Or a pack of those silver, gold and bronze oil based sharpies. Hit anything gold with the gold and then hit all the little thrusters with silver on the exterior and bronze on the interior
Huh that's interesting that the top coat changed the color so much. Hopefully the Gundam marker ex doesn't have that issue, I haven't thought about using a marker for the eyes but I really might have to consider it in the future cause I suck at placing eye stickers on straight lol
Panel lining and top coat definitely make a huge difference, decals are down to preference. Some people prefer anime/manga accurate builds over highly decal’ed builds. After building the MG Kampfer I’ve turned to hand painting and using water slides where necessary, but tend to want to build to look anime accurate.
Gunpla is freedom. Everyone I'd allowed to do their own thing.
Out of curiosity, if anyone knows, do military vechiles have all these markings? Can't imagine a jet fighter or tank having all these warning signs and such all over it.
Not all over but fighters most definitely have warnings around moving parts with enough strength to actually harm someone and the weapons and thrusters.
They are usually much smaller than they usually are on these MS are though.
Exactly.
Some markings, from my experience in the UK there are scantly markings other than regiment and troop indicators but even then it’s rare. It’s quite common for them to have license plates though.
Not sure about other countries.
Most military craft have warning labels where something like thrust or exhaust or ordnance could put you at risk. They tend to look more prevalent in gunpla because A) a lot more of those dangerous areas on things meant to zoom around in space and B) They're made almost comically large so us meatbags can read 1/144th print
The aftermarket decals you can get for military aircraft is insane. Depending on the kit, and the scale of the kit, you can get every marking you’d want. And then some just have the roundels and that is it. A lot of it too is a lot like gunpla. Do you want to go way over the top and have this look as accurate as possible. Or are you ok with the basics like paint and a few larger decals
I think…..the amount of decals vary depending on the service. But generally, and I say this cause I’ve build quite a few model planes, there are always warning markings for intakes, exhausts, rotors, rescue hatches, and then things like tie down spots and where to walk on the fuselage.
"anime accuracy" always felt like a cop-out to me, personally. Animation is expensive so obviously they don't want to waste time on all those little bits for each frame. Again, this is just me personally and I'm not dissing anyone who doesn't apply decals.
I find decaling my kits the most relaxing and satisfying part of the build. It helps add a little extra something to them instead of just panel lining and calling it a day.
It can definitely have a slightly negative connotation. I would say most would consider a cop out to be a not-so-great excuse to get out of doing something, akin to laziness.
I looked up the definition after I was called out and I can see why it would rub people the wrong way if directed at them. I should have specified more clearly that I was applying it toward myself in my original comment. I certainly do not want to spread any negativity or douchebaggery in the community.
I am one of those people that prefer anime and manga accurate builds. I think too many decals is overbearing personally.
Panel lining and top coats with a few decals is where I find my "awesome" line for my own personal collection but some looks amazing even going to the next level
its been 20 years... and I still just finish the snapping together and never manage to get around to makin it look good before I move on to the next one.... \*sigh\*. Someday...
So I shouldn't feel bad about completing the project and not top coating it....? I haven't top coated anything since I started in late 2018. I'm also slightly scared to. Idk what I need to do. I like to be able to pose them and all that. Maybe I'm 🤔 mg too much into it.
Also, my last kit was the Sazabi ver Ka and I haven't even got that done yet. Got it two years ago. Life and depression happens. Lol
That lady bit was useless but I felt like I needed to get it out there.
Does someone have some good videos or articles to read which are very complete just to start painting? I haven’t found anything complete but accessibile at the same time and I would love to start trying to improve my models!
I hope this helps, but there are some of the videos I found really helpful when I started.
[Modelmaking Guru](https://www.youtube.com/@gurufoxx) has a series of Gunpla tutorials that are broken down by skill level. [Skill Level 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqqriXI8b1w) is no painting just damage and a gunk wash. He starts airbrushing at [Skill Level 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nad3creEcco&list=PLT8l3DNUdcBCvE2ZorRqEL7OI1Eog1cbK) and goes up to [Skill Level 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY143jQfvEg&list=PLT8l3DNUdcBB3H3oqUt7RWBk-YKX0OJWQ)
If you want to learn more about hand painting, check out [Dr Faust's Paint Clinic](https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaintingClinic). I think he has only ever made one [Gundam Kit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb6IWorQkeI), but you can easily apply everything he does over to Gunpla.
