Shuichi - Sex change part two and short shorts!!!!

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Time: 2hrs
TotalTime : 11hrs 15mins
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I used ‘Magic Sculpt’ to make the shorts. You just take equal parts resin and hardener by rolling into little balls and eyeballing it, that’s all, then mix thorough by squeezing the two parts together. It’s good to put a little talcum powder on your fingers beforehand to prevent sticking. If you leave the mixed parts for about 5 minutes before working with it, it looses it stickiness anyway, but I still use talc on my hands, mat and rolling pin like you would flour for pastry. This product rolls out really thin. It conforms so well and is perfect for clothing. I masked off the panty lines and other gaps to even out the surface and the rolled piece STILL showed through these imperfections, I was very surprised.


I put a small blob of the mixture on the pelvic bone before laying out the rolled out piece, I don’t think he needs to have a ‘Ken’ style flat area, not in my opinion anyway! The rolled out piece is cut into two for front and back, it’s no particular shape, just an odd round shape that I trimmed once it was on the model. The piece is rested on top and it conforms by itself in the major areas although underneath the pelvic area needed a little push!!!

The process was then repeated on the back of the model and extra strips were added around the waistline as the shorts were sitting a bit low and some of the shapes of the masking tape underneath were showing through. Also there were some gaps on the inner thigh so more pieces added. You have a few hours working time with this product so it’s nice and easy and no rushing.

The whole lot then needed to be trimmed and smoothed out. I used some florist wire to wrap around the legs to cut the shorts to size, then a hobby knife to make a straight edge because the wire kind of pushes the edge out, used the same process for the waist line. The best part of this product is that you don’t have to bake it like many of the other hobby sculpting materials. It can be placed over anything, sticky tape, foil, cling wrap whatever you want to use. The shorts and crop top will be easy because there isn’t any shaping, but if you are doing skirts or cloaks (like I have to do later) the you can use sticky tape, foil or even material to create the shape of the clothes and then lay the ‘Magic Sculpt’ on top and it will drape naturally.

To smooth and blend all the pieces and seam lines I just used my fingers and toothpicks, the rolling motion of the toothpick is enough to mould but not alter the thickness or shape too much.





Once the shorts were shaped I smoothed the surface with my finger and water. It smoothes out really well and I put extra work in here so I can hopefully eliminate the amount I need to sand afterwards. This was left to cure overnight.


Tonight I sanded the shorts down with rough, fine and extra fine sandpaper. There are some gaps that will need filling that can’t be fixed with sanding. I may prime this area to see how it looks.

Shuichi - Sex change part one, boots also fixed + other minor fixes

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Time: 45mins
Total Time : 5hrs 15mins
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I leveled off the boots last night with some ‘Magic Sculpt’, this was left overnight to cure. I had some extra time tonight so a fair bit more was achieved than expected! Sanded down the ‘Magic Sculpt’ now the boots are done. I will probably add some wire or something to them later on down the track so I can get those red rings that are around each boot. I’ll check out the hardware store sometime to see what I can find.





The rings on the top of the thighs needed to be removed. Tight bicycle pants are being added to this model so I didn’t want any bumps coming out past the normal curve of the skin. Next the torso was fixed, this is part one of the official sex change!!! I took before and after pics of a few angles.











Tattoo needed to be removed but I only sanded it off on the areas where the final skin will be exposed. The rest will be under the new crop top.


I’ve decided I want to permanently attach the legs to the torso for ease of sculpting the bike pants he’ll be wearing. This pose is so insane, it’s almost impossible to hold the legs together with the torso even with tape. Is this tactical error number one? I don’t know but I’m going with it. I used a pin vice to make the pinholes and cut the tops of some nails for the pinning. I didn’t want to use wire or anything that bends because I the pose places a lot of stress on the pieces. As I’ve yet to finish a normal resin kit, I don’t know which is stronger out of epoxy glue and superglue, so I’m going to use epoxy on the right leg and superglue on the left. I can’t imagine either of them will ever pop out but if they do I’ll be up the creek as I’m sculpting over the top. However, when I finish this project I’m not going to be painting my original, I’ll make a cast and paint that.

Shuichi - Boots sanded and ready for modification

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Time: 1.5hrs
Total Time : 4.5hrs
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This time the boot only took 1 hour to sand!!! I did remember to take progress photos on how I the excess resin off. First dremel, then hobby knife, then 240 coarse grit sandpaper, then finer and finer sandpaper until it’s done! I spent some more time afterwards on the other boot just with a coarse grit to even out some bits and back up the grits to smooth it out. In future I wont use the higher grits, it's not needed to be that smooth in the end.

Shuichi - Sanding sanding . . . . .

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Time: 1.5hrs
Total Time : 3.0hrs
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Well I made an official start, I sanded one boot and it took far too long!!! I used a dremel to sand off the bulk of it, then shaved some of the excess with a hobby knife, sanded by hand and polished with my toothbrush sander. Hopefully the second one will be quicker. I still have to level out the rim so it isn't a cowboy boot. If I can sand the other boot quickly enough I'll have a play with the magic sculpt tomorrow.

Garage Kit Build - Shuichi Shindou from Gravitation

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Time: 1.5hrs
Total Time : 1.5hrs
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After my ongoing protests on various hobby forums about the lack of male kits I thought I’d stop whining and start playing. I’ve decided to start with Shuichi Shindou, the main character of the Gravitation anime/manga created by Maki Murakami. I’ve chosen the anime version as I prefer the character design over the manga for Shuichi in particular. He's not really one of my personal favourite male characters but he should be easier than some of the others I have in mind. I’m a beginner, I haven’t finished building/painting my first model kit but I want to have a go at kit bashing now and build up my skills as much as possible.

I took some pictures of the kit as it is. The pose is good. A lot of the kit bashing will be "adding" to the kit rather than changing it. I have to add to cloak, clothes and accessories.




The clothes will need to be sanded down even though the original model has a crop top and so does Shuichi. It still needs to be created from scratch. The boots are pretty good and will only need some minor adjustments.