HG Gouf

The HG 1/144 Gouf is one of my favorites. I am a sucker for mobile suits that aren't primarily white, blue, and red. Also considering my favorite color is blue it was a no-brainer to pick this guy up at my local hobby store for 13 dollars.

This build was a typical snap build but I spent some extra time going ahead and cleaning up the edges and nubs. I also decided at the point that I will be putting on some water slide decals. This was the first time I have ever used water slides.

In the end, this build turned out very nice but I was not entirely satisfied yet. I wanted to put a top coat on this kit and see what the hype was all about. I saw a post on Reddit that showed a lineup of about 20 Zaku mobile suits all top coated with a matte finish and it was incredible. I told myself I need to do it too. So I did.

I ended up purchasing a can of Mr. Hobby Flat Matte topcoat to give me the finish I was looking for after watching and reading many reviews of different brands of topcoats. It had everything I wanted and had the best finish to my eyes. (It also turns out to be safe with stickers, water slides, panel lining, and paint). So I made a quick holder out of a cardboard box for all of my pieces and then continued to spray them one by one until each piece was appropriately coated. I like the cure for 20-24 hours but one thing I did after a couple hours was moving all of the pieces that had joints or moving parts to make sure the coating did not seize the parts.

In the end, this build came out great and I was so surprised at the quality of the top coat on top of the water slides and the panel lining that I had done. It also makes the color pop out a lot nicer. It sticks out versus all of my other non-coated mobile suits but for good reason. A lot of extra time, planning, and research went into this boy and it paid out in the end.