Yes, this is good, my opinion, even better than using ice cream stick which is more narrow. Good tips!


after try, do share with us

i think no need to worry that much, if u thin the clear color well, u will see actually it's very transparent. So basically u need to slowly spray quite a number of layers before it become very visible. This means u have a lot of time to spray, check, n spray until the effect u like. it's pretty safe process actually.


Probably the only dangerous thing in this is, when u almost cant see anything after the 1~2 layers, got impatient n spray with high volume of paint; which result in tearing of the paint. Just spray thin layer by layer, u can eliminate this.

Yes, aside from the brand difference, which is the effect slightly deffrent due to different manufacturers(Gaia n mr color), basically flat clear in bottle n in spray can r the same thing

there r a few things:

- the main olive green color is pretty monotone. If u r not intend to do color variation (eg shading, weathering) onto the armor, at least panel lining, and decal will help in making the green looks more interesting.

- consistency in finishing. Some parts r shinnier than others. It looks like u haven't finish the kit.

- color variation. I think it's way too dull, can't create wenough interest in your viewers. The green n dark grey(close to black) can be suitable color scheme for sniper or stealth mission mecha. However, this color combination can easily become very dull, not an easy color scheme to work with; and honestly not many modelers can pull it off. Even look at Bandai's 08 ms team GM sniper MG box art, Bandai is using quite some other colors, and tune the green to a much lighter tone, with quite some weathering, to make it look more interesting. My suggestion, for a start, try choose some "safer" color scheme.

- The zaku shield. Actually not my cup of tea, especailly the round one on the left shoulder. Think it doesn;t go well with the squarish, sharp edges design of the GM/EZ8. The skull skellington look-a-like paint can be quite a good idea. However, in this case, personally i think it doesn;t fit into the darker tone of this GM/EZ8. Also, if u want to do it, spend a little more time to paint it nicely.


These r merely my personale preference, my 2 cents worth.


(I try not to talk about seamline here......)

i agree with admuser.

However, somehow some japanese actually do that. i think it's because when the spray can is less than half, usually the air pressure is insufficient to have a nice spray, they spray out what ever they can to use. Besides that, after letting all the air out, they even use can opener to open the spray can. 1) for environmental purposes. 2) they can even pour out whatever reamin inside that wasn't being carried out by the air.

hmmm..... i think many people, mebbe they r outta school for too long or something, think this hobby thinner thingy too complicated.

Bro, whether to thin or not to thin, imagine this: remember water color or poster color in school? When u open up one bottle buncho poster color, do u mix water with it? if the poster color in the bottle is still watery, u dont mix with water. If the poster color has become dry or too thick for yourbrush to paint on paper, then u thin it with water.

Yes, it might sound like i m using a very stupid example, but yes, hobby paint (including clear) applys to this theory too.


Again, thin enough, no need add thinner. Not thin enough, add thinner.

i have different experience n opinion: if your base is acrylic (eg Hobby Color aquinos), spraying with lacquer spray can instantly cause reaction. Mebbe tamiya's acrylic is stronger than Hobby Color (Gunze), but the theory should be the same.

I once did a white color fuel tank with hobby color, once i spray the grey can (Mr color lacquer top coat) on top, instantly i can see pokka dots on the fuel tank's white paint......

yes top coat will protect the paint, but still, scratches on top coat is visible (though is easier to fixed that paint scratches). The trick to minimize this is to lightly sand down those parts that r tightly contact with each other. just a hairline gap is sufficient between these parts r sufficient ady.

U gotta be careful with industrial grade paint.

It might look nice on a real motorbike, but can u imagine it on your 6" tall gundam?

The color shifting flakes has many sizes too. The one for automobile i personally think is extremely BIG for plastic models. For paint with finer/smaller flakes, u can try Gunze's mozialla series. The flake is still consider a little big but still acceptable in plastic model.

If u wanna see the effects, there r some in ICW so u can make the decision yourself.

