Plastic Scale Modelling |OT| Gunpla and Everything Else

[Deleted member 5745]

Got bored so I thought I'd put them in their poses from their MG boxarts.

Nailed it.

Also I'm looking into getting my first Hi-Resolution kit. Anyone have experience with those? I'm starting to settle on Wing EW since it's a limited release here, and I hear it's much improved over the Wing Zero.

 

[Cymbal Head]

This was fun. My first custom paint job on a kit. As mentioned above, my goal was to make this ver Ka better match the tv version of the original Deathscythe. So I made it black, trimmed it with gold and decided to make the head half black to give it the appearance of a reaper hood (and to distinguish it from Sandrock which I felt this version looked too much like). I also made the side skirts black on gold instead of the default white on white.

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Looks good. I like the tone of that gold, what paint did you use?

Finished my first RG a few days ago. Happy with the building process and the look of the RG Unicorn. The water slide decals took a long time and I accidentally destroyed some. It was also my first time with waterslides.

The pictures:

http://imgur.com/gallery/8DCjz7C

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Planning to start this kit soon! Any tricky points?

 

[MoonsaultSlayer]

Looks good. I like the tone of that gold, what paint did you use?



Planning to start this kit soon! Any tricky points?

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Thanks. The gold it just a metallic gold gundam marker and the black a matte black Vallejo spray paint.

I've been wanting to make it more of an orangey gold... not sure.

 

[entrydenied]

Looks good. I like the tone of that gold, what paint did you use?



Planning to start this kit soon! Any tricky points?

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Make sure you move and lossen the movable parts of the inner frame before putting the parts on them. Do it slowly and carefully. If it's not your first RG you should already be familiar with this. Basically the advice I see from elsewhere. I see people talking about accidentally breaking the arms. The shoulders are quite stiff.

Other than that I don't remember any tricky parts.

 

[Cymbal Head]

Here's what I've been up to lately:



Build took me a while because I had a lot of other summer hijinks going on.

 

[Deleted member 5745]

Looks good!

 

[xEik]

Here's what I've been up to lately:



Build took me a while because I had a lot of other summer hijinks going on.

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What mishap did you have with the topcoat while posing it? Did it just scrub off in some joints?

 

[Cymbal Head]

What mishap did you have with the topcoat while posing it? Did it just scrub off in some joints?

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Yeah, you can see a few spots in the pics where I tried to touch it up. I know I could minimize it if I took my time setting up the pose.

 

[xEik]

Arriving a bit later than usual due to holidays and the heat wave sapping my will to spend the time to take photos: RE/100 MSA-005K Guncannon Detector.
As is typical for all RE/100, the high amount of markings improves its looks for me.
Apart from the usual panel lines, I took the time to paint in black the holes of the cannons.
Instead of using the green reflective stickers over the clear parts for the head sensors and the backpack rear camera, I put leftover silver sticker from the sticker sheet behind the clear parts to improve reflectivity.
It comes with an extra long gun intended for the desert type MG Nemo (P-Bandai). Maybe someday I'll use it on the regular MG Nemo I've already built but I cannot be bothered right now.
Lore-wise, this thing is a Guncannon only in name. In reality, it's mostly a Methuss with a couple of cannons slapped on. Regardless of this, anything that reminds me of the Torrington base hype attack, is OK in my books.

 

[Neo0mj]

I was just going to say that it looks nothing like a GM.

 

[Deleted member 3700]

So I went to Wonder Festival today and got back with a 416 (from Girls' Frontline) garage kit. Checked the parts and there are no missing pieces. Insane amount of details and very good casting. As the painting and assembly will be difficult so I will build another cheaper kit first before tackling this one.

 

[xEik]

Non mechanical builds are scary because the shading has to be absolutely on point in order to look good.
Interested to see how it turns out.

 

[Callibretto]

I just found out that Bandai is making Woody and Buzz model kit under cinema rise line. I wonder if we'll get Marvel model kit in the future. I'd love a hulkbuster model kit.

 

[Deleted member 5745]

God mode Luminous Crystal Body Unicorn is finished. I really have to stop building Unicorns.

The psychoframe is a darker green than it looks here, I just used the flash so all the shard effects could be seen better.

The majority of the broken armor parts are actual parts. There's only four white stickers used. Two on the chest, and two on the bottom corners of the shoulders.

 

[Valkerion]

Started my RG Banshee, got the legs and waist done. Pretty solid so far and not quite as difficult as I feared with this many small parts. We'll see if I can get it to transform at the end lol, but honestly I was planning on displaying it untransformed either way.

 

[Deleted member 17952]

Started my RG Banshee, got the legs and waist done. Pretty solid so far and not quite as difficult as I feared with this many small parts. We'll see if I can get it to transform at the end lol, but honestly I was planning on displaying it untransformed either way.

