Gundam Plamodel Thread IV

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

got a rg exia extra finish and GN arms type-E

the exia extra finish i'm going to collect and save:

Edited February 26, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Nekko Basara]

Man, you are all about those special versions, David. Are you planning to cut your teeth on any of the regular releases, or jump right in?

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Man, you are all about those special versions, David. Are you planning to cut your teeth on any of the regular releases, or jump right in?

i'm working on sky grasper right now. (i wanted to try that before doing regular aile strike in case i mess up)

i'm pretty sure i can build an rg but decaling looks intimidating. they're so little and i don't have experience cutting or doing it properly.

the only thing i ever sticker-ed was g1 transformers when i was in 3rd grade

Edited February 26, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Hikuro]

I haven't run into any issues at all yet with loose connections. Are you sure you're not thinking of the older MG? The Ver Ka hasn't quite been out for a couple years yet.

oh sorry! just now seeing the shades of red I didn't before.

[mikeszekely]

i'm working on sky grasper right now. (i wanted to try that before doing regular aile strike in case i mess up)

i'm pretty sure i can build an rg but decaling looks intimidating. they're so little and i don't have experience cutting or doing it properly.

the only thing i ever sticker-ed was g1 transformers when i was in 3rd grade

Stickering the RGs isn't as bad as it looks. You shouldn't have to to cut anything (although I've found that it sometimes helps). For larger decals (larger being relative, mind you), you can pinch an edge of the sticker, remove it from the paper, then roll it onto the model. For smaller ones, get the tip of your hobby knife under the sticker, lift it off the paper, then carefully get an edge of the sticker to cling to the model more that it's already clinging to your knife. With either technique, you can usually use your knife to slide smaller stickers into place. Once it's positioned how you like it, use a q-tip or your finger to rub it down.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Stickering the RGs isn't as bad as it looks. You shouldn't have to to cut anything (although I've found that it sometimes helps). For larger decals (larger being relative, mind you), you can pinch an edge of the sticker, remove it from the paper, then roll it onto the model. For smaller ones, get the tip of your hobby knife under the sticker, lift it off the paper, then carefully get an edge of the sticker to cling to the model more that it's already clinging to your knife. With either technique, you can usually use your knife to slide smaller stickers into place. Once it's positioned how you like it, use a q-tip or your finger to rub it down.

thanks for the tips. ok, i'm glad i picked up that beginners tamiya kit, it looks like they have the tools you mentioned. i need to get some q-tips.

thanks for the pm as well on stickering Hikuro.

question i wanted to ask here in case others want to chime in, you mentioned using an excato knife to lightly cut excess edges. you recommend scoring an area a couple of times to prevent cutting the plastic. does that mean to lightly go over the decal with the exacto knife on the sticker sheet before pulling them off? or after placing them halfway on the kit?

Edited February 26, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Hikuro]

thanks for the tips. ok, i'm glad i picked up that beginners tamiya kit, it looks like they have the tools you mentioned. i need to get some q-tips.

thanks for the pm as well on stickering Hikuro.

question i wanted to ask here in case others want to chime in, you mentioned using an excato knife to lightly cut excess edges. you recommend scoring an area a couple of times to prevent cutting the plastic. does that mean to lightly go over the decal with the exacto knife on the sticker sheet before pulling them off? or after placing them halfway on the kit?

instead of doing one hard pressed cut do several light cuts over the same area you want to remove. it'll wear the sticker off before you do any damage to the surface part of the gunpla.

let's say you got a complex sticker like those white or gray ones that go over shoulders or legs. you don't want all of that transparent sticker outside that pattern cause it messes with all that panel lining you just did and hides it.

trace the pattern of what you want to keep with the tip of your blade a couple of times. then again with the tip pull away the excess transparent of the sticker. this will leave only the colored pattern of the sticker and remove all the clear.

[Kelsain]

Ugh, the itch to build and the untamed basement are making me consider unpainted gundams. Atm, I've got a Mk2 Titans sitting by my desk. I like the stock color of that...

Edited February 26, 2015 by Kelsain

[joppewo]

http://p-bandai.jp/hobby/special-1000004504/

Red Zeta up for pre-orders now. Might get this to complete the Zeta collection

Edited February 27, 2015 by joppewo

[Kelsain]

The orange one is my favorite. This looks a little too much like Epyon to me.

[Beltane70]

^^^ DO WANT!

[joppewo]

First shots of 2.0 Hyaku Shiki

cr:TagHobby

[electric indigo]

The Shiki looks great, they finally got away from those duck feet of the earlier models, and that gold tone looks sweet. Not too happy about the gorilla hands, though.