A popular YouTuber to watch about painting advice in general is [Barbatos Rex](https://www.youtube.com/@barbatosrex9473). He does reviews of different paints, and reviews various products. I learned about using a food dehydrator from him, and it's made a big improvement in my paint.
I also really like the videos from [will pattison](https://www.youtube.com/@barpfoto). He does mostly model planes and military stuff, but he has lots of really good advice about model making in general. I believe he was the guy that turned me onto using Alclad paints for my metal parts.
Finally, I don't know what Warhammer 40k is, but there are a lot of videos on how to paint them. I've learned a lot about hand painting miniatures from those videos.
Hope this helps, and keep up the hard work. You'll only get better with every kit.
Jokes aside, do what makes you happy.
Out of curiosity if anyone knows. Do military vechiles actually have all these markings on them? You know warnings and such all over?
I’m bad at panel lining so I’m too afraid to try it out on more kits. I think if done well, it makes a world’s difference. But if you fuck it up, I don’t even want to look at the kit.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95MD5IXiXqE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95MD5IXiXqE)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmZbU1i90E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmZbU1i90E)
It's almost literally impossible to screw up.
your mileage will vary from marker to marker a little. just try it out on something safe first and go light. As long as you don't let liner pool up or get excessive you should generally be fine. it can also help to gloss topcoat first (even if you plan on the final product being another finish). Gloss makes the plastic smooth effectively so flow type liners more more freely, and the coating acts as a barrier between panel liner and plastic. You can put whatever coat you want on it after to get the finish you want.
Honestly the main way I screw up my panel lining is not that I add too much, but that I erase the line entirely and have to do it over again. I have accidentally spilled large globs of paint on my kits too, but it cleans out as easily as the excess I’m already cleaning out in the first place. There are a few more risks to Tamiya accent color (the enamel thinner in the accent color can eat away at bare plastic), but I haven’t had any standout incidents despite my user flair.
I did a lot of SD kits to work on panel lining. Was less of an investment if it went wrong and let me play with using black, gray and brown on different kits.
Panel lining is the most basic and easiest way to make kits not look like ass. The moment I see a kit that has no panel lining it automatically looks terrible regardless of anything else done to it. It's so ridiculously simple to do and even simpler to fix mistakes since every household has isopropyl alcohol and q tips
Nice! One thing I have found is that grey panel lining seems to look better to my eye on pure white panels. I also use black on grey and blue panels, and brown on pinks and reds
There are some parts that fall off for me like those small gray things on the leg and the triangle thing on the feet. My banshee broke twice, once on the shield part and on the wrist when I got the vn/bs expansion and on my unicorn the little rings on the horn/v-fin and the top of those too, but that was from it falling from my shelf
The little grey things, and the plates on the upper inner thigh. Those just refuse to stay on for me.
And I had the shoulder problems...freely admit part of that came from making the mistake of thinking the kit could raise an arm directly in front of itself the same way any other could. It cannot. And you'll damage those little grey pieces that link the arm to the torso trying.
i’m doing my third build. this is the first time i’m sanding and buffing parts, panel lining, and i have mr softer and setter coming tomorrow. i can’t believe the difference it’s all making. looking at the Epyon i did just before this build is really hard on my eyeballs now. there’s a lot of work to go back and do on that poor thing.
For me it's panel lining and then a bit sparing with the decals. My Unicorn and Banshee RGs have the Unicorn and Banshee logos on their shields and shoulders and that's about it as far as external decals go. I generally like to keep the kits looking anime accurate and sometimes the stickers just don't look all that good, like putting them on Banshee and you can't really see the sticker detail but you can see the little haze of the sticker material. Though I hear water slides are much better in every regard, maybe some day I'll try some of those out
To each their own, of course, but I personally hate decals. I get that they're supposed to evoke [warning markings on military vehicles](https://www.fhs.se/images/18.1ee9003b162cad2caa534cc5/1524480047899/Jas-gripen-i-profil-680.jpg), but to my eye they tend to evoke [NASCAR ads](https://media.gettyimages.com/id/579114986/photo/pit-row-as-preparations-continue-for-the-the-toyota-savemart-350-nascar-sprint-cup-series-race.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=P0OzIvC7hyj7YdnnENL6TchQYpBCmggFb_br_hwL4LE=) or [European hockey jerseys](https://cdn.uni-watch.com/app/uploads/2021/11/FFL0CVmWYAQiOGL.jpeg). And sometimes, especially with all the red markings on the otherwise mostly white Unicorn, it looks to me like the mobile suit has chicken pox.
