOST of them can be found on this website, which also has nice discounted prices so that's double whammy!