Ballistic Rose

Back to Kit Page This is one of my most favorite kits - not because its something that's particularly stunning, but because I tried something very new with it, which worked well
She's from G-Zero, sculpted by James Hakola. I'd admired the kit for a while before buying it part made up from the Amazing Figure Modeler stand at the 1999 WonderFest in Louisville, Kentucky. It was actually a review kit and appeared temporarily glued together and primed in issue 14.

The only real issues I had with building her were with the skirts - red and white being such a strong contrast, it was hard to get the roses neat and tidy, and impossible to mask because of the curves. But it worked out OK in the end colour-wise.

From all the box art, the only thing I wasn't too keen was the  stockings - the box art and most of the built ups I'd seen have solid silver stockings. It looks OK, but as someone who hates wearing opaque stockings, I wanted something a bit different.

 I asked advice from the model mailing list Gremlins, and there were a few alternatives. Most of the suggestions were to paint the legs in the flesh tone and then to lightly mist colour over using an airbrush to give the appearance of stockings. I'm no expert with an airbrush, and I felt this was beyond me. So (and this is where I tried something new), I gave her "real" stockings...

Before gluing

 I'd seen a kit at the UK IPMS Nationals  where a strip of real lace was used to form stocking tops. 

I bought a piece of white bridal tulle to use - this was the same scale as fishnets for Rose. I started by cutting rectangles of fabric and stretching it round each leg, leaving an overlap at ankle and stocking top.

Then I stitched a seam up the back of each leg, pulling the tulle as tightly round the leg as I could.

 

Part trimmed The stitched seam was lined up with the marked seam in the leg, then painted over with a watered down PVA glue.

Once it was dry, I used a scalpel to trim the overlap from the seam, stocking top and ankle.

All that was left then was to tear the stocking in the right place.

 

It turned out better than I thought, and I decided to write an article for the IPMS magazine about it - it was printed in the 2001 National Exhibition Special, and I've had some fairly good feedback about both the article and the kit since then...