Painting an MG gundam Zaku II (black trinity)

I made another noob discovery after looking at fichtenfoo's a1 zeta plus. Those pieces of the abdomen actually move/snap down and out and then that whole shoulder area comes down with the cockpit going partially inbetween.  It helped out the skinny waist problem a lot.

I washed the entire kit on the sprues and primed with a basic white krylon primer.  Then I painted with krylon interior/exterior paint, which I believe is an enamel.  That comment earlier was more of a joke.  The only paint that really had problems rubbing off was the black paint.  I figure that is because I got the Ultra Flat Black paint and it dries with a relatively rough surface and the particles are probably relatively large.  Overall, I think Krylon is a pretty good paint, but then again Ive never really used anything else.

Krylon..........UGHHHHH!! I avoid it at all costs. I have never had a single good reaction with Krylon in the last twenty two years other than when it hits the can.

 I use Duplicolor light grey sandable primer. Its getting harder to find it but its what I prefer.  Any hobby enamel should work, too.

David 

I used Krylon for awhile when I started model building but then it started creating the orange peel effect on my kits.  I was not too pleased seeing how I lost a few kits to it.  So then I tried a few different ones, such as Testors white primer and Mr Surfacer, and had good success with those.  A good buddy of mine, and fellow modeler, put me on the right path by turning me on to Duplicolor.  I've been using that since and I have never looked back.  My buddy gets it shipped to his house by the case.  He has quite a number of commission pieces though so he needs the stock.

For clear coat I use Dullcoat and Figure Flat.  I haven't tried airbrushing Future or any other clear coat, but I will be trying Future on my Zugock once I am done.

Back on topic though... I am glad you got the waist fixed.  I have always been partial to the Gouf Custom.  Is that the Gouf kit you are thinking of doing next?

Are you guys only talking about krylon primer or all of their spray paints in general?  I did have a problem with the primer, but that was only on a few pieces.  And I think it was my fault, either spraying to heavily or at first when I was spraying onto a piece laying on newspaper.  Here is something you guys might think is funny...  I used almost 2 normal sized spray cans of primer on this model, lol.  I primed a lot of air.

 I was going to buy paint for the jeep soon.   I found a hobby shop that is about a 40 minute drive away.  I may just breakdown sometime and make a trip to get some tamiya paint and hopefully they will have some pigments.

Gnoob (better change that soon to not so noob) stay away from the nonMG Goug. The NonMG
Zaku is OK but you will like the MG item better, and I would love to have a MkII RX-78 in MG.

The GM powered suit (green version, I think that is the RGM-78C) is called a MG kit, but it does not really build up quite like one. Defeinitely better than a regular HG and with the weapon options of a MG kit and MG kit boxing, but the way it is engineered is not up to MG standards, so you use a bit more putty. I had a blast with mine and it is mounted "in flight" over a big red fishtank rock.  The typical ground unit GM was a great kit, went together just fine and I had some fun with that one with battle damage and custom colors. I used some light weathering on it, as well as a lot of dry transfers and spare decals ( I have a LOT of all kinds of decals just for this purpose). It does not have a base so it is a stand alone.

Send me a PM and I can shoot you some photos I have of the buildups.

David

 

 

Nah, Im definately still a noob.  I take great care to cover my noob mistakes in my pictures, lol.

As far as my next gundam goes Ive decided im sticking with MG.  I just dont want to have different scales or quality levels being displayed next to each other.  I think it would make all of them look worse.  I was looking on dalong.net, the guy who does the buildups of every gundam,  and Im leaning toward the MG zaku II ver2.0.  That thing looks like it is superbly engineered, especially compared to the kit I just built, which is a pain to get a decent looking pose out of.

Id love to see some photos of your finished gundams/mechs.

I also thought id post some new pics of my build.

 

I threw that shield/gun thing together from the GI Joe gun barrel and a piece from the kit.  I didn't like that big ugly thing on his arm so I changed it up.  Im not done tweaking it yet that is why the barrel is a little crooked and I may change up the decals.

