Finally back with another kit review, and a custom no less. Once again, this kit isn’t actually mine. The same friend who lent me their HG AGE-2 Dark Hound for painting also requested a custom scheme on this Beargguy F, which we bought at Robo Toy Fest last December.
My friend built this kit straight on her own first…mostly. Somehow she forgot a few bits of armor when she handed it off to me, but everybody makes mistakes. I ended up finishing it up and leaving it for a month or two before finally getting around to spraying it.
I like how only two actual face-masks are given with this kit; all the other expressions are tacked on by the plethora of stickers shown here. I kind of wonder if they’re removable so you can actually change Beargguy’s expression regularly, though I didn’t care enough to actually try it out.
The only thing more numerous than Starbucks cafes around here in the U.S. is the amount of Beargguy customs circling the web. I asked my buddy what specific color scheme she wanted on her Beargguy, and showed her a few of the tried-and-true customs other modelers have done.
I’m pretty sure she isn’t as massive of a Marvel headgeek as I am, and only chose the Iron Man scheme for the point that it was shiny and metallic.
Right after I finished assembling it…I proceeded to take it apart again. I got lazy and just left the black eye stickers on the faceplate; they were flat enough that I figured it wouldn’t make much of a difference if I painted over them.
I didn’t want to do a lot of remodeling for this kit; it was supposed to be a simple repaint, though most Iron Bearguy customs feature a fair amount of custom scribing and plating. Since this was for someone else though, I decided to just meet the minimum requirements and make the Arc Reactor on the chest.
I remember going about this particular process by standing in the middle of my room and looking around to see if I could just pick something up and call it an Arc Reactor. Lo and behold, it actually worked.
My new laptop that I acquired recently came with a neat little clear plastic cap for the power adapter. I made use of it at first, but then found that it became too much of a hassle to constantly remove it every time I took the adapter out, so the cap just sat on my desk gathering dust. I saw it and thought the tip of the Ground cover would be perfect if I could splice the tip off. I could’ve very well just cut a few small circles out of pla plate for this, but the plug cover ended up working a lot better than the former method ever would have.
I’ve only seen a few Beargguy F Iron Man customs; most of them were made from the original Beargguy III, so they didn’t have the little Petitguy add-on. This proved to be a fun little addition to the build that added a unique element though.
Tearing Petitguy apart. I like how simple this little thing is, but at the same time it just makes me sad that it was so wildly exaggerated in the anime. Its elbows and knees aren’t even long enough to bend even if they had joints.
This project would mark the first time I’m making use of some new alligator clips I bought for cheap off eBay. They’re actually a real help in the painting process; I don’t have to glue toothpicks to pieces now.
Testors gold was used – the same kind used on my 1/100 Duel and Wing Fenice Custom. Unfortunately, I kind of rushed through this particular job so the paint could use a lot of work. It ended up coming out pretty grainy even after the clear gloss coat, since I was a bit more frugal with my paints than usual.
This was also the first time trying out some Tamiya Metallic Red, and it actually isn’t bad. I really like the deep, bright red, though it takes either a thick layer or multiple layers to achieve a truly smooth and metal-like effect. Gloss coat can only do so much after the initial coats.
Coming together. You can see the graininess on the golden faceplate pretty well; I didn’t like it, but didn’t care enough to go back and fix it. It feels like fine grit sandpaper to the touch.
All the frame parts were painted silver. I didn’t bother with seam lines since there really wasn’t a need to get that advanced with a kit like this. My pal whom this kit is for isn’t a stickler for details anyway, which gave me peace of mind (however bad that may sound) when I screwed up some small portions here and there.
Used craft marker to paint in a few golden details that couldn’t be reached by spray. I actually really like the option of an extra “hand” to hold the Petitguy. The only drawback is that since its a new dedicated piece for the “F” configuration, it’s in Petitguy blue on the straight built kit.
I had a bit of a struggle with the eyes, as most modelers opt for holographic sheets or seals when working with Iron Man stuff. I didn’t really feel the need to buy an entire sheet just for this kit, so I decided to do things the old fashioned way with some good ‘ol acrylic craft paint.
The trick was to slather some metallic blue around the edges of the eye indents, wait for it to dry, and wipe off the excess with an alcohol-dipped cotton swab, leaving a thin blue wash inside the edges of the grooves. Acrylic gloss white was then used to fill in the rest, emulating the white eyes/blue glow look of Iron Man’s visage in the recent live-action films.
Arc Reactor dot painted on; the clear plug cap would be cemented on. Since it’s actually more opaque than straight-up transparent, all I had to do was add a bit of a white base underneath than really worry about detail there.
Only brush-paints used. Everything else was straight spray, which is pretty impressive for one of my standard custom works.
Quite a few parts left over from the standard Acguy in the box that I’m sure my pal will want to keep just because she can.
There she is – Iron Mamaguy in all her metallic glory. I’m kind of impressed that you actually can’t see Petitguy hangin’ off the back at all from a frontal view.
I opted out of filling in any of the more detailed areas, like the bottom of the feet.
Mamaguy is fairly articulated, but most restricted around the arms. It doesn’t really help that her elbows are so stubby, but they can actually be extended.
A chain of these elbow-links are included with the kit, which can be separated and joined around to extend Mamaguy’s arm reach. I actually screwed up big-time when painting and building these though; they’re so difficult to separate that I pulled a few of the pegs apart in their sockets. I managed to glue them back together, but no way in hell am I touching them or messing with them again.
The two face-mask expressions included – neutral and angry.
The angry face is actually hilariously awesome and probably stays true to the Iron Man look better than the standard neutral expression.
I actually think it’s really cool that Bandai went out of their way to design the face-mask to be easily removable via a series of small polycaps.
And cute ‘lil Petitguy. I actually really dig the color scheme on this thing. The parts separation with the gold and red works really well.
As I mentioned earlier, you’re not gonna get a lot of articulation out of Petitguy here, but thankfully it looks adorable just standing around.
Family fun. The little extra hand connector that links Mamaguy and Petitguy together is strong enough for Mamaguy to literally hold Petitguy up in the air and fling it around.
It can do a three-point landing!
…sorta. If I had the courage to mess with the arms and extend them using the extra elbow bits then it would be a true three-point pose, but this actually looks pretty badass on its own. Have to give good credit to the knee joints – they bend well where it counts.
And of course, an obligatory with Big Brother Onii-San. Comparing my paintwork to the stuff on Hot Toys actually makes me really sad.
All told this was a pretty fun in-between build. I knocked it out pretty quickly and didn’t have to invest any significant time or resources, but as a result it didn’t come out as nice as it could’ve. I’m glad my buddy was very happy with it when I returned it to her though, so I suppose at the end of the day that’s what really counts.
