MickyG's (Slow) VF-25G Build

[shinagami]

looking great so far.....will post my vf-25G step by step kinda build up after i finished my moscato atmospheric booster...meanwhile keep us posted....errr shud i just post here or start a new topic for mikhail custom?

[regult]

Quick question: are the white parts on the G the same bright white as the F, or are they a really light grey (nearly white) like they are on the S? Stilling working on my Armored, but I decided to snag a G plus Super Packs from HLJ's sale so I'm thinking about how to paint it.

The white on the F is the brightest, on the G it is a bit off-white, while on the S it is probably darker. I personally compared the F and the G's white parts because I intend to build the superparts in and never remove them on my second F and then reuse the intake/hips of the F on the G, but realized it's a bit too white compared to the other white parts. I am a lame builder, seldom paint unless absolutely necessary, but will start clearcoating on these valks to avoid decal destruction.

[mickyg]

looking great so far.....will post my vf-25G step by step kinda build up after i finished my moscato atmospheric booster...meanwhile keep us posted....errr shud i just post here or start a new topic for mikhail custom?

Looking forward to it!

Please start a new topic for your Mikhail Custom - there's no way would I want your work getting looked over because it was hiding in here with mine. Not only would your stuff not get the attention it deserves, but you'd make me look bad!

That said, any pictures you want to post up, feel free. In fact, post as much as you want! I could use all the help I can get. I just think you should have your own thread as well. Believe me, your work deserves it!

Edited July 30, 2009 by mickyg

[mickyg]

The white on the F is the brightest, on the G it is a bit off-white, while on the S it is probably darker. I personally compared the F and the G's white parts because I intend to build the superparts in and never remove them on my second F and then reuse the intake/hips of the F on the G, but realized it's a bit too white compared to the other white parts. I am a lame builder, seldom paint unless absolutely necessary, but will start clearcoating on these valks to avoid decal destruction.

Thanks for clarifying - I knew the super parts' white was slightly different too, so it's good to know the subtle differences, based on someone who's actually got them all side by side to compare.

[mickyg]

Update of sorts. I'm almost finished with the painting on the gun. There's the green to do, the lighter grey on the accents (clip, the "pump" on the front, etc...) and the red "lights" if that's what they are on the back of the gun. So nearly there! Of course, I'll then need to clearcoat it, black oil wash it, maybe a flat or semi-gloss clear on that (haven't decided on flat or semi) then the red the lights. If I do the red first, I'll need to mask it off to prevent them from losing their gloss. I haven't decided about weathering yet. I think on a part this dark, it might not be noticeable. Although there's plenty of opportunity for dry brushing - something I've never tried before.

Any tips for this particular piece? I was thinking the inner workings of the scope could use some sort of dry brush highlighting maybe? Difficult for me to say, because this stuff is all so small and I'm a complete newb!

Pics:

These first two show the tiny strips of tamiya masking I cut out with a hobby knife and a ruler. I guess they would have been about 1mm wide, as the tape is 6mm. 6mm is a pretty versatile size, in my opinion (plus it was the smallest HLJ had in stock when I ordered it!). I put down some future over it to prevent paint from seeping under - this wouldn't have been necessary had I airbrushed it but I was concerned that the thin hand brushing would just allow the paint to seep under. It worked, but as you'll see in some other photos, the darker and lighter grey is so subtle that I wonder if it was even worth the effort! I'm hoping a final semi-gloss or flat clearcoat will bring it out a bit more.

Some shots on my E71 camera phone. Not great but they show the rough first stage of the pinky-purple accents and especially the sloppyness of the oval, "eye" markings at the back of the rear tine housings. Yes, highly technical name!

And some taken with the better camera after I'd finished with the scope lens bits, and the final coats of pinky-purple. I used a hobby knife to gently scrape away any excess. This worked well, although it was a bit trickier on the eye markings.

Edited July 30, 2009 by mickyg

[mickyg]

The lighter grey has been done now (sort of). As before, I went with a metallic interpretation of the colours that Bandai shows. So 90% RLM 75 + 10% Violet. I can't see that the Violet does anything at all, but it's in there, just the same. I then add a small amount of steel to the mix, which seems to darken the colour just slightly but otherwise leaves it about like it was.

I made the mistake of using a really fine brush this time around, the same one I used for the pink details. It didn't go so well. The small brush, the thin-ness of gloss paints (RLM is semi-gloss, violet is gloss and steel is probably semi as well) and the rapid drying time all conspired against me. In the end, I ended up with a finish that I might have to either sand a bit or just strip it and start again.

The Tools (just got the mat today - the black one for home, and now this one I can leave at work):

Some shots of the new grey. It's not terrible from a distance but won't look great unless I fix it.

Edited July 31, 2009 by mickyg

[shinagami]

mickyg, what do yo do for life? i mean ur occupation....i think ur job is the coolest since u can do macross modeling in the office

[mickyg]

Hah! It is a pretty good job - I work in IT and have my own desk (and it's a big desk!). I get a 1 hour lunch break and so I cram in as much modeling into that hour as I can. I don't get much done but there are 5 of those hours per week that I can pour into some small things like brush painting with acrylics. No smell, no real worries about messes. It works well and my work colleagues like seeing what I'm up to.

[mickyg]

Not a whole lot to report. I'm holding off doing the rest of the gun until I can find a clearcoat that will be appropriate. I was going to clearcoat before finishing the green insides of the tines, just to make it easier to wipe the paint off if I screw up. I've got some testors dullcoat in a spray can so it should be trivial to put that on. Plus, I find flat clearcoat to be very forgiving in terms of overall finish (no orange peel, runs, etc...). I'm hesitant though because I'm not sure it's a good idea to put another, non-glossy coat over flat. I'm thinking it should be fine but wasn't sure.

