At least the decals look good. Do you think it would be a big problem if the gray was all spray painted though? I'm thinking that the sprew marks will be an issue once I cut them off the sheet if the rest of it is all painted silver.

 

If they were all going to be stickers, why no pin stripes?

 

I wondered the same thing. Probably because no AOE toy I've seen acknowledges that he still has pin stripes.

 

I started mine too with chrome silver paints.

 

The more others say, the more pissed i am on this. Many of us probably bought this to avoid bullshit like that decal sheet and painting everything. And why would we think we would have to when both dmk kits that came before were just open and build? They really should have come clean on the details of this thing months ago and just admitted it wasn't goi g to be as nice.

 

Sorry to stray off topics but I originally wanted this and even bought tools for assembly (I never made a gundam). But after takara came out with their ultimate prime It satisfied my appetite for screen accuracy and awesome paint job.

Now this set is released, it seems all takaras paint budget went to ad31 as well

 

Got mine yesterday. Working on building it now:



This is Prime without the blue parts that need stickering (right leg isn't finished yet). So yes he's very gray. But I think when the blue parts are added it won't look that bad.



The unpainted sword and shield are the biggest disappointment:



But aside from that, looking at DMK-01, he didn't have a lot of paint either (ignoring the flames of course), but it was the nature of the movie design itself which allowed for different colored plastics, red, blue, brown, gray, silver, that represent different materials making it more visually appealing. The AOE design is simply much less interesting. He's metal colored and blue, and all the red comes from his flames.



Any tips on applying these stickers? I don't have any experience with waterslide decals.

 

Soak the decals until they just start to slide around freely. Hold them next to the part, oriented how you want them to sit. Then either with your finger tip or a tool like a q-tip, slide them onto the part. I always like to let them float into place, sometimes even adding a drop to the part first for the decal to float on. Get it positioned to where you want it, then take a paper towel or tissue, find the edge of the decal and start wicking the water out from underneath it. It will naturally grab onto the part after the water is removed. If you have to adjust it and it doesn't want to move easily, put some water around the edges and it should slide around freely again.

That's at least the saving grace for me here. The water slide decals are something I am comfortable with, compared to sticky paper decals where you only get one shot. Built models for nearly 30 years and they always have come with water slide decals.

Edit: Use an exacto and cut each decal out of the big sheet so you are only soaking one at a time. Forgot to mention that. Don't throw the whole sheet in water and try to do them all at once.

 

You could probably touch them up with a silver Sharpie. I think I'm going to assemble at the gray parts onto the skeleton first so I know what parts might be covered, and then just paint the individual parts that need it.

 

and that's what ruins it for me.. the design might be less interesting.. but that's all the more reason for them to go all out on this kit, which they not only didn't, but they took a step back, that's the problem.

 

I do not understand you guys complaining about a model kit just being bare plastic...lol. And maybe our opinions differ, but building the DMK01 without painting it looked like a cheap plastic toy. Doing the DMK01 up in a proper paint job made it look like it stepped right out of the movie.

Don't expect to buy a model kit and get a pre-painted toy. Look at how amazing the DMK03 can look with a proper paint job.

DMk03 with proper paint job

I do not understand all the hate this kit is getting, it looks incredible.

 

is that yours? what exactly did you do with it?

 

No, I have not yet received my DMK03 because I live in the United States and am having it shipped from Hong Kong.

I did however completely repaint every piece on my DMK01 build, and I imagine similar techniques were used. You can view my DMK01 final build at this link. If you want to see my work in progress, just start at the beginning of that thread.

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radic...prime-wip-my-first-custom-10.html#post7125848

 

Oh, you'll do a much better job than that yourself, I'm sure; you certainly did the flames much better on DMK-01 with your custom stencils.
That guy did a really sloppy job on the flames, and really should've just used the decals provided.

Anyone else planning on adding LEDs in the head to illuminate the eyes?

 

That would look so cool, but painting him will be enough for me! I'm ok with paint, but adding electronics is way over my head  
I'm going to try to use some light blue paint on the iris with a bit of dry brushed silver so it doesn't stand out too much against the darker background.

 

The best method for painting the eyes would be to paint them both white. Then paint florescent blue over the white. Florescent paint is semitransparent, so having a white base makes them brighter. The florescent paint will be bright and give a glow-like look.

 

I'm just going to paint the gray silver and add water decals. I dont want to risk ruining this thing by trying to paint it while hoping 3A will get the license to do the AOE designs. I'm already going to have to replace my custom painted DMK-01 with the 3A Optimus.

 

Oooh that sounds good! I'll definitely try that, thanks!

 

GODDAMN that was fucking frustrating. Let me just say that this is probably the only model I can ever remember making that took longer to apply the shitty waterslides than to actual build the goddamn thing. And that is not an exaggeration. It took about 3 hours to build and about 5 hours to finish the waterslides.

Those things just don't fucking stay in place because they're too big and have little clear outlines that dangle off the piece and make everything look like shit. There are so many where you're curving it over mold detailing and going around corners and bends and you just want to cut the things up to fit and stay down completely. You basically have to take him apart again to put them on correctly, and even then it's a huge hassle. They didn't even bother to add decals for the sword and nearly all of the shield/gun. This thing made me miss DMK-01 like nobody's business, and I still have to go out and get red and blue sharpies to add finishing touches on the sword and shield.

Add that to the facts that there are so few parts, like 5 paint apps total (and they're all so, so small), and you have to take the hands apart to do anything including hold the sword in a different position, I'm pretty put off by this guy.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll wake up and he'll be completely dry and pretty and none of my silver paint will have disappeared and I'll warm up to him, but god. Just god. What a mess.

EDIT: Nope. Just took a look at him before going to bed and one of the decals on his chest is missing. Fuck this thing.

 

I may be cursing when I do this thing too.

But, I did use water decals on my FE AOE Prime recently and I finally figured something out. Triming water decals after applying them is a nightmare. The key seems to be cutting and fitting them as precisely as possible before getting them wet and applying them.