Oops, when i read my post u quote, i realise i didn't make it clear enough.... actually u can check out the color shifting effect of Mr hobby one n industrial ones. But ICW doesn't carry Mr hobby's.... (Maybe tkting carries them)

I hope i m not too potong stim saying that Anyway we r all here to learn only....

I think it's pretty well done, basically i like the guncannon type of red color body.

just a small tip. now the track u have had dry brush with silver or something, i dont think it's too much but i think it's a little plain. mebbe u can use some diluted earth tone enamel (earth, buff, sand, brown etc) paint a bit of earth color on it. So u can see the cool mechanic color n the warm earth tone color at the same time.

besides that, strongly suggest u tackle all the fundamental. otherwise, no matter how much effort u put in for your kit, it will end up looking mediocre.

agree with Noysan. Looks like it's the paint is not fully dry up. This can be caused by a too-thick layer of paint where:

1. the outter layer of paint is actually fully dried, n this layer is stopping the paint trapped undermeath it to dry. in other words, the outter layer seals the paint inside.

2. very thick layer means there r a lot of thinner n it takes some time to vaporise or dry. the longer thinner stays on a primer or plastic, the higher chance of chemical reaction. this happen most frequent in car modeling: where we need to wet coat (means spray ubtil the surface is wet) to obtain high gloss. usually putty reacts n gives us problem.

Hair dryer, i dont quite recommend it, merely for i have had tried a few attempts n fail. Mebbe i did it wrong.

My experience is, at that time i was also using industrial spray can n i heard the car model sifus use oven (low temperature) to help fasten the drying time n eliminate dust falling onto the paint job.

I didn't have oven, n not planning to invest one so i used hair dryer.

Mebbe i wasnt patient enough, i blew the thing too fast. I realise the outter layer dries way too fast before the inside paint dries up. I even get cracks on the outter paint due to the inner paint trying to squeeze a way out to vaporize n dry. (I got a nice paint cracking effect due to long exposure of UV light in the space though )

If u really want gloss stuff, i would recommend u spray the paint as usual, letting it dry without much high gloss, then wet sand n compound it. This way, though more work, but u can control the shinniness n eliminate all other potential problems: chemical reaction with underneath putty, paint too thick, cannot dry, bubble trapped, tearing etc.

Just my 5 cents worth

Wet sand - u use a high grit sand paper (eg 2000 n above) dip into water n sand. The concept is to use water as a buffer between the sand paper n the model kit. With very little strength, u r able to just sand away any parts that is higher than the surface (Eg dust). The paint scratches n damages done by the sand paper is minimal.

Even with wet sand, some area of paint will still be damaged (due to our inconsistancy of our hand n finger); which u will notice a whitish spot on the paint.

The next step is to compound.

Compound - is an abrasive agent like sand paper, but instead in a paper form, it's a cream.

Use a soft cloth (eg micro fibre, used to polish car) put a bit of compound, use slightly more strength now, start rubbing the paint. This is actually polish; same concept as car polish.

Tamiya compound, eg, comes in 3 types: coarse, fine, finish. Depends on how glossy u want your kit to be.

It can go until a mirror like glossiness: http://forum.zerogunz.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=10154



Normally gundam, seldom people go until that extend, cause gundam has way too many parts, n the effect is not as outstanding as car because gundam parts r smaller.

Am sharing this because sometimes, eg you have chemical reaction problem, u need to spray can the kit in a further distance or lighter layer, which result is a non glossy/a little rough surface finishing; this is an option for you to improve it.

For hand brush, either u r using a nylon type or a genuine animal hair type, usually i wash with cheap industrial thinner instead of expensive hobby thinner. Beware, just for cleaning only, not to use to dillute paint for painting. This is to save myself some green notes.


As for Mgs2u, u can try contact them, i m not sure whether he does personal delivery (unless your place is convenient to him). But at least u can buy stuff from him delivered to your door, with a small amount (local delivery) charged.

he mean the hardware shop ones.

the bottle is like 750ml or something, something like your small mineral water. The bottle is glass.

usually cost around RM3 ~RM5 per bottle

by default yes, the same type of paint, lacquer, will melt the paint underneath it.

