Kit Information :
Scale : 1/144
Grade : HGUC
Made by : Bandai
Completed : January 2006
Box Art :
rx-77D Guncannon Mass Production Type
Back in January 2006, this kit took about 7 days to fully complete (I had holidays from work so I had plenty of time to do it!). I have to say that this has been the best kit I've worked on so far - it has an excellent design and seam lines were very minimal.
I went with the traditional red for the Guncannon and decided against weathering the actual Mobile Suit (I did weather the gun just to give it a worn look more than anything).
The other exposed armour was done with Gun Metal (one of my favourite colours to work with).
The limbs were very good to work with. The shape and design made them very robust and easy to paint. Posability is excellent too, once again, due to the design.
The visor was painted chrome silver first and then air brushed with thinned down Clear Green. The silver helps promote a much brighter colour when the clear green is applied.
The base was just a quick knock together so he had something interesting to stand on. I made footprints in the grass to make it appear that the MS had just walked up to the rock and put his foot up on it. The prints were marked out first with pencil, then coated in a glue/sand mix that was then painted with brown acrylic paint to give the impression that the footprints had turned the ground to mud.
The rock is polystyrene coated in an air-drying clay that I found at a local craft store. It was then primed and painted with acrylics to get the colour I wanted. I then found out - by accident - that if you highlight the edges with thinned down acrylics and then wipe them clean, it will remove the paint and give it a much better look than highlighting with dark colours.
The grass is just a piece of straw material cut from an old door mat and glued in place. Once the grass and all were in place, I coated the whole thing with clear coat so as to bind the grass together properly. That worked fine for that but it made the rock extra shiny.
I prefer this version of the Guncannon more than the prototype from the 0079 series. The bulkier armour and different head make all the difference in my opinion.