The legs of the Unicorn are highly complex and full of detail.These flaps open up on the transform and allow you to see their insides, so I used some of the Createx fluorescent green which may just light up nice with the UV LEDs. The flaps attach to this sub-assembly which is good as that simplifies the final build of the already complex legs. I painted the centre curved section white and masked off the primer on the edges to keep them grey. It’s tricky to pre-visualize exactly where you want the shades on the component parts, but it does get easier with practise. The lower leg sub-assemblies do open up nicely though!  Here’s where the main part of the leg frames are at. I’d tried to do just the frame and leave the armour right until last, but this is about as far as I can take that strategy, so I had to paint up the D runners. The knee sections are well detailed. For the frame behind the knees I went with Alclad polished aluminium on the inner articulating section to add interest. Just a bit of masking on the bevelled edges.  Assembled it’s subtle where the masking left the bevels grey, but I really like the effect of added detail and contrast without being over-the-top. However, for the upper legs I decided to go a little more bold with the colouring! The very upper part of the legs will be a bit hidden with the skirt section, so I went for my middle shade of grey/blue. For the masking I did the paint in three stages – paint grey primer, mask grey sections, paint white, mask white leaving just the grey/blue sections to paint. For the upper leg that forms around the lovely knee joint, I used my lightest grey/blue.  When pulling off the masking tape I noticed that some of the grey/blue paint had leaked under the tape and onto the white. Ouch!However, the grey/blue paint is Createx acrylic, so it’s not that tough. The  white is Alclad white primer which is very tough, so I gently used the edge of my scalpel blade to scrape off the unwanted grey/blue paint. That worked well but I also managed to scrape a thin line off the wanted area showing white through.A quick mask (it didn’t have to be that accurate) and a drop of paint fixed that. In this photo the paint is not dry yet so you can see it as a lighter coloured region. This paint mix does change colour quite significantly as it dries.  Three of the pieces had similar issues and with careful scraping I fed them all up, and top coated them with Future Finish to protect the paint. Here’s a piece complete. The white, grey and grey/blue work great together and this will help tie the colours of the kit together very well. I didn’t have too much masking to do here, but I did leave the edges of the pieces grey primer. This will add some subtle depth. Feeling bold, I thought these circular indents would look great in fluorescent green! I panel lined with black fine-liner (currently using a Sigma Microperm 0.1mm and it’s quite excellent), and as the paint dries you’ll see the black line show through.  Next up is the LED wiring. Bandai have tried really hard to make the wiring work well. The system feels robust and the instructions are decent. However, that doesn’t stop the process from being “rather tricky”. You actuality have to dislocate the knee while putting the wiring in. Ouch! Getting these upper leg armour pieces on was rather tricky. It was as if the psychoframe wasn’t fitting right, but as it’s semi-transparent you can see that indeed the frame is sitting right, so perhaps it’s just tricky!  The leg is really coming together now. I’m so enjoying how the colours work together and the small green dot ties into the green line around the back of the knee joint. The back of the leg snaps nicely into place. As does the front. The grey masked area on the side pieces leaves a nice grey channel where the front armour joins on. After doing the transform for the ankle  we can just press on the side sub-assemblies from earlier. They fit remarkably easily! Now we’re just missing the knee section.  The knee goes on. I just pressed and pressed until it held. The variegation in the colours works well!   I really like the details on the back of the knee. So here’s one leg complete and all the parts painted for the other leg to be assembled next. This is going to be a rather large kit when complete. The leg is long enough in this form, but it’s only going to get longer when transformed!

Update

 The second leg and skirt section are complete! This mech is big. It’s already an imposing sight and it’s no-where-near finished. The skirt sections went together well. I used the light grey/blue on some of the upper pieces to help further tie the colour scheme together. For the rest of the parts I went with the masked grey primer on the bevel edges and some of the panels.Oh my! I can’t wait for the completion of this kit. I feel very good about the colour scene, and I’m looking forwards to the arms next!