MG Astray Commission WIP 2

For anyone who didn't see the first WIP, this is a commissioned project I've been working on for a few weeks. It's a Master Grade Astray Red Frame with a custom sky blue and black color scheme. I've been making steady progress but life tends to get in the way. Thankfully I should have plenty of free time for a while. Everything is going smoothly and I've just about completed the Mobile Suit itself. Read on for some of my processes.

After finishing the sky blue inner frame, I started painting the armor black. The color scheme here is black and sky blue, so all the pieces that would normally be white are going to be black in addition to the already black pieces. I also ordered some third party decals from Globaltoy per Goodguydan's recommendation.

What I've found from using these is that the large decals are great. Large symbols and text tend to be exact copies of the stickers or dry transfers that are already included. However, the small decals and warning signs are not. They just don't look very good and I chose not to use any. Instead, I pulled out a sheet of HG Unicorn Waterslides and used a few of those here and there.

Here's an example of the HG Unicorn decals I used. Although they're HG scale, Universal Century suits tend to be much larger than Seed suits so by comparing the 1/144 decals with those originally intended for the 1/100 Astray, I was able to find some that worked well with the proportions.

Since the Red Frame normally has white armor and black sword handles, I figured it would look good if I painted the handles white to contrast the black color scheme. The swords are the coolest part of the Astray Red Frame and they need to stand out. The white definitely makes them pop!

All I have left to finish is the Tactical Arms, which shouldn't take longer than a few days, and then I'll have a full length photo album of the finished Astray Red "Sky-Blue" Frame. Sorry for the rather short WIP. I forgot to take photos of quite a few steps this time around, but I managed to capture the important stuff. Anyways, thanks for reading, and check back soon for the completed kit!