Finally got the ultimate bell pepper completed; might've taken 100+ hours of assembly and painting. This is the 3rd 3party kit I've worked on and quality wise they've all been pretty top tier. There are a bunch of metallic colors and shades of green that come base, with interior/exterior layers and details that make this PGU quality looks-wise IMO. Kit comes with leds and wires to light up each binder and chest/head separately with simple gimmicks to switch them off/on to save on batteries.
Handling this chonk is another thing, its hard to pick it up by the legs(binders flop around) or the chest so you have to pick it up by the small shoulders as they are pretty stable plus they stabilize the binders. These four heavy ass binders are the bane of balance, if they are leaning a bit forward or back, the whole kit wants to tip over.
The stand has a locking mechanism to prevent it from tipping forward/back, but when I had the kit posed leaning a bit to the side; 30 minutes later the stand lock teeth broke, big bro tipped backwards and fell off the stand lol(had to superglue the stand after).
There are teeth that lock the binder vertical angles too which are a godsend, but it tipped backwards while standing once, landed on the binders and broke the locking teeth so bye to lifting the rear binder.
PAINTS
Green
- base: gaia ex black 2 thick coats/tamiya black spray
- metallic: jumpwind ex metal amber green
- clear: BarbRex clear dark forest green 2 coats
- gloss uv cut topcoat
Dark Green
- base: gaia ex black 2 thick coats/tamiya black spray
- metallic: jumpwind prime brilliant gold or tamiya gunmetal
- clear: BarbRex clear dark forest 2 coats
- gloss uv cut topcoat
Inner frame: tamiya gunmetal, alclad chrome, alclad stainless steel, gaia mirror chrome
Black: ex black w/ alclad gunmetal
Post-Shading: tamiya smoke
Learned a lot of how I wanted to candy point halfway through the kit. Starting with the legs I was a bit too loose(spraying wthiout counting layers randomly) with the ex black and clear dark forest leading to not it not being as glossy as I wanted. On the waist up I had to lock in and really count and check my spray lines for the ex black/clr green to come out the way I want. After getting the black base down, the amber green already looked fantastic by itself. MVP was the dark forest green though, easy to layer, could go darker or lighter depending on thickness.
I thought I was doing good until the binders, it was maddening trying to get 2 even coats of black/metal/clear on the larger pieces. I used tamiya rattle cans for the black on the binder parts, but caught some dust as I let them dry in the garage. I did get in the groove though painting all four binders, likely using enough paint for an RG on each binder. Got to practice candy shading like painting the metallic layer around lines/edges.
I used the water decals provided and tbh they're mid-quality. If you just slap them on and leave them be you get air bubbles. I started slapping them in water and using a flat eraser to push all the bubbles out like installing a glass protector on a phone.
I wanted to go all out with what I've learned painting for this bad boy and honestly am very happy with how it turned out. Thanks and enjoy!