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Make sure to loosen up the shoulder joints. They are really, really tight and has the danger of snapping if not loosened up.

 

[xEik]

God mode Luminous Crystal Body Unicorn is finished. I really have to stop building Unicorns.

The psychoframe is a darker green than it looks here, I just used the flash so all the shard effects could be seen better.

The majority of the broken armor parts are actual parts. There's only four white stickers used. Two on the chest, and two on the bottom corners of the shoulders.

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Looks good.
How much does the crystallized psychoframe impede articulation? With those hands, instead of a "saviour pose" I'd like to display it trying a karate chop on a God Gundam or one of the Burning variants from Try.
I bet you can have a dedicated RX-0 shelf by now. :P

 

[kyle mechlachlan]

I found some white poster board and experimented doing some photos with previously build models. Nothing super interesting but figured I would share.

MG 1/100 RX-78 Gundam The Origin
RG 1/144 RX-178 Gundam MK II (AEUG)
Super Mini Pla Voltron "Voltron"

 

[xEik]

Mk-II framing is interesting compared to the more conventional one used for RZ-78-02.
However I cannot approve of Voltron's. :P XD
At certain sizes it looks like the tip of the left foot was chopped, even though when zooming in one can see that the foot is still in frame by mere pixels but not its shadow which gives the chopped impression when zoomed off.

 

[nicoga3000]

Do any of you paint your Gunpla or model figures? I've done some Gunpla kits, but never painted them. I also love figure kits, but have NO idea how to get into painting them. Especially when they have moving parts.

Any tips or resources or blogs/videos/etc?

 

[Deleted member 5745]

Looks good.
How much does the crystallized psychoframe impede articulation? With those hands, instead of a "saviour pose" I'd like to display it trying a karate chop on a God Gundam or one of the Burning variants from Try.
I bet you can have a dedicated RX-0 shelf by now. :P

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It actually doesn't impede the articulation much.

And I have one dedicated RX-0 shelf lol (RG Unicorn, RG Banshee Norn, HGUC Phenex). I've got the Perfectibility and the RG Full Armor on a shelf together but the Super Minipla Ultrazord is between them so it's not exactly a full RX-0 shelf.

 

[EnronERA]

Mk-II framing is interesting compared to the more conventional one used for RZ-78-02.
However I cannot approve of Voltron's. :P XD
At certain sizes it looks like the tip of the left foot was chopped, even though when zooming in one can see that the foot is still in frame by mere pixels but not its shadow which gives the chopped impression when zoomed off.

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i mean, he used posterboard as a background and used his phone, wasn't like he was using a lightbox lol. but yeah, to take photos like this you need a few lights and position them so the shadow is out of frame, or you move your subject further away from the background

 

[SGJin]

Do any of you paint your Gunpla or model figures? I've done some Gunpla kits, but never painted them. I also love figure kits, but have NO idea how to get into painting them. Especially when they have moving parts.

Any tips or resources or blogs/videos/etc?

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When painting gunpla you just have to be wary around the joint and peg areas. Its mostly varies kit to kit but before painting you usually do a snap fit and check for areas that might be problematic and will rub against another part when painted. If they do rub against each other, an easy fix is to sand down the area just enough to account for the paint layers.

If you are spray painting, mask off the pegs / holes so you dont make them thicker than they should be, Gunpla tends to have fairly tight tolerances.

 

[xEik]

i mean, he used posterboard as a background and used his phone, wasn't like he was using a lightbox lol. but yeah, to take photos like this you need a few lights and position them so the shadow is out of frame, or you move your subject further away from the background

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I'm not sure if I sounded too harsh but that was not my intention. The non-centered Mk-II framing is legit interesting, be it intentional or not.
Voltron could do with a bit more lower margin. The kits casting shadows was not really part of the critique, I know it can be tricky to do unless you use natural light. The shadow comment was more about it being chopped than it being there.
This comes from someone who does the most vanilla (read boring) framing for his kits and until not too long ago made photos in dead on 90º angles, front, back and sides.

 

[kyle mechlachlan]

I'm not sure if I sounded too harsh but that was not my intention. The non-centered Mk-II framing is legit interesting, be it intentional or not.
Voltron could do with a bit more lower margin. The kits casting shadows was not really part of the critique, I know it can be tricky to do unless you use natural light. The shadow comment was more about it being chopped than it being there.
This comes from someone who does the most vanilla (read boring) framing for his kits and until not too long ago made photos in dead on 90º angles, front, back and sides.

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Don't worry! Didn't take it as harsh. I agree the Voltron didn't come out great... I mostly blame the fact that it's a bit of a rigid kit and I don't think it lends itself to interesting framing. My big boy 1/100 MG RX-78 was a bit too big for the space I was using so I had to limit my framing there as well.