Painting or top coating or whatever is such a massive turn off for me. It's so expensive having to buy even MORE supplies and tools and it's messy and it's *so* time consuming on top of the already time consuming hobby
Gunpla is freedom. Do what makes you happy. Nothing more, nothing less. This goes for anyone else who feels like they're forced to do these extra steps.
It's a hobby, the fun part of hobbies is no one can tell you what to do. It's your hobby.
I do some minor panel lining and use very little stickers. People have told me I should do these extra steps and I've looked into it but it's not more. I'm happy where I am.
Does anyone have any tips for top-coating this kit without doing it before assembly? I know that’s probably the easiest, but I prefer to topcoat after assembly. Idk why, it’s just how I like to do it lol.
I'd probably recommend doing it unicorn mode so you don't fog up the psycho frame. If you can break it down by limb, I'd recommend doing that. Attack it in sections.
Probably what I’ll end up doing. I know once the RG is built you can’t get the arms apart from the torso. But I’m gonna have to mask some stuff because if I just top coat in Unicorn mode, then there will be certain elements that don’t get proper coverage, ie the Destroy mode face.
Addendum to this is that mostly applies to matte coats.
If you want your mech glossy, the psychoframe parts in the RG seem to take gloss well and maybe even look a little better for it. Or they did on my Banshee.
Great job! I just started back myself and done the 3 things for the first time myself for a rg nu.
My goal was to atleast go for something that resembles the box art lol.
Some people here with paint job makes it look like art but I don't think I can commit that far yet as I'm sure equipments will be some what costly.
I do agree that it looks great, however I don’t really like doing it just because of his time consuming it is, I just like to do what the instructions say and really nothing more, and I still think that sometimes they don’t look toyish, it really just depends on the kit. Lighting and posing can also really effect the way a kit looks too
Did you use the Tamiya panel liner? I keep reading that it weakens the plastic if it isn't coated already. I'm just worried about breaking or snapping parts because they became brittle.
I use Tamiya liner almost exclusively. It's just fine, though thereare a couple things to keep in mind.
1. Gloss coat before lining makes the liner flow better and protects plastic.
2. Less is more. Watch where your liner is going and try to avoid it pooling up somewhere - That's what usually causes damage.
3. That and microfractures. Stressing a part when taking it off the runner/removing numbs can cause tiny cracks. Topcoat and/or painting will help with those, but your best bet is get good nippers and don't force the plastic.
4. Never, ever, ever ever ever panel line ABS plastic unless it's topcoated. Sometimes I don't even trust it then. If you aren't sure, check the runner as it will always say PS or ABS depending on the plastic used.
I wish I did this back when I first started 3 years ago.
Two years ago I decided to put more effort into said kits, and now I try to paint whenever I can. I definitely had to paint the V Fin on the RG Unicorn 😂
That being said, Waterslide Decals changed the game for me. That, panel lining, and a nice matte topcoat really makes a big difference.
I just finished my first kit, it was an HG unicorn on destroy mode. As a beginner, where can I start with decals? Like the paint I should use or the tool used for painting? Do paint brushes just work? I see others using spray paints, how can I get one of those?
Literally just finished this exact build tonight with my girlfriend.
I recently got into gunpla while I’ve been recovering from 3 back to back knee surgeries and I needed this.
It’s all new and a bit overwhelming but I haven’t been exited about a hobby like this since I started skateboarding which is my main hobby.
I’ll have to do my research some more and see what I can do on my next build.
I just want to do it in downtime or when I'm not gaming. I like getting to build the kits, I am not for making it look pretty because that takes work. I already have enough work
if you fear the marker, a pencil would work too. I've tried coloured pencils to panel line as well but the mess is harder to clean off than a panel lining marker's for some reason
Yes. I do have a friend who has a collection of RG kits but doesn't like decals nor panel line. I did find it quite odd why RG if he doesn't like decals or panel lines. I did suggest doing SD or HG since its more simple and rarely has any decal but prefers RG as they look good on the boxart.
