After a few months of hard-work (and mostly procrastination) the latest addition to my collection is finally finished!!! 

Strike Freedom, piloted by Kira Yamato is a mobile suit built in secret by Terminal under the guidance of one of its components, the Clyne Faction.  It is based on the earlier ZGMF-X10A Freedom and is powered by the new Ultracompact Hyper Deuterion Nuclear Fission Reactor.  (don't ask me what the hell this means, I just copied and pasted this from a document from my bro. hehehe)

This gundam is so far the most challenging, not only because of the 100 + parts but also because I used new techniques, I also used new sets of paint and also because I am pressured to improve my building skills!  This model is in the HG (high grade) line so the body parts are more posable, the parts more detailed…and the price more expensive!  I have to do this sh*t right, so my money won't go to waste!

First stage of building: Removal from sprue, gluing and sanding and pre-building.  The new technique that I used with this stage was scribing the panel lines.  Scribing makes the panel lines deeper so that washing (also a new technique used) will be easier. This was done by using the back of a hobby knife (there's a special tool for this but its crazy expensive) and tracing the lines over and over again.  I did this before gluing and sanding the parts together.

Second stage: Painting! The fun part! I used an entirely new set of spray paint for this model, I switched to the brand NOW as advised by my bro since there's a bubble problem with the RJ brand and also the flat white makes the gundams more not-toy-like (you know what I mean?).  I also tried mixing colors for this model (as close as the actual gundam colors indicated on the manual) and I guess it turned out OK.  Also, the acrylic red that I was using before already dried out (dunno why, I guess it's just his time) and so I used red tamiya enamel.  It was bright red and my bro loved it.  The gold acrylic was also from my brother which I applied 4 times so that the glitters will stick better.  I also sprayed all the parts with the flat white (1 coat for non-white colors) so that paints will appear brighter.   

Third stage: Detailing! The part which usually pisses me off! A new technique that I used was as mentioned, washing.  In this method, instead of using markers for panel lines, you use a very very thin black paint (70% thinner, 30% black paint) and let the wash run through the grooves.  Clean the excess with the approprite thinner so that it wont affect the base paint.  In this model, base paint was laquer based and the wash was acrylic.  But I still use markers, steadler .02, for parts impossible for washing.  Masking was minimal with this model thanks to the #0 sakura brush my brother gave me for my birthday!

So, here it is, my latest (and I hope not the last one!) addition to the collection.  Improving diba?! DIBA????!