MG Hi-Zack: My first real build!

Excellent build. I've considered scratching this model.

They're kinda thick, but you just need to thin them w/ water. They dry very flat.

Usually I use them to paint small figures/pilots uniforms and skin tones.

Back in the day before I had an airbrush, I used them to paint this guy:

<picture deleted>

He's made of vinyl, so over the years his gun has 'wilted'.

Tell me when you get this post and I'll take him down.

- JC

I have some of those Apple Barrel paints from old craft stuff.  I guess I thought that for a model I needed paint from a model shop.  Do you thin it the same way?  Cause I'll try that for my next Gundam. 

Looking good! Did you brush paint the whole thing, or did you spray can some of it?

Nice colors. Gives a good contrast.

Ditto everyone else on the Tamiya paint v. brush painting. I've never been able to get good results without using them in an airbrush. Glad to see its not just me.

You know what I use for brush painting acrylics? Apple Barrel craft paints. Available at any craft store for under a buck. You get a lot of paint, they cover well, have squeeze/drip lids so you only use what you need, clean up w/ water and they come in a ton of colors.

I hear Games Workshop figure paints are good too, if a little expensive.

Don't worry about post-shading or pre-shading until you get an airbrush. Its almost impossible to get those techniques to work without one. Instead work on drybrushing and pin/spot washes. Much easier to master, and can be done with just the brushes you already have. Once you've mastered those, I'm sure you will use them on almost every model you build from then on.

I got a Fledermaus posted around here somewhere. The nose cone and the landing skids were painted w/ that 'faux black' trick I was talking about earlier. You can have a look and decide what you think.

Here's to all your many happy Gundam build-ups to come.

Got the link, thanks! Looks good! nice color combo on the machine.

I think you said it as well as anyone can, handbrushing Tamiya is a chore in futility, unless the prior coat is dried for several hours and is dead dry.  Flats work much better toovercoat and you can apply a gloss over a flat much easier because it has something to stick to and not pull away at the corners (surface tension).

Make certain that your colors are thoroughly stirred (not shaken) before painting, too.

I use the good 91% as well to thin, I like to use Tamiyas exotic thinner to shoot thier glosses but find that semi gloss dries a bit flatter and flats dry almost dead flat with alcohol thinner.  

Ok, off to shoot some TIE fighter action here....

David 

Heres the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/skull_gundam/  

I didn't try combining any colors this time, but I think I'm going to try cosmics suggestions about adding other colors so I dont paint with straight black.  I used all y black on this build (big shock) so I cleaned out the jar really well and now I have a paint jar for a custom color. 

I was thinning my Tamiyas with 91% alchohol.  The guy at my hobby shop told me to instead of buying Tamiya thinner.  I think I've noticed what people mean when they say not to hand brush Tamiyas though.  Each color I used had different properties.  The Chrome Silver and Semi Gloss Black went on awesome, but a second coat tended to stick as I tried to brush it on.  Maybe I didn't wait long enough between coats, but they were dry to the touch before I did a new layer.  The orange was a huge pain and needed several coats to look right, and the titanium silver on the internals and Heat Hawk never really looked like I wanted it to. 

I just bought a couple of SD's from GundamStoreandMore (if it is allowed I'd love to share a tesimonial about that store, but I want the owners permission first) and I wonder if you guys think I should buy a different paint brand, since I wont have an airbrush yet?  I hope to get one come summertime. 

That walkthrough would be awesome.  I love reading them.  I dont know if I'll ever be good enough to use all the techniques I've read about but I hope so.  Its a little intimidating to try something like pre or postshading, but I guess the only answer is to dive right in.  It can all be striped off anyway if I'm not happy.  Maybe on my next MG if I have an airbrush.  Oh by the way, I won a Zeta Gundam HG on Ebay for a penny!  Thats so awesome.  I'm gonna go read at Gaera's site and see what tips I can pick up today.  Thatnks for all the help guys. 

I guess Im not getting the link, can you add it again.

On certain things like thrusters and hands I make my own special mix and keep it in one of those little plastic storage containers made for paint. I use black mixed with metallic grey (Tamiya acrylic) then shade with black and highlight if needed with metallic silver.

I use Tamiya acrylics almost exclusively for Gundam, but I occassionaly dip into my enamels for certain shades. If you are spraying paint from the same source each day the colors should look the same, if you are applying over a light grey primer. Two or three thin coats, not one, especially with glosses that tend to pull back from edges when applied.

