Project: MS-07B3 Gouf Custom Part #4

 So, the weathering pigments. This is new stuff for me. I’ve read about them, I’ve seen videos, I’ve heard people talk about them, but this is my first time using them. Since this is a new modeling tool for me, I didn’t want to go down the “Hey, which brand is best?” question route. Rather than asking people on forums and such about pigments, I instead went online and watched several tutorials about using them. Then, I went to my local Hobby Town and saw that they had the Vallejo brand pigments on hand.  Okay, so I’m going to start with Vallejo brand pigments.

I mentally made a list of what sorts of materials and colors the Gouf Custom would have been exposed to during its’ battle in the series. So let’s take a look at some of the shots and see what the environmental conditions were that would leave marks on the Gouf.

One of the first shots of the B3 we see in 08th MS team is of it launching itself into the sky to engage jet fighters in mid-air with close combat attacks. To accomplish this, the Gouf uses its’ back thrusters to propel itself skyward. So some heat damage and burning materials on the back of the model. Some black soot.

We then see the Gouf land back on an outcropping. While the animation doesn’t show it, again for reasons of simplicity and time, we have to assume that such a landing would kick up a fair amount of dust and dirt. So need some browns for the dirt.

Later on we see the Gouf using its’ main cannon to shoot up a lot of dirt and dust to cover its’ advance up a side road using the dust cloud as a mis-direction, then cover until it was able to shoot out the beam rifle from Joshua’s Gundam’s hand. It then slammed into the Gundam, knocking it to one side and attacked the GunTank Joshua had been covering. Now the Anime shows the dust cloud to be brown, implying that the cloud was mostly dirt. However, if you look at the action itself you can see that Norris was shooting a road. Now roads are generally built out of concrete, and asphalt. Asphalt is a tar like material and doesn’t really generate much in the way of dust. Concrete on the other hand is mainly rock that has been pulverized into a dust, mixed with water and other chemicals, poured into a form, and then left to dry as the water and chemicals evaporate. So chances are much more likely that the dust would actually be the result of the concrete being shot up rather than dirt.  With this understanding I needed some white and grey pigments for the concrete dust.

So what color pigments did I pick up? Well, I picked up 73117-Rust Oxide, 73116-Carbon Black, 73113-Light Slate Grey, 73114- Dark Slate Grey, and 73.101- Titanium White. The Rust oxide is a brownish yellow, while the Carbon black is a solid black. The White is… well… white and the greys are pretty self-descriptive. 

So I began with the black pigment to fill in some shadows.

Here we can see the shield with the black pigments applied. Just a quick dusting makes a notable difference. As you can see it dulls the silver I put down in the bullet marks previously so I will have to come back and repaint them a bit.

 

For the concrete coloring I made a mix of the Light Slate, the Dark Slate, and the white pigments in a roughly 1:1:1 ratio. I added a dash of the black to give some shading to it. Then I applied this mixture to the model.