yeah, they have both. and good to see you back to building!!!

its for both hand painting, and airbrush.

best advantage of Gaia over Mr Hobby for me, lacquer vs aqueous lacquer

Gaianotes in my experience work very well with airbrush but for handpainting it can be very troublesome to get a good coverage of it as it tend to be sticky very fast even with retarder.

bro, mr hobby also has a lacquer line..

use retarder to slow drying process

ya I knew, but it's rare and is much more expensive than Gaia, no?

on the contrary, mr hobby's lacquer line is more common than gaia. you can get mr hobby lacquer at bts, at time machine and hobbies and toyz, but not gaia. in fact, the only places i know which carry gaia are icw and tkting (online shops not withstanding)

but those selling at Time Machine are aqueous lacquer(except the Mr Metal series), i did buy them before

That is why you are unable to achieve the metalic feel.
Airbrush you can get the effect because of smoothness where as hand painting is difficult with brush strokes

I'm new in gunpla painting and so far only hand-paint and use markers. trying to minimise spending and cleaning hence the hand-paint solution although it takes time to hand-paint.
After giving up on trying to thin tamiya acrylics, I managed to find this Folkart brand at the art store in Gardens Mall..the outcome is a nice flat color after 2-3layers. haven't tried spraying topcoat so not sure how things will turn out.



the paint can be easily thinned with water and cost rm6.90 each

That's the reason I started painting/collecting sd sinanju and sinanju head display only so far. You paint HGs/MGs? they're in my hometown now but going back this weekend. will post the pics when i get back.

hand painting is only for small part/minor detail
why bother to paint entirely on kit?

there are cheap air brush less than RM200.. why dont go for that? besides, you can paint in long shot without risk to ruin the kit

this is the excuse for lazy guys, the AB ia not hard to learn; just push the tip of pen, adjust the pressure etc... etc
dont tell me you paint straightly paint on kit without test on runner first?

whatever floats your boat, you are just wasting your precious time hand painting on such big kit

This post has been edited by nazrul90: Mar 15 2013, 12:13 AM

I was interested in using AB at first but was turned away by the price (am also surprised one can cost less than 200), have to use thinner, the post-cleaning and troublesome to do it in a condo. I'm quite satisfied with the results so would rather hand-paint for now

let me tell you, I starting to hand painting since 2011
I gonna list the experience I have

-some paint turn out dont stick well on surface, like lacquer gold and white
-different paint,different thinner-paint ratio..
-brush stroke, it is so frustrating
-uneven surface.. I used lacquer and enamel paint.. most of time screwed

hand painting however useful for painting for small detail part which spray can and airbrush couldnt reach

Just the handpiece can cost less than 200 but some china brand type usually


If you're from PJ, then you just need to get the handpiece and paints. There's a place called ICW@aman suria which provides compressor and spray booth FOC.

You can't discourage people by saying that, Hand painting can be very tedious but if you have the patience, end result can be satisfying as well. I know a few who hand paint very well like the HK fella who modded the sazabi into a horse, fully hand painted.

This post has been edited by z3r0717: Mar 15 2013, 09:06 AM

I know but it is very hard to maintain good result

kukubeh is an excellent hand painter as well. problem is he's into hotwheels now!

Get an airbrush if you wanna have a bad arse look on your kits, period. You wont regret, not one bit. Hand painting can be use on small area like detailing the inner frame or other miniature area that air brush cant reach without masking.