[lechuck]

I can work with that gold plating, very happy it is not the shiny chrome type.

The Shiki looks great, they finally got away from those duck feet of the earlier models, and that gold tone looks sweet. Not too happy about the gorilla hands, though.

Agree with the hands and like I said, the newest manipulators do not work with the smaller sized mobile suits.

Anything above >= 20 cm is ok, but don't use them for anything below that size.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

do i panel line as i build?

beginner here:

i thought to start it in case i can't take it apart later and it'll be hard to do.

Edited February 28, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[David Hingtgen]

I like panel lining as early as possible, as much while still on the sprue as possible.

[Nekko Basara]

I think there are two main reasons to do it as you build:

1) All of the grooves and such are easier to reach.

2) It spreads the task out. Panel lining can be annoying, so you break it up into little chunks as you go. Or maybe you love it, so you split it up for the same reason. The various tasks in building a kit are like different things on your dinner plate; most people (but not all) will prefer to eat a bit of each in rotation rather than all the rice, then all the greens, then finally the meat.

I can't think of many reasons to hold off on it, unless you just prefer the flow of doing it as one big step at the end. I suppose on an assembled kit it's easier to tell what areas you can't see; I've certainly wasted a fair amount of time detailing areas that turned out to be totally concealed once I got the kit together.

[Hikuro]

I panel and sticker as I build makes it easier.

[GU-11]

With Gundam kits, I always panel line everything right on the runners/trays, since I don't paint my Gunpla (a coat of matte clear is all it takes to bring everything to life.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

thanks guys for the tips:

first time decal try:

it's hard not to scratch the plastic trying to cut off the excess decals and really a pain, at least for my unskilled hands, to put on. but definitely helped with all your tips. thanks everyone for the input.

also got wing zero custom and expansion effect unit in the mail today :

\

Edited February 28, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[SchizophrenicMC]

I usually panel line after I have the kit painted and assembled. But I line using an enamel wash, and doing that piece-by-piece can be really time consuming and lead to uneven results.

[Nekko Basara]

I was going to say that I have a somewhat different approach to the decals.

RG decals fit pretty darn well, but if I need to cut them it's usually because they hang slightly over the edge of a piece. In that case I'll slowly and gently run a very sharp knife along the edge of the part, using the overhang as a blade guide and getting as close to perpendicular as I can to the decal surface. A bit of a sawing motion helps as well (that's true of any cutting, which is the principle behind "draw" cuts). This usually removes the extra decal flush with the part, although if I'm not careful I may shave the edge of the part a tiny amount.

If I need to actually change the shape of a decal, I'll pull it off (hopefully I haven't fully seated it yet) and lay it back down on the non-stick sheet. It's hard to get a decal back in its original place, so I'll use the spot where a larger decal was if possible. Then I cut off the part I want by eye, going firmly through the decal and backing in one pass, and re-apply the decal. I wouldn't trust myself to cut a decal on the model without marring the surface, and (with my luck) those scratches might pick up ink or dirt as I handle the kit while finishing it.

If a decal falls across a panel line, I usually just burnish it firmly down into the groove with a toothpick that's too soft to scratch the plastic. I like MikeS's idea to make cuts around the panel lines, though - may have to try that.

[mikeszekely]

thanks guys for the tips:

first time decal try:

So far so good!

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

So far so good!

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

using the overhang as a blade guide and getting as close to perpendicular as I can to the decal surface.

nekko, i think i did this as well to cut off the excess by the canopy (and shaved a little off the plastic ) what seems to happen for a few decals is the 0.3 pencil i used for panel lining parts that the gundam marker can't fit gets smudged around the decal edges. (making rookie mistakes) so i use the razer to cut off the edges that were smudged. (scratching the surface a bit)

Edited February 28, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Hikuro]

There's a skygrasper at the hobby store near work but I really don't want to pay 40 dollars for something that's a dinky plane and weapon packs. Honestly, only way I'd even build a skygrasper is with 2 more Strikes to go with them, but that also means 2 extra Aile packs which 1 could just get tagged onto the skygrasper.

I dunno if you wanna go to this kind of extent David, but if you take some acrylic semi-gloss and do the trim of the canopy, use some isopropyl alcohol and a q tip to wipe away any excess of paint on the canopy, you'll get a nice looking canopy hatch. Or, if you use enamel, lighter fluid takes it off.

I did that on my Bandai 1/100 VF-25, worked pretty well.

Ugh I really gotta start getting into the tutorial area for my build group. it's driven some of those guys nuts on what I do and not explain it.

