I had always wanted to build a Nobell despite not really enjoying G Gundam. This along with the Master Gundam are probably the only designs I like from G. So when 'The Salty Robot' announced that he was going to launch the Cerulean Project again in 2021, I immediately thought that I'd build the Nobell. The Cerulean Project is programme that highlights the importance of mental health, something I'm sure we can all relate to in recent times especially with the various worldwide lockdowns due to Covid-19! When Salty said that the common colour theme this year would be purple, well I immediately went to search for inspiration. Seeing that the Nobell is pretty much Sailor Moon in Gundam form, my first thought was to see if there was a purple Sailor Scout - there was. Hotaru Tomoe aka Sailor Saturn was a purple-themed Sailor Scout who has short hair and wields the Silence Glaive. Unfortunately thats all the knowledge I have about her.
The first thing I did was to figure out how I wanted the Silence Glaive made. I toyed with the idea of creating it from scratch but I thought that this was a good chance to commission a 3d-printed glaive from Mech_Case. He modelled and printed the glaive to me and had it delivered to my doorstep within 2 weeks. In hindsight, I should have asked for the glaive to be longer but when I provided the dimensions, I had thought that 12cm would have been enough. Lesson learned for next time.
Next was her hair. I was going to cut the hair to have it short like the actual Tomoe but it ended up looking like she had slicked back hair instead. So I decided to keep the original Nobell's hair but paint it really nicely. I shaded the hair using multiple paints (various combinations of black, purple and purple pearl powder) to get the effect that you can see above.
The rest was pretty straightforward. I tried to do some preshading this time: purple under white which came through quite nicely and a darker purple for the rest which doesn't really come through. It's been a good while since I preshaded something so its clear I still need more practice! I used some violet decals from HiQParts as well which shows up pretty well under certain lighting conditions! Lastly added the number 10 as (I believe) Saturn is 10th Sailor Scout.
I do urge you guys to participate in next year's Cerulean Project (pretty sure he will do another one). The build window is now closed but if you want to show some support to the exposure of mental health please visit the Cerulean Project shop. Thanks for reading. Until next time!