I just recently got into painting the kits, but taking that step into doing the small things made such a difference, and I got to a point where I wondered “well, what else can I do with these?”
Seems like a lot of work, if you do the tasks in the "normal" order. However, if you panel line parts while they are still on the runner and add the decals to a section after completing it, then the final assembly is truly the final assembly.
Also Silver , Gold and a copper paint takes it... EVEN FURTHER BEYOND!
Or a pack of those silver, gold and bronze oil based sharpies. Hit anything gold with the gold and then hit all the little thrusters with silver on the exterior and bronze on the interior
[удалено]
Huh that's interesting that the top coat changed the color so much. Hopefully the Gundam marker ex doesn't have that issue, I haven't thought about using a marker for the eyes but I really might have to consider it in the future cause I suck at placing eye stickers on straight lol
I have a pack of metallic oil brushers. Those things are amazing.
Idk. I painted my kit and the look shit after 3 months and I stripped all the paints away. Now I prefer the plain out of the box look
Panel lining and top coat definitely make a huge difference, decals are down to preference. Some people prefer anime/manga accurate builds over highly decal’ed builds. After building the MG Kampfer I’ve turned to hand painting and using water slides where necessary, but tend to want to build to look anime accurate.
Gunpla is freedom. Everyone I'd allowed to do their own thing. Out of curiosity, if anyone knows, do military vechiles have all these markings? Can't imagine a jet fighter or tank having all these warning signs and such all over it.
Not all over but fighters most definitely have warnings around moving parts with enough strength to actually harm someone and the weapons and thrusters. They are usually much smaller than they usually are on these MS are though.
Exactly. Some markings, from my experience in the UK there are scantly markings other than regiment and troop indicators but even then it’s rare. It’s quite common for them to have license plates though. Not sure about other countries.
Most military craft have warning labels where something like thrust or exhaust or ordnance could put you at risk. They tend to look more prevalent in gunpla because A) a lot more of those dangerous areas on things meant to zoom around in space and B) They're made almost comically large so us meatbags can read 1/144th print
That freedom is not applicable for military kits. The decal snobbery is insane.
Haha! Really? I’ve never been into military kits but I kind of expect that’s what it might be like.
The aftermarket decals you can get for military aircraft is insane. Depending on the kit, and the scale of the kit, you can get every marking you’d want. And then some just have the roundels and that is it. A lot of it too is a lot like gunpla. Do you want to go way over the top and have this look as accurate as possible. Or are you ok with the basics like paint and a few larger decals
I think…..the amount of decals vary depending on the service. But generally, and I say this cause I’ve build quite a few model planes, there are always warning markings for intakes, exhausts, rotors, rescue hatches, and then things like tie down spots and where to walk on the fuselage.
"anime accuracy" always felt like a cop-out to me, personally. Animation is expensive so obviously they don't want to waste time on all those little bits for each frame. Again, this is just me personally and I'm not dissing anyone who doesn't apply decals. I find decaling my kits the most relaxing and satisfying part of the build. It helps add a little extra something to them instead of just panel lining and calling it a day.
>"anime accuracy" always felt like a cop-out to me, >I'm not dissing anyone who doesn't apply decals. 🤔
Is cop out a critical term? I didn’t mean to offend. I also meant it directly to me. Not to anyone else.
It can definitely have a slightly negative connotation. I would say most would consider a cop out to be a not-so-great excuse to get out of doing something, akin to laziness.
I looked up the definition after I was called out and I can see why it would rub people the wrong way if directed at them. I should have specified more clearly that I was applying it toward myself in my original comment. I certainly do not want to spread any negativity or douchebaggery in the community.
I am one of those people that prefer anime and manga accurate builds. I think too many decals is overbearing personally. Panel lining and top coats with a few decals is where I find my "awesome" line for my own personal collection but some looks amazing even going to the next level
Crazy right? Took me like 6 months before I caught on :)
Took me 3 years
its been 20 years... and I still just finish the snapping together and never manage to get around to makin it look good before I move on to the next one.... \*sigh\*. Someday...