But the MKII is a perfect size and is my most sturdy kit so I can get some interesting poses and I actually stumbled into the framing in that one. Snapped a pick but realized it was off center as I was cropping but was like... this looks good actually.

I have a RG Unicorn that I like a lot that might looks nice... interesting how it will look against white. I also have a black piece of board as well I may try out.

 

[Yarbskoo]

Severely underestimated the creepiness of opening a box of dismembered body parts.

Spoiler

 

[Euler]

Do any of you paint your Gunpla or model figures? I've done some Gunpla kits, but never painted them. I also love figure kits, but have NO idea how to get into painting them. Especially when they have moving parts.

Any tips or resources or blogs/videos/etc?

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I usually just paint details because it's a lot simpler.

Speaking of which, while I was putting on one of my chrome-painted thrusters on my Moon Gundam backpack it fell onto the floor and I can't find it after two hours. If I can't find it in a few days I'll just try to use one of my old spare thrusters from a Zaku 2.

 

[Deleted member 5745]

Do I hate my wallet or does my wallet hate me?

And after this I've got an RG Crossbone that I got from Barnes and Noble to work on.

 

[duckroll]

MG Barbartos finally! RG by 2021? Lol.

 

[Deleted member 5745]

Is that HG Death Army? No way.

 

[sackboy97]

Today I have tried to paint brush once again, still with mixed results. The paint just seems to "slide" off, amassing towards the edges (it doesn't help that the pieces were all quite round/spherical). The paint I had was also quite old and full of bubbles (I think that's the reason, at least), and shaking it up or trying to remove them by pushing them around with the brush didn't seem to make a difference, they'd just move around. I don't know if I should try to dilute the paint (which is acrylic) more (or less, though I used very little water today), or maybe I should just get a can of primer for the next time I want to attempt it.

 

[erd]

Today I have tried to paint brush once again, still with mixed results. The paint just seems to "slide" off, amassing towards the edges (it doesn't help that the pieces were all quite round/spherical). The paint I had was also quite old and full of bubbles (I think that's the reason, at least), and shaking it up or trying to remove them by pushing them around with the brush didn't seem to make a difference, they'd just move around. I don't know if I should try to dilute the paint (which is acrylic) more (or less, though I used very little water today), or maybe I should just get a can of primer for the next time I want to attempt it.

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What brand of paint are you using? Paint sliding around sounds like it's thinned too much but knowing the brand might help for more specific advice.

Primer also definitely helps since it makes the paint stick better than just using it on bare plastic.

 

[sackboy97]

What brand of paint are you using? Paint sliding around sounds like it's thinned too much but knowing the brand might help for more specific advice.

Primer also definitely helps since it makes the paint stick better than just using it on bare plastic.

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The brand is Deka, which I believe is made for painting, though I wouldn't imagine there's much of a difference. The thing is, when I bought it I was recommended to thin it properly, though it feels to liquid already. Like I said, this time I pretty much just took the paint out of the bottle and used the brush (which I dipped in water to loosen the bristles, so it was a bit wet).

 

[Iamcenok]

Thinning is an art. You don't want it too thick where you leave brush strokes, don't want it too thin where it drips down.
Priming is a definite must imo. It gives a nice texture for the paint to adhere too.

I do wonder if the thinning instructions provided on the label is more for airbrush purposes than for brushing.

 

[erd]

The brand is Deka, which I believe is made for painting, though I wouldn't imagine there's much of a difference. The thing is, when I bought it I was recommended to thin it properly, though it feels to liquid already. Like I said, this time I pretty much just took the paint out of the bottle and used the brush (which I dipped in water to loosen the bristles, so it was a bit wet).

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I've never heard of that specific brand, but those kind of general (not specifically made for plastic models) hobby paints apparently often aren't all that great for plastic models since they tend to have larger, coarser pigments. I have no idea if that's the case with your specific one since I've never used it, but it could be. There's a pretty good list of scale-modeling paints on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/modelmakers/wiki/index#wiki_painting). If you can, I'd recommend picking up one water-based acrylic from the list (from personal experience, Vallejo Model Color and Revell Aqua work great) and seeing if that works better. That + primer should give you better results.

I did look up a some youtube videos of people using the paint and it definitely seems way too thick straight out of the bottle (example 1, example 2 - both have very thick paint that leaves behind very visible brush marks). It could maybe be that the paint just wasn't mixed properly. Since the paint is old, the actual paint pigments have likely settled at the bottom while the thinner remains at the top, which would explain why the paint is watery and is sliding all over the place.