What is it that you are thinning with alochol? I use alcohol to thin Tamiya for spray, but its not very good for hand brushing, since Tamiya is not really intended for handbrushing. You CAN thin it with water mixed with Floquil or Luiquitex SloDri which is a drying retarder. I use that asmy panel line wash over a coat of Future, removed almost immediately with a qtip wet with Badger Airbrush cleaner.  Windex should work too to take off the wash.

 

Tell ya what, in the next couple of weeks I will do my MS06J Zaku and i wll try to get up quite a few pics of the process, the same as Gamera does. He has such great step by step tutorials, those are hard to compare to.

 

David  

No.    I just realized I forgot to put the new pictures up on Flickr.  I'll get on that right away.  They be up shortly.  Sorry

Hey SG. I can't see the photos. The most recent ones I can see are from Mar. 9.

Am I doing something wrong?

In suspense - JC

Ok So hes done!  Actually theres no final top coat but I dont have the spray yet so that'll wait.  If anyone has any coments they'd be appreciated.  The pics aren't the best but its the best my camera can do.  Enjoy.  The pictures are on my Flickr page since I cant seem to figure out how to paste them right in here.  The link is in one of my previous posts.

 

SG:

I'm gonna take pictures of it finished before I do the panel lines and I bought a .05 mm pen to do them with.  Should I do silver lines on the black parts, or not do panel lines on the black?

The answer to that one is really up to you. Which do you think would look better? If you don't like the silver lines, you could always paint over them.

Probably too late to point this out, but I never paint any exterior surface straight black. If you look at things in the real world, they are really a dark grey. Things like car tires, or certain railroad cars for instance. On a model that's supposed to represent something large, I always dilute the black w/ another color; Anthracite Grey for a neutral color, Panzer Dark Grey for a slightly bluish one, or Red for a more vibrant shade.

To paint panel lines I use an enamel spot wash of Black or Burnt Umber, depending on the base color. I've never gotten good results w/ pens, but I've seen others who have. Again, you'll have to try different tricks to develop your own ‘palette'.

Red Comet has a model posted where he used a silver pen to draw the panel lines on a gundam. It looked pretty good. You could try to PM him and see what he can add.

-JC

Ok My painting is going along well.  I've filled the seams on the chest and arms and shoulder spikes.  The putty is hard to use.  I think I'm putting on too much.  I have a tendency to cover things when it really only needs to fill the tiny crack.  Live and learn.  I bought a little tabletop tripod from the dollar store and it works well so my pics should be less fuzzy now.  I finished the lower body and you can see I made the skirt orange and masked off some areas to be black.  The head was done but like the overzealous young adult I am I decided to put it together, which takes a lot of pushing, only an hour after I put the paint on.  It was dry but the fingerprints are so good you could convict me of something using them.  Guess I gotta paint it again and have a bit of patience.  I don't know how you guys do little things like hands and thrusters, but from the tutorials I read I was using skewers and sticky tacking each of them.  Well, yesterday I found a way that works alot better for me.  Thats a popsicle stick under the fingers and thrusters.  The extra surface area lets the sticky tack hold better and they aren't as unwieldy on the stick.  Spring break starts next week so I hope to have it done in the week and a half I have off so I can enter it in the March contest at Mecha Competition or whatever that website is.  I'm gonna take pictures of it finished before I do the panel lines and I bought a .05 mm pen to do them with.  Should I do silver lines on the black parts, or not do panel lines on the black?  I'll keep you guys updated. 

So I started painting last night and continued today.  I'm doing the weopons right now.  For the Hi-Zack I'm using black.  Accessories and trim I'm doing in Orange and I think it looks cool together.  I was inspired by the Gouf Ignited from Seed Destiny.  (Speaking of which, Does anyone know if the 1/100 scale destiny kits are Master Grade?  Theres no grade on the boxes)  I did the machine gun in Gun Metal and the little accent lines in titanium silver.  I'm still trying to get the hang of thinning it out with alchohol.  But I think it's going well.  After a coat or two all the pieces for the accessories are done and I think they are looking good.  I'll put some pictures up later today I think.  I'm helping my girlfriend make chocolate lolipops for a class project (teacher sucks) so I dont have time to take pics now.  I want to stat painting the bdy parts today and maybe get the seam line in the chest section puttied.  I'll see how long these lollies take. 