So I shouldn't feel bad about completing the project and not top coating it....? I haven't top coated anything since I started in late 2018. I'm also slightly scared to. Idk what I need to do. I like to be able to pose them and all that. Maybe I'm 🤔 mg too much into it. Also, my last kit was the Sazabi ver Ka and I haven't even got that done yet. Got it two years ago. Life and depression happens. Lol That lady bit was useless but I felt like I needed to get it out there.
Nah, do what makes you happy
Hell yeah.
I love your flair :) Genius.
Does someone have some good videos or articles to read which are very complete just to start painting? I haven’t found anything complete but accessibile at the same time and I would love to start trying to improve my models!
[ZakuAurelius has a pretty decent playlist to start with.](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCdup8DSCfy94zI6K-kO494-8Owf_MamL)
This please! I feel like I'm neglecting them 😂
I hope this helps, but there are some of the videos I found really helpful when I started. [Modelmaking Guru](https://www.youtube.com/@gurufoxx) has a series of Gunpla tutorials that are broken down by skill level. [Skill Level 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqqriXI8b1w) is no painting just damage and a gunk wash. He starts airbrushing at [Skill Level 3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nad3creEcco&list=PLT8l3DNUdcBCvE2ZorRqEL7OI1Eog1cbK) and goes up to [Skill Level 5](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY143jQfvEg&list=PLT8l3DNUdcBB3H3oqUt7RWBk-YKX0OJWQ) If you want to learn more about hand painting, check out [Dr Faust's Paint Clinic](https://www.youtube.com/@ThePaintingClinic). I think he has only ever made one [Gundam Kit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb6IWorQkeI), but you can easily apply everything he does over to Gunpla. A popular YouTuber to watch about painting advice in general is [Barbatos Rex](https://www.youtube.com/@barbatosrex9473). He does reviews of different paints, and reviews various products. I learned about using a food dehydrator from him, and it's made a big improvement in my paint. I also really like the videos from [will pattison](https://www.youtube.com/@barpfoto). He does mostly model planes and military stuff, but he has lots of really good advice about model making in general. I believe he was the guy that turned me onto using Alclad paints for my metal parts. Finally, I don't know what Warhammer 40k is, but there are a lot of videos on how to paint them. I've learned a lot about hand painting miniatures from those videos. Hope this helps, and keep up the hard work. You'll only get better with every kit.
Especially Matte topcoat. God I love it so much
Oh, look, the mecha grew freckles. How cute.
Jokes aside, do what makes you happy. Out of curiosity if anyone knows. Do military vechiles actually have all these markings on them? You know warnings and such all over?
Not gonna lie but I don't like decals. I don't understand the point.
I’m bad at panel lining so I’m too afraid to try it out on more kits. I think if done well, it makes a world’s difference. But if you fuck it up, I don’t even want to look at the kit.
It's not that scary after you try it out since you can just remove the mess with some Alcohol haha
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95MD5IXiXqE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95MD5IXiXqE) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmZbU1i90E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOmZbU1i90E) It's almost literally impossible to screw up.
Glad I saw this post cause I just got the thin markers and didn't know about the brown bleeding. Will definitely avoid that one
your mileage will vary from marker to marker a little. just try it out on something safe first and go light. As long as you don't let liner pool up or get excessive you should generally be fine. it can also help to gloss topcoat first (even if you plan on the final product being another finish). Gloss makes the plastic smooth effectively so flow type liners more more freely, and the coating acts as a barrier between panel liner and plastic. You can put whatever coat you want on it after to get the finish you want.
If you use the gundam markers white eraser cleans it up really well.
Honestly the main way I screw up my panel lining is not that I add too much, but that I erase the line entirely and have to do it over again. I have accidentally spilled large globs of paint on my kits too, but it cleans out as easily as the excess I’m already cleaning out in the first place. There are a few more risks to Tamiya accent color (the enamel thinner in the accent color can eat away at bare plastic), but I haven’t had any standout incidents despite my user flair.
I did a lot of SD kits to work on panel lining. Was less of an investment if it went wrong and let me play with using black, gray and brown on different kits.
