Gentlemen and bots! (cause no ladies are reading this blog am I right?)
After 4 long days he is here! The operation was downright war. No corner in the surgeryroom was left untoched.

A little… status report, perhaps?

Captains Log:

1. I had the materials and was eager to get down with it. But rushing it wouldn’t make a grand entrance. I had to take it slowly and painfully patiently.
   I started by cleaning all the parts with Grumme yellowsoap. To remove any ‘grease’ that might have been left since the factory. After this I cut several bigger details off the plastic grid and polished them with a scalpel. To remove unwanted edges.
   After this I proceeded to the bathroom. My so-called tempoary spray-can booth.
   Spray spray spray in bone white and black. Spread a nice fume into the hallway, kitchen and livingroom. Let the fiesta begin!  Started to work on detail and smaller area coloring. Much swearing was heard. Put the parts on a special shelf over night protected with a plastic cover to prevent dust to do stupid stuff.
2.  Ready to put Alphonse togheter! Sooner or later I realized that I was either missing a joint chart, or the factory messed up. (the model kit was bought at a second hand store, he might have been preowned but unasembled). I bless inheriting my father’s creative mind. I fixed the missing joins with some wireframe work. The parts without joints was where the arms go into the body, so his arms are a bit hard to fixate this way, but I doubt I’ll be playing wargames with him anyway. Started to polish on his details.
3. After day 2′s troubles I noticed I would need some white paint to correct some of the black parts. I also realized that brushwash is an awesome way of creating nice blends. So I ‘dustened’ him a little here and there and polished up some areas gone wrong. It didn’t affect the spray, just the enamel paint.
   When dad got home we drove to the hobby store and got white paint and a spray can of a matte figure coat.
   Worked some more on details. I also worked very hard to ‘cover’ up some of the seams that had been creating while putting him togheter. Like the head for instance was split in 2 and I think I managed pretty damn well by just applying layer by layer by layer of white enamel paint. *phew*
   Finished the day by polishing some more and letting him dry over night.
4. Last day! Started off finding a can of orange and red in my brothers old enamel paint box! With these I painted on some details that actually was supposed to be covered by stickers. Much better with paint and the colors were just right! Lucky for once.

   While fiddling with another seam coverup I noticed if I added thick acrylic paint I could clog the seam pretty nice. Also I noticed that plastic made 10 years ago can break. One of the leg got awfully loose so I checked it out only to find the joints and inner part of the legframe falling out here and there in itty bitty parts. Much swearing was done. Proceeded to the plastic glue. Which had gotten itself glued togheter with it’s cap and after consulting my mother (rather whining to be honest), I managed to get the damn thing open. After getting most of the leg frame togheter in a workable way, one of the seam cover ups was totally demolished. So in the end when the leg was as whole as can be in that shape, I decided to just do a ‘cosmetic’ cover up. I ended up using some black plastic tape to create itty bitty robo ‘bandages’.
   After this I proceeded to the spraybooth and gave Alphonse a nice shower with the Coating spray, to prevent the colors from beeing chipped. Let him dry.
   Finally to the last part which I started on about 10.30pm. The stickers of doom. Or so I thought. I had this image that the stickers were too old to be used and also very hard to apply nicely. It went super duper fast and they all went where they belonged in a nice way.And done!

   Took about 50 photos of the bugger. My room looks like a warzone, everything’s totally out of place. Got to clean this mess up and then… find a home for Alphonse. Seeing how his leg broke (I am sorry I hurt you!) I want him to be somewhere safe. I also learned about greenstuff to use to fillin seams. I’ll order some next time!

Ohwell, I am happy. Bought him 2001 at Mandarake in Tokyo. I’m over all proud of beeing thru all that hassle and manageing thru it with my life still in order. Who is Alphonse you ask? He’s my first love (Mecha my dear readers) and the most epic Mobile Suit I know. He comes from the old hit anime series named Patlabor. It has a couple of tvseries, OVA’s and 3 movies! I loved the first movie and tvseries  so much! He’s also the reason the name Alphonse appears as names for stuff such as my mp3 player.  To put it fankly: He’s just one damn handsome machine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0N2OFJ4ghQ&feature=related <- Little bonus!
( This is the 2nd figure I’ve painted the last 6 years so it’s by no means professional)