Bandai kits, I tend to skip the bathing bit. Did a Bendi before, and that one I washed the kit first of all.

If you're to touch the surface of the Bendi, you'll know what I mean lar. Its kinda slippery, making it so obvious that there's still chemical residues from the mould left on the plastic.

So I guess it depends on the model also lar

That's more of weathering already actually, not shading.

An example will be when u spray on gun metal onto the part first, then followed by a layer of blue for example, covering the gun metal completely.

after giving the paint sufficient time to dry, you take rough sand paper and rub quickly onto the edges, to simulate scratch marks where the paint had been scratched off to reveal the color of the metal under it.

Then what u can do after that will be to use some brownish red pastel to be applied to some of the scratch areas to simulate rust at some of the spots where the bare metal is revealed.

This post has been edited by fyire: Mar 4 2008, 11:16 PM

Don't forget too that the faster drying time of superglue makes it less forgiving to handle, but its good for the impatient. With cement, u'll need to wait for the cement melted plastic to properly set before you can sand (so patience is the key!)

Yes you can. I've been using normal thinner from Ace's hardware with my airbrush all these time, both for thinning the paint, and also for cleaning the airbrush.

For acrylic paint, they can stick to the plastic actually, its not until that fragile, just that at the spots where u get parts rubbing against one another, that's where u can expect the paint to chip. However if you're to use a primer, then it wont rub off as badly.

This will depend on how strong the thinner is. That's also why I've stuck with the thinner from Ace's Hardware, as I know how it behaves by now, and what to avoid with it.

If you wanna try the thinner from your father's factory, then I suggest that you test it out on a piece of scrap plastic first.
- put a piece of scrap plastic into a small bowl of the thinner, poke it abouts and so forth, and observe how quickly or slowly the plastic dissolves
- the do some test spraying and see what kinda results u get

hahahah well, that's why I said to test it out on a piece of scrap plastic first, so u'll know for sure if your father brought back acid instead of thinner

Well, for sure there can be a lot of improvement from what you've done

Ok, basically I guess the first thing that you can look at is probly your thinning ratio. What's the ratio of paint to thinner or water r u using?

Next will be brushes. What sort of brush r u using?

From what I can see of the pic (the red areas), your brush strokes r pretty crude, and the main causes of these are usually either wrong brush type, or wrong thinning ratio.

then 3rd question is, how many layers of paint did u apply?

if u're able to right, can u take a close up pic of a white area as well to post here? I can only make out the rough bits on the red part of the shield, but cant see the details of the white areas that well so cant comment on those yet.

to color the eyes, use a very very small brush I usually use a size 000 from Fabel Castel for this.

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Added on March 14, 2008, 1:42 amwashing the AB with industrial thinner's fine. Been doing that with my Sparmax AB all this time (either by spraying thinner through it, or dismantling it to dip the parts into thinner when it really gets messed up)

This post has been edited by fyire: Mar 14 2008, 01:42 AM

What u can try doing is to reduce the paint ratio. Try with maybe 1 part paint - 2 part water and see what sort of results u get? U'll end up with the paint being more dilute and may not cover fully, but don't worry. it just means that you'll need to apply more layers. its better to apply more thin layers than less thick ones


Don't have the pictures with me now, but try looking for brushes from fabel castel. u don't need to get exactly those types, but have a feel on how the brush heads are like, and try to get similar ones to those types. I tend to get mine from popular bookstores these days (similar softness as fabel castel, and cheaper too).

For brush size, I tend to use 3 types mainly. a size 4 flat and size 8 flat for normal surface area painting, and a size 000 pointed for details.

shouldnt be impossible to fix lar... u just putty, sandpaper, primer + heaps of work and patience

aih.. just say 'pre-shading' lor.. then we all will know already

Superglue's good for the impatient, as it dries a lot faster than cement will dry, but it has got its downsides as well. Being fast drying also means that you're forced to work faster, so its easier to make mistakes. Also, for superglue, its a lot harder to sand off the excess that seeps through

cement works a bit differently from superglue, in the sense that superglue glues the pieces together. cement actually melts the plastic slightly for the 2 pieces of plastic to bond with each other.

the bonding process starts the moment u press the pieces together, the bond will form within seconds. But the strength of the bond wont be that strong immediately, as it will take time for it to set.

u should be able to sand within 10 minutes, but the actual setting of the cement may take longer.

acrylics r the easiest. Detergent's the most readily available, and it works pretty well.

Toss your parts into the detergent mix, and leave it there for about 12 hours or so. Take out, scrub with a brush. Then u can clean up any excess using cotton dipped in alcohol.

whether the recast is possible depends a lot on the part itself as well. what's the part number for the bit that u're missing?

the pics on dalong's scanned manuals r a bit small, so I couldnt make out the part numbering well, but is it one of the pieces at the bottom left at here? http://dalong.net/review/mg/m75/p/m75_r_l.jpg

if it is, then it don't look too bad actually. doing it using epoxy should be pretty easy enough. the only difficult part is that u're gonna need somebody to pinjam u that missing part (since the one that u've got left is for the opposite side)

Checkit out

http://plamo.outthere.info/forum/showthread.php?tid=38

Ideally, the paint should dry within moments of hitting the plastic when you airbrush it. Otherwise, you'll end up with the problem of having the paint run as air blows over it again.

The application of the retarder to slow down the drying is mainly to prevent the paint from drying before hitting the plastic (as in, drying the moment it shoots out of the AB). This will cause the cobweb effect on the plastic.

Its best to avoid rushing too much as well. As like everything related to painting, you'll just have to get used to the drying time (which is just one aspect) of the paints. Furthermore, this differs between different brands of paints as well.

The moment you get used to the paint, you'll have a better idea on how to time yourself while working.

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Added on March 25, 2008, 6:07 pmStart off with a 1:1 ratio I guess. Then experiment around from there. There isnt really one single magic number, as even different colors from the same brand may have differing thickness. Then also the older bottles of paint that's slightly dried up will also require more thinner.

In short, after mixing, unless you're already used to it, never ever paint directly onto your model first, but run the brush over some pieces of scrap plastic to see the effects first. Only when you get it to what you can handle, then paint.

This post has been edited by fyire: Mar 25 2008, 06:07 PM

why ler? if u're worried about heat issues breaking the compressor, then all you need is a timer that tells u how long your compressor's been in use for.

Doesnt really matter as long as you've got a proper pressure regulator

It can actually Although I've only used acrylics for this. The concept is pretty similar to how you do pre-shading when using an AB.

Basically, apply the base coat as per normal. Then prepare a mix of the color that you wish to shade with (usually a darker version of the base coat). In hand painting terms, this is called the 'wash', where the paint applied at this stage is very much more dilute compared to when you're doing normal painting.

Then clean up by dry brushing to get the shades to blend in properly.

Do keep in mind that I've only done this using acrylics. No idea how lacquers will take to washes and dry brushing.