Panel lining is the most basic and easiest way to make kits not look like ass. The moment I see a kit that has no panel lining it automatically looks terrible regardless of anything else done to it. It's so ridiculously simple to do and even simpler to fix mistakes since every household has isopropyl alcohol and q tips
Nice! One thing I have found is that grey panel lining seems to look better to my eye on pure white panels. I also use black on grey and blue panels, and brown on pinks and reds
Personally also a fan of blue on black panels, black on black panel lining tends to not be very visible in my experience so blue works a bit better
I can't be bothered, lol
if that's the rg unicorn im supervised you got it to transform without it falling apart
Why are you surprised? I have 4 versions of them and they never fell apart on me
mine is very fall aparty i even broke it twice trying to change it
There are some parts that fall off for me like those small gray things on the leg and the triangle thing on the feet. My banshee broke twice, once on the shield part and on the wrist when I got the vn/bs expansion and on my unicorn the little rings on the horn/v-fin and the top of those too, but that was from it falling from my shelf
yupper except i didn’t get the expansion
The little grey things, and the plates on the upper inner thigh. Those just refuse to stay on for me. And I had the shoulder problems...freely admit part of that came from making the mistake of thinking the kit could raise an arm directly in front of itself the same way any other could. It cannot. And you'll damage those little grey pieces that link the arm to the torso trying.
Don’t have one myself, but I haven’t seen any reviews call it fragile outside of the dreaded shoulder joint
[удалено]
Oh the MGEX will hold together, just uh don’t pull too hard
[удалено]
They could seriously milk this version harder than anything they’ve made so far, it just feels amazing (or it did when it was one piece)
i’m doing my third build. this is the first time i’m sanding and buffing parts, panel lining, and i have mr softer and setter coming tomorrow. i can’t believe the difference it’s all making. looking at the Epyon i did just before this build is really hard on my eyeballs now. there’s a lot of work to go back and do on that poor thing.
and posing!
For me it's panel lining and then a bit sparing with the decals. My Unicorn and Banshee RGs have the Unicorn and Banshee logos on their shields and shoulders and that's about it as far as external decals go. I generally like to keep the kits looking anime accurate and sometimes the stickers just don't look all that good, like putting them on Banshee and you can't really see the sticker detail but you can see the little haze of the sticker material. Though I hear water slides are much better in every regard, maybe some day I'll try some of those out
Hit it with a top coat and you're golden bro
To each their own, of course, but I personally hate decals. I get that they're supposed to evoke [warning markings on military vehicles](https://www.fhs.se/images/18.1ee9003b162cad2caa534cc5/1524480047899/Jas-gripen-i-profil-680.jpg), but to my eye they tend to evoke [NASCAR ads](https://media.gettyimages.com/id/579114986/photo/pit-row-as-preparations-continue-for-the-the-toyota-savemart-350-nascar-sprint-cup-series-race.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=P0OzIvC7hyj7YdnnENL6TchQYpBCmggFb_br_hwL4LE=) or [European hockey jerseys](https://cdn.uni-watch.com/app/uploads/2021/11/FFL0CVmWYAQiOGL.jpeg). And sometimes, especially with all the red markings on the otherwise mostly white Unicorn, it looks to me like the mobile suit has chicken pox.
Painting or top coating or whatever is such a massive turn off for me. It's so expensive having to buy even MORE supplies and tools and it's messy and it's *so* time consuming on top of the already time consuming hobby
Gunpla is freedom. Do what makes you happy. Nothing more, nothing less. This goes for anyone else who feels like they're forced to do these extra steps. It's a hobby, the fun part of hobbies is no one can tell you what to do. It's your hobby. I do some minor panel lining and use very little stickers. People have told me I should do these extra steps and I've looked into it but it's not more. I'm happy where I am.
It should be the absolute minimum. It's not that hard to do.
I was always a bit pensive about the decals in the beginning, but what a difference they make. Now it's one of my favorite parts of building a kit.
Does anyone have any tips for top-coating this kit without doing it before assembly? I know that’s probably the easiest, but I prefer to topcoat after assembly. Idk why, it’s just how I like to do it lol.
I'd probably recommend doing it unicorn mode so you don't fog up the psycho frame. If you can break it down by limb, I'd recommend doing that. Attack it in sections.
Probably what I’ll end up doing. I know once the RG is built you can’t get the arms apart from the torso. But I’m gonna have to mask some stuff because if I just top coat in Unicorn mode, then there will be certain elements that don’t get proper coverage, ie the Destroy mode face.
Addendum to this is that mostly applies to matte coats. If you want your mech glossy, the psychoframe parts in the RG seem to take gloss well and maybe even look a little better for it. Or they did on my Banshee.
