Finally done with the head and chest. Painting the internals and fixing the hatch for the pilot cockpit took way too long.
Funnily enough, the chest armour opening gimmick works much better after painting. Before painting it’s kinda loose and jangly; it’s prone to popping out. After painting you do have to pull it out slowly to avoid breakage, but everything is nice and firm.
Swipe right for more angles.
Travelling across timezones for the first time in a while. 16710 with a no-holes case.
Jubilee bracelet was bought and installed at a Rolex Service Center. Had to wait a while as they told me they had to order it in from Switzerland.
This was by far one of the hardest heads I have ever painted. It took me about a month, including time for correcting various errors (random spots in the paint, overspray).
The head itself comes in two pieces, with a big fat seam running down the mid-way point. You need to fix that, but that means that the head lens and the eye lenses need to be separated to be inserted later. The seam itself is also awkward because there are different levels at different parts of the head, so you have to only fix some parts of the seam. This can make it a bit fragile.
The connection point for the bigger antenna is very tight. Painting made it almost impossible to go in. Its design also makes it very difficult to apply pressure without breaking the antenna itself to force it in. Even then, I had to apply so much pressure that one of the seam lines began to come apart. I was lucky and able to fill that line with some flat white enamel paint.
The smaller antenna has to be glued in, but it is incredibly fragile. This makes it hard to position properly.
Colour separation on this is very hard to do. Because the parts are moulded in one piece, masking was very awkward for all of the grey portions - there simply wasn’t any space for the masking tape to adhere to. The red chin especially was very difficult to mask off. The head vulcan guns required specially bought circular masking tape due to their size.
Panel lining the vulcan guns was also a pain. The guns are so tiny that the panel lining brush is far bigger. Also, the central hole is quite shallow. You can’t just rub off the excess with enamel thinner because the enamel will not stay in the center recess. You need to carefully poke at it with a very tiny cotton bud.
The little black portions with the silver insert on the back of the head required a reverse wash to paint. Doing a reverse wash was only possible after matte coating. This made me very fearful of ruining the matte finish with black enamel stains.
Honestly, I think the rest of this kit will be much easier.