 

[sackboy97]

I've never heard of that specific brand, but those kind of general (not specifically made for plastic models) hobby paints apparently often aren't all that great for plastic models since they tend to have larger, coarser pigments. I have no idea if that's the case with your specific one since I've never used it, but it could be. There's a pretty good list of scale-modeling paints on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/modelmakers/wiki/index#wiki_painting). If you can, I'd recommend picking up one water-based acrylic from the list (from personal experience, Vallejo Model Color and Revell Aqua work great) and seeing if that works better. That + primer should give you better results.

I did look up a some youtube videos of people using the paint and it definitely seems way too thick straight out of the bottle (example 1, example 2 - both have very thick paint that leaves behind very visible brush marks). It could maybe be that the paint just wasn't mixed properly. Since the paint is old, the actual paint pigments have likely settled at the bottom while the thinner remains at the top, which would explain why the paint is watery and is sliding all over the place.

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Once my next kit arrives, I'll keep some of the sprues and do some tests on that, to see if adding water helps. One one hand, you can see some brushstrokes when used out of the bottle, but since it also slides down easily I'm not sure if thinning would make it any better.
That particular bottle was unfortunately quite old (I realised it only after I bought it), so I believe that's part of the problem. I did have similar results with another one, though it was also my first time trying it out (and the result isn't all that bad).

 

[Deleted member 17952]

Happy #charmonth! Started working on MG Zaku II today:

Oh, and yeah: FUCK THOSE POWER TUBES!!! May the designer who made them suffer a thousand pinky-toe stubbings!

That is all.

 

[Callibretto]

got my 30MM figure. I have to say, I really like it. very simple build, and great articulation for some awesome poses, even when standing

it can even do some Jojo pose

 

[Mandos]

Finally have a budget again so decided to do a Japan order. Finally bit on the MG Shadow Gundam(as old as it is) and Hgfc G Gundam. Should be some fun builds, and I'm currently planning to finish my G Gundam lineup

 

[xEik]

Happy #charmonth! Started working on MG Zaku II today:

Oh, and yeah: FUCK THOSE POWER TUBES!!! May the designer who made them suffer a thousand pinky-toe stubbings!

That is all.

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The MG 2.0 power tubes are greatness, you heathen. ;)

 

[Deleted member 17952]

The MG 2.0 power tubes are greatness, you heathen. ;)

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Tell that to my almost bleeding fingers XD

Hopefully they go with a pre-built multi-injection on the Lunamaria Zaku Warrior.

 

[Deleted member 17952]

https://www.gunplanetwork.com/single-post/2019/08/01/MG-1100-Gundam-Barbatos---Release-Info

MG Lupus and Rex too please! And after that, a Perfect Grade Lupus would be great (I'll buy 2).

 

[Callibretto]

Man, do I want to get Barbatos now or wait for Lupus...

 

[Cymbal Head]

The more I see of those 30MM kits, the more interested I am. I like the Porta Nova design quite a bit.

One day I'll tear myself away from Fire Emblem long enough to get back to plamo.

When painting gunpla you just have to be wary around the joint and peg areas. Its mostly varies kit to kit but before painting you usually do a snap fit and check for areas that might be problematic and will rub against another part when painted. If they do rub against each other, an easy fix is to sand down the area just enough to account for the paint layers.

If you are spray painting, mask off the pegs / holes so you dont make them thicker than they should be, Gunpla tends to have fairly tight tolerances.

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I can confirm these are extremely useful tips. I didn't mask the joints on my first painted kit and ended up completely wrecking a shoulder joint.

 

[sackboy97]

If I misplaced the small RG base adapter, what options would I have to use an Action Base 5 with the kit? I was sure I put that little piece with the other base parts, but I can't find it at the moment.
EDIT: Thankfully I found it.

 

[Yarbskoo]

I don't want to crash the mecha parade with my anime waifus, but I will say that the results from the figure-rise LABO kit are very impressive considering there's no paint or decals, just different colors of plastic.

 

[Deleted member 5745]

Well, that was interesting to build. Here's my HiRM Wing Gundam EW.

(also the vfin is a bit short since one side broke at the tip so I cut the other side to match)

A few more pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/vkJWBoX

 

[sackboy97]

I'm building the RG Sazabi, and I was wondering, as I'm planning to topcoat it, should I add the "shiny" stickers right now? Would the topcoat ruin the effect?

 

[Euler]

I'm building the RG Sazabi, and I was wondering, as I'm planning to topcoat it, should I add the "shiny" stickers right now? Would the topcoat ruin the effect?

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A matte topcoat does make them a bit less shiny. It'll look better if you put them on afterwards.

 

[Callibretto]

Well, that was interesting to build. Here's my HiRM Wing Gundam EW.

(also the vfin is a bit short since one side broke at the tip so I cut the other side to match)

A few more pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/vkJWBoX

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how solid are these? do the parts comes off easily? I really want the Astray one but they're so expensive. I could get like 3 MG for 1 hirm kit.