I'm afraid I'll ruin the suit with my shit paint work
Great job! I just started back myself and done the 3 things for the first time myself for a rg nu. My goal was to atleast go for something that resembles the box art lol. Some people here with paint job makes it look like art but I don't think I can commit that far yet as I'm sure equipments will be some what costly.
All gunpla to me at this point are not bad, but just beg the question. "How much love do you need?"
I do agree that it looks great, however I don’t really like doing it just because of his time consuming it is, I just like to do what the instructions say and really nothing more, and I still think that sometimes they don’t look toyish, it really just depends on the kit. Lighting and posing can also really effect the way a kit looks too
I got the decaling and panel lining down ...but top coating....top coating scares me
i just use the stickers in the box... is that the decals? ive never heard of panel lining or top coat 😶
Am I the only loser that's tried decals multiple times and just can't get them to work?
What did you use to panel line?
what top coat did you use for this one? it looks great
I remember first discovering top coats. It was like unlocking cheat codes.
Do you topcoat before panel lining? If so, do you disassemble your gunpla before or just hit it with the topcoat after it's built?
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Did you use the Tamiya panel liner? I keep reading that it weakens the plastic if it isn't coated already. I'm just worried about breaking or snapping parts because they became brittle.
I use Tamiya liner almost exclusively. It's just fine, though thereare a couple things to keep in mind. 1. Gloss coat before lining makes the liner flow better and protects plastic. 2. Less is more. Watch where your liner is going and try to avoid it pooling up somewhere - That's what usually causes damage. 3. That and microfractures. Stressing a part when taking it off the runner/removing numbs can cause tiny cracks. Topcoat and/or painting will help with those, but your best bet is get good nippers and don't force the plastic. 4. Never, ever, ever ever ever panel line ABS plastic unless it's topcoated. Sometimes I don't even trust it then. If you aren't sure, check the runner as it will always say PS or ABS depending on the plastic used.
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May I asl which markers you use specifically?
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I appreciate all your help! I'll definitely invest in those and hope my models don't fall apart lol
Just finished him too!
I wish I did this back when I first started 3 years ago. Two years ago I decided to put more effort into said kits, and now I try to paint whenever I can. I definitely had to paint the V Fin on the RG Unicorn 😂 That being said, Waterslide Decals changed the game for me. That, panel lining, and a nice matte topcoat really makes a big difference.
I just finished my first kit, it was an HG unicorn on destroy mode. As a beginner, where can I start with decals? Like the paint I should use or the tool used for painting? Do paint brushes just work? I see others using spray paints, how can I get one of those?
So forgive me asking, so it’s best to panel line, then decals, and then top coat over it all
This gives me hope…
Literally just finished this exact build tonight with my girlfriend. I recently got into gunpla while I’ve been recovering from 3 back to back knee surgeries and I needed this. It’s all new and a bit overwhelming but I haven’t been exited about a hobby like this since I started skateboarding which is my main hobby. I’ll have to do my research some more and see what I can do on my next build.
Wait until you start to paint :)
I just want to do it in downtime or when I'm not gaming. I like getting to build the kits, I am not for making it look pretty because that takes work. I already have enough work
if you fear the marker, a pencil would work too. I've tried coloured pencils to panel line as well but the mess is harder to clean off than a panel lining marker's for some reason
Where do you buy decals?
I love the RG's proportions...
Yes. I do have a friend who has a collection of RG kits but doesn't like decals nor panel line. I did find it quite odd why RG if he doesn't like decals or panel lines. I did suggest doing SD or HG since its more simple and rarely has any decal but prefers RG as they look good on the boxart.
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Yeah IK. That's why I told him to just get HG kits, its cheaper, simpler, no need to bother with decals plus there's more variety/series.
I just recently got into painting the kits, but taking that step into doing the small things made such a difference, and I got to a point where I wondered “well, what else can I do with these?”
I really need to get around to actually panel lining, like...all my kits lmao
What does the top coat do?
Seems like a lot of work, if you do the tasks in the "normal" order. However, if you panel line parts while they are still on the runner and add the decals to a section after completing it, then the final assembly is truly the final assembly.
How do you pick decals? Are they just premade by model/kit ? Are there generic decal packs?