[Scyla]

At the moment I'm panel lining my MG Sazabi after I built the whole kit. That way I can see what ridges need to be panel lined and what parts are not visible from the outside. I usually disassemble and panel line one side of the kit and test with the oter side of I reached everything.

I think I will try an enamel wash with one of the next kits. The Gundam Markers are ok but I don't get the intended results.

Quick question for the pro builders here. If I don't paint the kit do I need to prepare the surface with a glossy coat? I know from mini wargaming that you need to prepare the painted surfaces with a coat so that the paint of the wash can flow freely do I have do to the same with the unpainted pieces? Can I use acrylic washes with a flat coat after applying the stickers to get a good result?

Edited February 28, 2015 by Scyla

[Nekko Basara]

I am in no way a "pro builder," but I hope you won't mind if I chime in. I use both Gundam marker and the Tamiya "Panel Line Accent Color," which is basically just a pre-thinned enamel wash (I use it as a "pin wash" where you flow it into the cracks; I don't think it's suitable as a true wash that you would brush over the whole model and just let it settle into the cracks, but I haven't tried). I find that it flows just fine on unpainted plastic; I just make sure the parts don't have any dust or anything else on them that will impede the wash, because it will gather around that.

I never use a wash on flat-coated parts because it spreads out into the rough coated surface and basically does the exact opposite of what I want a wash to do, making big "oil stains" rather than finding the crevices, and it can't be easily removed. I also do stickers last, because washes (or marker or other paint) will tend to flow around the edges and under the stickers, and is almost impossible to remove without ruining the stickers. If I wanted a realistic effect where panel lines and weathering went over the stickers (which is how I used to build military models with decals), then I would seal the surface with a good gloss coat before doing the wash.

[renegadeleader1]

When cutting a piece from the sprue then filing it down, how do you guys get rid of the... nub mark? Is that the term for it? The discolored spot left from the gate?

Edited February 28, 2015 by renegadeleader1

[Nekko Basara]

This site has a better explanation of the three techniques for cleanly removing parts and getting rid of sprue marks than I could write. They aren't mutually exclusive, of course - you can cut a part free with sprue cutters, clean off the nub with a kinfe, and then file/sand the mark.

Personally, I rarely resort to filing if I can help it, because it takes the longest and can scuff up and round off the surrounding plastic. I prefer to shave the nub down as gently as possible, using a sharp blade and a drawing cut, where I pull the edge towards me as I press against the part. I also find it's better to shave the nub down by degrees than get it all at once. The bottom line is that the less force you use, the less discoloration of the attachment point you'll have from stressing the plastic.* The degree to which the plastic is discolored and the mark is visible also depends enormously on its type and color.

Finally, I find that once the nub is cleaned off flush, stress discoloration at the attachment point can be partially removed by firmly rubbing the area with something too soft to scratch the plastic (I usually just use my thumbnail).

*This applies to the way most plastic gets lighter in color when it is stressed. Most plastic also seems to be darker at the points where it flows into the parts during injection-molding - this is especially apparent on metallic swirl plastics. As far as I know, there is no way to remove this color, so even when you cleanly remove the light-colored sprue mark, there will often be a faintly darker mark.

[UN_MARINE]

Sometimes, rubbing the nub with your fingernail works, other times, you really have to sand the whole area until the discoloration goes away. A coat of Future helps hide the discoloration after sanding too.

But practically nothing works on dark, metallic & chromed parts except paint.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

There's a skygrasper at the hobby store near work but I really don't want to pay 40 dollars for something that's a dinky plane and weapon packs.

I dunno if you wanna go to this kind of extent David, but if you take some acrylic semi-gloss and do the trim of the canopy, use some isopropyl alcohol and a q tip to wipe away any excess of paint on the canopy, you'll get a nice looking canopy hatch. Or, if you use enamel, lighter fluid takes it off.

that's way too much for a sky grasper.

wow, that's too pro for me at this beginner stage

[Hikuro]

that's way too much for a sky grasper.

wow, that's too pro for me at this beginner stage

Only seems that way, but it's so easy.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Only seems that way, but it's so easy.

thanks for the encouragement, i need to get some of that stuff from the hobby store then.

ok, i just finished decal-ing the other side and i got to practice razoring off the decals trying to use everyones tips

i tried to take a shot of the excess decal i just cut off on the end of the tweezers.

shot lined up next to the box art for reference...

Edited February 28, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Nekko Basara]

That is looking excellent! Did you say this was your first kit?

Do you want to see any shots of my Skygrasper? I don't want to come off as competitive by just tossing them up (and yours looks easily as good, anyhow). I did paint the canopy,and I agree with Hikuro that it's not as tough as it may appear.