I bought the Unicorn PG as soon as it came out, along with the LED set, and I’ve been aching to get started on it, but because I’d already built the MG Unicorn, I wanted to think on how best to paint the PG version. As I’d ran out of grey primer (which I was going to use to paint the armour pieces, and is generally my favourite primer to use) I started with the cockpit section. I used the Alclad white primer with hand-painted details for the frame, and masked off the white to airbrush the purple and gunmetal sections of the chair. The cockpit and standing figure are all hand-painted. For the main colour scheme I’m staying away from the usual colours I use and I’m going for a slightly different look. So instead of gunmetal and pearl blue (for grey and blue parts respectively) I’m working in shades of blue/grey by mixing in various amounts of Payne’s grey into white. This uses up some of the paints I mixed up for the deactivated colours on the DM Strike, and from that kit I also know they work well and look good.  I don’t normally paint cockpit figures but with this kit, the pieces are nearly large enough for me to see what I’m doing. There’s a slight indented line on the inside of the thruster bells, and to add some key hits of colour to the kit (not forgetting that the Psychoframe adds a good deal of colour) I hand-painted up to that line in blue. I’m using a thin line of fluorescent green along the inner edge, but I think I’m going to have to also do that on the outer bell’s inside so you can actually see it. Now I can actually start some assembly by putting the cockpit inside its Psychoframe and add on a couple of the sections I’d painted with the blue/grey.  While I was on with the grey pieces, I also used the same paints for the blue pieces, but using the darkest blue/grey that I’d mixed up for the main colour and the lighter blue/greys for accent and detail. I want to keep the inner frame mostly monochromatic, so I’m using Alclad polished aluminium on top of the base coat of Tamiya gunmetal. I do intend to add some small details in the fluorescent colours, which is all the more reason to keep the bulk of the frame unsaturated so that these details really stand out nicely. More careful masking for these pieces. I get the feeling that a lot of this kit is going to require careful masking!Here the thruster bells are getting the polished aluminium / gunmetal colour scheme, along with some pieces of the feet. For some pieces it’s easiest to paint gunmetal, mask and then do the aluminium. For one of the foot pieces, I’m going to mask the aluminium when painted and re-do the gunmetal as I reckon that’ll be the easiest way to mask the details. Here you can see a close-up of the thruster bells. The ribbed section is getting the aluminium leaving the thick edge darker with the gunmetal. I sprayed a little of the aluminium on the inside so as to provide a nice bright backing for the ring of green fluorescent paint I’m going to detail these parts with.

Finally my paint order (which includes lots of Alclad grey primer) arrived the other day. Now I’ve got the paints I need to complete this kit!

BTW, if you’re building this kit and need some inspiration, this: Marce Kim is where I got mine from! I love this work so much, especially how utterly clean the result is.