Day6

no pics today, cause really it was rather boring.

I airbrushed the frame with MM Acryl Gunship Grey. It had been a while since I broke the airbrush out, so that was interesting. I first attempted to thin the paint with Polly-S airbrush thinner, but the two obviously didn't get along, generating nasty clumps that clogged my airbrush up completely. (I was spraying at 20-25 psi). I switched to 70% isopropyl alcohol, and that worked much much better. I still had some tip-drying issues, but nothing serious. I aughta get some acrylic retarder. The main thrusters were too heavy to stay on the sticks with how I mounted them. that was annoying, but the damage was minimal.

 without tamiya thinner available, what will work best with the black and white tamiya paints I'm gonna need to use next? I'll try the polly-s thinner, it might work fine...

There will be a few complications when painting, but quite few compared to many other kits: The back of the head needs to be painted assembled, as the seam there needs to be smooth.

 I want opinions on the shoulders. Now there's three main pieces, front, back, and outer. Some depictions show these as one piece, some do not.

 In the CG on the cover of Hobby Japan, the actual MG photo model, and most of the resin and scratchbuilds, the shoulder is one piece.

 the CG for the MG box lid, art within the MG instructions (including beauty shots)have a seam.

Should I fill or not fill?

 One more thing, I'm debating just how much of the armor should be glossy: all of it, none of it, just the red, or just the black. I had been leaning towards a satin red and gloss black/gold, but I've seen some very nice, glossy sinanju art lately...

smeagol the vile wrote:

well, it depends on if you want syle or realism.  Realism would leave it flat, for, especially in space, you dont want anything shiny to reflect and give away the position.  Or you could go gloss like it were a ceremonial mech like they used often in seed.

 This is a char-style bright red 'look at me!' MS. visibility doesn't seem to be an issue, and it's not unreasonable to think it could be kitted out like a sports car. Still, it's something I need to think about, but I don't have to decide until after I've got the decals on.

 I'm leaning towards filling the seam, even though it'll be a pain and a half, having to paint it in place.

I've decided to finish the inner frame first before moving on to other parts. So far I've picked out bits and pistons and cables here and there in silver, and undercoated silver for some of the brighter colors like yellow. didn't get much done today since I got to a rather late start. I'm gonna get a bit complicated with the inner frame, with some bits in darker gray, gunmetal, etc, just to make it look like it's a lot more pieces than it really is! Yes I know it will all be hidden by armor. *sigh*

I missed this due to pressing matters at the house for the last two weeks.

As you found out Polly Scale thinner doesn't work with MM Paints.

I found that out too (don't ask).

It will not work with Tamiya either. Same results (don't ask)..............

I'd use Tamiya's acrylic thinner, Tamiya's laquer thinner, isoprophyl alcohol, or plain old distilled water with Tamiya acrylic paint. Just my and painful experience.

 

Day 8

More painting! I fired up the airbrush to put down the base color on the thrusters, MM Jet Exhaust. Still deciding whether to paint the inside of the bells yellow or gold or what.

 Detail added to the frame and other bits, I used German uniform gray, gunmetal, silver, and insignia yellow.

 I'm disapponted with the close-up photos of the leg verniers, I may need to clean them up and redo them.

 

Still need to do some black details, some cleanup, and the armored cables. Then, I can finally start on the armor! Yay!

Day 9

Here we go.So today I started with the known issue of the shoulders, got out the Squadron Green and went at it.

Gold marker shows that there's still a problem here.

So I went and filled some more. In retrospect, I should have used cement to start with. The pieces just keep moving tiny amounts, causing the gap to re-appear.

Went and started masking the shoulders for painting. Pretty annoying! Trying out liquid mask on the tricky bits near the end, we'll see how well that works.

Now, I discovered I can assemble the head armor while removing the internals like the mono-eye. This means I can paint the head semi-assembled, and take care of the seam in the back and the front.

Need to mask the circled areas in the head internal structure though, because they're exposed from the armor.

Plastic cement and some pressure take care of the seams. A light touch with the sanding stick and they'll be gone!

Now to start painting! I'm hitting everything with black. It doesn't have to be particularly pretty or nice, it's just a color coat that's going to have white and then red over it, so I'm allowed to be a little sloppy. If I'd normally spray 3 times, here I'm spraying twice. Some red can show through and I'm not worrying about a little orangepeel. Yet.

several hours later...

So how'd the shoulder come out? well...

 I'm rather amazed at how much my sanding marks are showing up. I thought my extra fine salon board would leave the marks invisible, but I guess not! Also, the lines are still there! >_<  I really should have glued cause I don't know how I'll keep the little line from showing up now. What do you folks think? A little Mr.Surfacer or automotive primer, maybe?

The head came out much better, and I'm quite happy with it.

 Next comes the white, and preshading!

Pretty awesome project you've got going here, Sian.

As far as those annoying seams, you shoudl have filled it in with diluted Squadron Putty, thinned with Testor's liquid cement. Let dry thoroughly, and then file with an emery board, and then wet-sand with fine sandpaper. LIke, 600-1200 grit. Lastly, you should use Tamiya's Fine White Primer to catch all the seams still needing attention. This stff is amazing--I learned about it whilst doing some Auto modeling, where seams can utterly ruin a car model. WHen you're dealing with gloss or enamel paints, you must be "anal" about seam filling and plastic preparation with micro-sanding papers if you don't want to see the marks.

What I would do is to get one of those little pacs of Testor's (???) fine sanding paper packs. You know, they're about 4X5' each, in different coors, coordinated to the grits? Wetsand your part there, and then spray again. You should be able to get it better than that...

I see I see, I would have gone the other way around.  Just a heads up, when you preshade, atleast, when I do... I do a basecoat first, then only paint the spots that you want preshaded, thats what I do, works good for me.

I just do the base color like that so the shaded color looks the way I want it, the color you use as a base can change the color of the color ontop of it.  Paint over white, then paint over gray primer, it shows.

I'm now wondering about the thruster bells.

 1: do I paint the inside a different color? Yellow inside the thruster bells is often done for mobile suits, though I'm not sure how it's justified, it certainly looks good.

2: there's a nub on the attaching part that is visible inside the bell. What color do I paint that?

 3: do I just replace all the bells with aluminum ones from mechaskunk?