 

I think this build should look decent once I get that matte finish on there.  Oh, and you can see how this waist filled out a little.

nice!

yeah the older MGs were a pain to pose, they had limited positionability and you could not really DO much with them other than put them in a limited fighting/ shooting stance. I tried to get my GM down on one knee but it justwould not do it, so I try to evoke different poses than those I typically see on ohters when I dsiplay them in public. Even my Patlabor is hard to pose due to the vinyl skirts and inserts which really limits mobility.  The newer generation kits have more flex engineered in.

I was surprised by myKempfer, it is almost NOT posable especiallyfor what I wanted it to do, so I relied on a solid base and strong magnets in the foot to support it and hold its pose with the opposite foot coming off the ground at the toe.

Ill shoot you some photos later on

David

Without doing some mods to the hips and legs it is very hard to get any decent poses.

I'd like to see those pics too.

Well I finally finished it, atleast for the time being. I tried to do a wash with watercolors, but I wasn't able to get good results.  I think it may have been the paint I was using though because I used kid's "washable watercolors".  I ended up just washing it all off.  I also made a base for my model out of legos and various other junk.  I wish I would have made it slightly larger, but it looks ok.  It is supposed to be a lunar surface, I dont know if you can see it or not :) The photos of it have washed out some of the highlighting I did on it and make it look glossier than it really is.

Base

front

front again without the base

profile view

side shot

another side shot

 

 

Ill try to get some more photos in sunlight later. 

Can anyone tell me more about panel marker pens? Where is a good place to get them, and what brands? Colours? I'll be painting Patlabor models primarily. I do have a couple of Gundam ones that caught me eye though :)

I ordered some gundam markers from gundamstoreandmore.com along with my gundam and my impression is that they are junk.  Maybe I just dont have a steady enough hand, but I think it would be VERY difficult to make decent looking panel lines.  The ones I ordered were almost impossible to remove after you marked them and so im lucky I only tried on a junk piece.

The only panel line that is actually marked is on the "shield" I made.  That was done with a gundam marker but I had to paint overtop to cover up how horrible it was and somehow it came out looking decent after that. 

I would suggest looking up information on some of the other wash methods. 

Hmm, yeah, I suspect I'd be in the same situation with drawing lines... :)

You know, I'm still not sold on painting the parts unassembled. I mean then you have to repair/join finish and repaint over join lines. I'd have thought partial assembly would have been better.

For the most part I did paint my gundam in partial assemblies.  I made some errors that left visible seams, but hey this was my first model afterall.

You did a great job, Noob. 

JB
 

Wow! Im back on the boards after the Nats! I picked up the Zaku V2 Chars colors and all I can say is WoW! Im thoroughly impressed with this new slide mold technology, very impressive!

 Ok, now onto markers.

Junk.  Get rid of them and any other paint markers and stick to real paints, you will be SO much happier!! What claims to be an easier way to do things usually is not. Gundam Panel Marker pen. I have one, and dont use it. I use Micron or Zig pens from the office store, size 005 for all my panel lines. Otherwise you can do a kids artists water color paint wash over a gloss clear coat, add a tiny drop of dishwashing soap to the mix, and take off the excess with a damp Qtip. easy and cheap, but takes a bit of practice not to drag all the paint out. Final option is standard Preshade and oil wash like the tankers do, it always works for really dirty machines and I did it before I found the pens.

David

 

Just one comment regarding the Gundam Markers~
I only keep the Chrome Silver marker in my tool box.
It's actually quite handy to paint small piece as you don't need to bring out your paint bottle

Great Job Noob! I'm just about to try some of this myself. I've never painted a Gundam model before, but I've built the MG Gouf and Wing zero. I'd stay away from the Gouf unless you are really patient. Maybe I'm just dumb but the whip was a pain. You have to thread a cloth piece over the wire and then thread all the beads onto the whip. It took me forever to do. I ordered an MG Hizack and I should get it this week, but I want to try painting a 1/144 scale first, just in case I mess up. Thanks for all the great tips in here. Maybe I'll put some oics up in my own thread while I'm building. Your success is really encouraging for me.