GBWC 2015 Qualifier Winner Interview #6
Today we spoke to Heng Wang, winner of Fanime’s contest with the best in show entry!
How did you first get into Gunpla? How long have you been building?
I used to snap together SDs and old HGs when I was a kid, but I started it with the full paint/detailing serious modeling in 2013, the people at Tatsu Hobby were a big help to me starting out. Coming to modern HGUC/MG 2.0 after a decade of not making Gundam was a huge shock! I couldn’t believe how user friendly everything is.
What was the inspiration for your entry? Could you tell us about your concept?
I am a big fan of this painter Yoshiyuki Takani, who is a very famous painter of model box art and sci-fi illustrator from the 70s and 80s. He made a great painting of a Zeon base in the desert and I really wanted to try and do a similar scene. He has a great expressive style and I wanted to try and do it justice.
What was the build process like? Did you use any unconventional materials or techniques?
Fairly standard painting and weathering techniques picked up from magazines and tutorials- the only thing unconventional maybe is I use a custom oil paint medium that I mix up for weathering- a weird concoction of various fine art oil painting mediums- it’s smelly but it works! That and I used some techniques that armor and aviation modelers like to use, like cast armor textures and pin washes.
What part of building (in general) do you enjoy the most?
I definitely like trying to recreate things mentioned briefly in sourcebooks and side materials, things like recreating MSV color schemes, using squad insignias from side stories and such. The One Year War and Universal Century has so much great background material to draw from for modeling!
What’s your favorite Gundam series? Favorite mobile suit?
Definitely the original Movie trilogy or Zeta. As for favorite mobile suit? It changes always, but any of the Z/ZZ era Zeon style stuff like Marasai, Doven Wolf, etc, is great.
You can see more photos of Heng’s entry here.