Edit: Heres the link to the new pics   http://www.flickr.com/photos/skull_gundam/

If you are using commercially available paints, I don't think you will have any problems on that front.

If you are using a custom paint that you mixed yourself, you'll need to store it in a small paint container. Little cups w/ lids attached are available at just about every hobby and craft store for next to nothing. I wouldn't try to store custom paint for months, but if your using it every day over the course of a week or so, you shouldn't have any problem.

Ok I finished all the parts that need to be primed.  I did them in the back hall of my apartment.  I'm pretty sure the neighbors are gonna be mad and I didn't open the door till I was in a cloud of primer gas so I may be finishing it in the hospital.  But at least its done.  I dont think I missed anything.  So I guess I get to try painting this week.  Any tips on how to make sure the paint comes out the same color on different parts on different days of painting?  Waiting to hear from you guys.  Thanks!

Oh yeah. I always sand all the seams I can before I apply paint.

For big seams and gaps, I use Miliput fine white putty. Roll it into thin strips, and push it into the gap. You can clean it up w/ a wet q-tip, but be sure to leave some sticking up above the surface. When it dries, you can sand it down normally. This stuff is expensive, but when you need it, its worth it for the time and energy you save.

For smaller seams (about the size of a panel line on an aircraft), I use generic super glue. Run it into the gap, and let it dry. Takes about a half an hour. Make sure you use only as much as you need. If you sand it within an hour, it will have the same consistency as the plastic, and can be polished to a mirror like finish. If you wait too long (a few hours or more) for some reason the super glue seems much harder, more difficult to sand. I don't know why this is.

You can buy super glue accelerator, which will harden SG instantly, but I've had some odd reactions when using it. You should try both ways; see what works best for you.

There is also "black" SG, which is SG w/ finely ground rubber particles suspended in it. This makes it easier to sand the SG, and easier to see if you've gotten the seam flush or not. I didn't care for it, I found it too crumbly. But that could just be the batch I had, or something I did wrong. Again, you should try it yourself to decide.

For little inky-dink seams, like the kind that you only see after you get that first coat of paint on, I use Mr. Surfacer, either the 500 or the 1000. I just push some into the seam with a detail brush, wait for it to dry, and sand flush.

Paint will stick to all of this stuff, but if you're using acrylics, I'd prime all the same.

Hey, thanks for the Primer info David. You taught me something I didn't know.

Good Luck, and keep us up to date.

-JC

Cosmic J wrote:

SkullGundam asked: Now for parts that need to be sealed should I seal first then prime and paint?  And can someone tell me how long Tamiya Spray Primer takes to fully dry?  I cant read the can:) I'm not sure what you mean by "seal". The primer goes right on the plastic, then paint. I'm not sure how long it takes Tamiya Fine White primer to dry (like you, I can't read Japanese). I always wait 24 hours, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

  Sorry, what I meant was there are some parts where the seams are really bad so I need to use the Tamiya cement and some putty.  Do I have to do that before I prime or will the acrylic paint stick to the putty also?

agreed onthe primer

by the smell of it it is a nitrocellulose lacquer and has to completly offgass before you put someting else on it.

I have always had the opinion, and I keep finding this to be the truth of the mattter, that if you can come back to it in a day and smell the solvent, you need to let it dry more.  Otherwise over time it will bubble the paint you put on. I rushed my Yamaha YZR1 and ruined the paint on it.

David

SkullGundam asked:

Now for parts that need to be sealed should I seal first then prime and paint?  And can someone tell me how long Tamiya Spray Primer takes to fully dry?  I cant read the can:)

I'm not sure what you mean by "seal". The primer goes right on the plastic, then paint.

I'm not sure how long it takes Tamiya Fine White primer to dry (like you, I can't read Japanese). I always wait 24 hours, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

So I started priming today.  I took the whole thing apart yesterday night and seperated the peices into what body part they are.  On my piece of foam I was able to skewer the arms and the weopons and backpack.  I did those first because I was spraying everything.  In the legs and chest I need to seperate out the parts that are totaly hidden by armor, no reason to paint those.  Now for parts that need to be sealed should I seal first then prime and paint?  And can someone tell me how long Tamiya Spray Primer takes to fully dry?  I cant read the can:)  I'll post te pics on my flickr page tommorow, right now I have a ton of homework.

Happy to help, brother.

Long may you glue, sand and paint.