But in real life, no, dont be worry. since the amount of second layer paint being sprayed onto it is pretty small, and the underneath layer is already fully cured; the amount of time the thinner/solvent of the upper layer needed to melt the paint underneath it is too long; before the melting even start, majority of the thinner on the upper layer is already vaporised.

Besides that, once the paint land onto the surface, it's not being moved anymore. So even a little bit of "melting" does happened, we wont even notice it.

Do an experiment- spray black. then spray silver. now while the silver still wet, use your finger totouch the silver paint. u will realised not only u will screw up the silver paint, but the black paint below will also be damaged. This explain what i said just now.


As for clear red paint, u gotta be extra caution.

Eg, if u spray black, then on top u spray blue. Even though the blue paint on top melt the black at the bottom, since 1. it's minimal, 2.u r not touching it, 3. the to most top of the blue paint isn't been disturbed, even though there r some melting n jumble up of blue n black beneath it, we still cannot see; because the blue paint is opaque (not transparent)

However, for clear color; since it's translucent/transparent, we can see through it down to the bottom of that layer, any jumble up or melting will be visible. This explain why sometimes when we spray silver n clear paint on top of it, even though the surface of the clear paint is good, we still can see some funny funny pattern occurs. This occurs "when the clear paint reacts with the paint below n since the clear paint has no ability to cover anything, hence our eyes can see.

i suggest, make sure the silver paint is fully cured before you spray the clear red. Wait at least 36 hours to be safe. Second, try not to add any retarder, which will slow down the drying time of the clear red/ the vaporizing of the thinner in the clear red. This will give the thinner in the clear red has more time to "kacau" the silver.

Ha, that was u!

Ok, definitely option A) for me....

I swear this is 17,674 times the same question being asked....

Shaun90, pls read thru the thread n u will see a lot, and more information than u actually ask.... (luckily the mod here is kinda numb with this ady, in other forum u will straight kena flamed...)

For zaku, due to its design nature, unlike gundam (Ex-S, which is white n orange/blue), doing a striking color camo might be slightly more risky. Is not easy to pull it off.

If u want a safer route, can try something like the 2nd photo that u showed here: a toned down green, or even can go with grey, with green tone. The 2nd photo is a camo with toned down green (The lighter color) and Grey with green tone (The darker color)

For gray tone, i think it's a very safe color to play with. Normally i will go a grey tone, but added with other color. Eg blue-ish, green-ish gray tone.

Coincidently i m doing something like this for this year GPWC competition this week. A grey with blue tone in it.

Mebbe can give u some reference:

---

Added on November 14, 2011, 11:31 pmI was having pm with sickriderOO n we were discussing whether Tamiya acrylic can be thinned by water.

Actually i have heard many say it can be thinned by water, but i do not have personal first hand experience with it, so i did a quick experiment:




I used flat yellow n gloss red. Seems like no problem at all!

For clear color, i haven't try coz i dont have any right now.



This is just to confirm the urban myth that we can use water to thin tamiya acrylic, just like water color.

However, as in the 2nd photo, once the paint is dried, water cannot dilute it anymore. we have gotta use its thinner to clean it.

This post has been edited by rayloke: Nov 14 2011, 11:32 PM

To me, both.


Do some test:

On a piece of A4 paper, use pen to draw a few dots. Then use ab to spray dots on the pen-draw dot, with different sizes (means the distance between your hand piece n paper also different). See how accurate u can get .


Second, use ruler, use a 0.5mm pen, draw a straight line. Again, use a 0.7mm or 0.8mm pen, do the same thing.

Then use ab spray a line parellel to it, as fine as possible. See whether the spray line is thicker than the pen line, and how straight the line is.....



I personally recommend tamiya ones, although i m using a procon boy...

This post has been edited by rayloke: Nov 16 2011, 02:10 PM

Ascentic: yeah as Ivan said, i was refering to hand piece.

Shaun: actually if u think closely, 99% of the spraying that require fine lines (shading , camo etc) usually doesn't require very opaque color. Instead, it is recommended to spray thin layer over layer, to minimize risk of overspray n mistakes.