I think fi want to improve the appearance, the first u need to tackle now is those nip marks n seamlines. Without getting rid of these stuff, no matter how much u modify your kit, it will look half cook/ unfinished.
Good that at least u have the urge to make your model kit look nice! This should be the motivation for your first step!!!!!
For camo...... well, normally it require some experience in painting. I would suggest u go to forums that allow u to start your own thread for wip. With that u can start recording n others will see your progress on the kit day after day or weeks after weeks.
Besides that, u can show what u have done, n what u think is not right etc. others will be able to tell u how to go about it n some of their opinions, based on what they have seen n followed your progress in the thread.
It's like joining an art class. U cannot go into a class the first day and ask the teacher how to paint/ draw an apple. u have gotta start drawing yourself, and the teacher/senior will look at what u have had done, knowing your skill level, n give u guidance or suggestion.
Same thing, asking such question here will not do u any good.
If u r not going to that far in modeling, i can share with u one "curi ayam" or quite easy, yet commonly accepted way in gunpla. Do a "space camo" which only consist of straight lines. Use masking tape to create the 2 different color tone. hope that helps.
Hand painting can be very easy n not nice, at the same time, can be extremely beautiful but tedius.
Look at most of the fine art artist, most of the time they do hand paint, even if they dont, they start up with hand paint techniques. So hand painting is something often overlooked in gunpla.
How tedius hand painting can be? as tedius as making air brush looks like "short cut".
How nice hand painting can be (I mean for mecha, non organism subject)?
Check this out:
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Credit to :
blz88bri (modeler)
zoidx_chung (photographer)
This is an winning entry in 2010 Bakwc. The shole kit is hand painted.
Added on August 5, 2011, 1:05 pmpm the member named
oldman in ZeroG forum (www.zerogunz.com). He still carries quite a number of samuel decal
n by the way, the technique that you described gave me some ideas to work on..thanx man..