To make matters worse, I hit my first potential problem with the paint on the gun. I had quite a few noticeable fingerprints on the gun so decided to give the parts another wash. Just a drop of dishsoap in a small tub of water, very light toothbrush scrubbing. I let them soak for probably 20 minutes then took them out. All the parts looked fine and I really like the extra contrast when they were wet. However, when they dried, there was a very obvious chalky appearance to the painted parts. Almost like some of the flat pigment had leached out of the paint. And there were some marks where bubbles from the water/soap mixture had dried. I gave the parts another quick rinse under running water but I may have really screwed up my careful paint job.

Has anyone else encountered this or is everyone else smart enough not to wash their parts after painting?

[Cent]

soap generally destroys my paintwork. Then again, I work in acryllic, so its kinda expected.

I haven't had a lot of time to work on mine either, but I I think I've deviated ever further from the plain blue standard design.

I've painted the rear leg vents black, along with the vents in front of those. Painted the white stripe and the rear hexagons. Masked and painted the kneecaps, the inner arm details and the outer body trim. Its a little strange to do the outside trim as a darker blue, but I hope it'll work. I guess I'll see in the end. A lighter blue (than the standard body blue) seemed a little off to me, and didn't go well with the wing decals.

Oh yea, the standard blue was gloss coated. Thats why it looks so shiny in the photos. I gloss coated them because when masking over them without the coat, the paint had a tendency to peel a bit. Thats what I get for not using a primer. I'll still have to gloss coat everything again before applying decals, but I'm still a ways off from that step. I'll need to matte coat yet again at the end... I've lost track of how many coats I've done now.

Next in the things to do is to attempt to put tiny rivet depressions in the panels... However, considering that I've already painted it, it may be a bad idea. The rivet indents cause the plastic around it to bulge upwards, which is usually sanded down again before the paint process begins. If it proves to be too troublesome, I will probably just skip riveting and proceed with the gloss coats. I'll have to save the rivets for my VF-25S armored kit... Which is really what all of this experience is leading to anyway.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Cent

[mickyg]

Coming along nicely! So I take it you've had no issues putting a gloss coat over a flat one?

I'm using acrylics too so I'll be more careful next time...

Edited August 6, 2009 by mickyg

[Cent]

Honestly, its my first time gloss coating over a flat base with the intention of matte coating as a final layer. I hope the base color doesn't get distorted underneath all those coats. I won't really know until the final layers are on, unfortunately. imo, the best it ever looked was with a flat base coat, with nothing on top.

[Lolicon]

Hey mickyg,

Not to steal thunder from your 25G but I figured I'd share some of my experiences. I'm working on my Armored 25S currently, though a 25G with Super Packs is next on my list.

After seeing wm cheng and your metal finishes, I decided to try that. I used Tamiya Gunmetal and then did a simply acrylic wash (my first attempt at washing) before covering it in a semi-gloss clear coat. Came out okay, though I definitely need to work on my washing technique. I kind of made a mess of things and ended up spending a good deal of time cleaning it up and the recesses aren't quite as dark as I would've liked. Ignore the electric bill I left lying around.

Switching to an oil wash after this; picked up some oil paint and turpenoid to try it out later. Acrylic paint dries far too thin and "powdery" for my taste and I end up having to lay on more wash to compensate.

I also revised my canopy tint technique... well, more accurately, I threw mine out the window and adoped wm cheng's instead.

I remember you saying the Aussie equivalent of Future sucked and messed up the canopy finish. Have you tried Tamiya clear? From my experience it works just as well as Future, but it does dry quicker, meaning you have to be a bit more on the ball about wicking off the excess (i.e. not slow and clumsy like me) before it starts to dry and become sticky.

[mickyg]

After hearing a few people talk about acrylic washes, I'm still dumbfounded as to how anyone does it! For me, acrylic dries in about 5 minutes. The way I do a wash with oils, is to put it everywhere, wait a few hours, then wipe it off. I think using acrylics would stress me out, having to worry about it drying! So bravo on your efforts, those legs look great!

That said, I'm curious as to what you think after you try the oil technique.

Yeah, the aussie equivalent definitely sucks. Although we have two types over here, Pascoe's Long Life and Pledge One Go. I was using the Long Life stuff and just found it was a constant disappointment. I would have tried the other stuff but couldn't find it at any of the shops that were supposed to carry it. I had totally given up and decided to get my family to send some over (I'm American, but live in Australia and all my family is still over in the States) when I stumbled on the "One Go" stuff at different supermarket than the one I normally go to. So I grabbed some and the results are so much better! I stripped the canopy a few weeks back and did a very quick coating (only one layer) and the results were leaps and bounds better than what the "Long Life" stuff did. No pics yet though.

And don't worry, you're not stealing my thunder at all! Post away!

[Lolicon]

Oh yeah, definitely get a bottle of it from the States if you can. Big jug of Pledge with Future Shine! costs about $6 and has its uses, even though I no longer use it as my primary clear coat.

You know what the real kick in the pants is? All these metallic parts are going to be completely covered by the Armor Packs.

[mickyg]

Doh! But you'll know. I feel the same way about mine too. I put a lot of effort into the legs that are at least half covered by the super parts. I think it's worth it though.

Another minor update:

Sprayed a flat Testors lacquer clear coat on the gun parts yesterday. I was hoping to build up a barrier that would allow me to be a bit sloppy with the green application on the inside of the tines (why are we calling these tines again?). I was careful when I put it on but still managed to get a few brush strokes outside the lines (what can I say, I've been that way since I was a kid!). I tried removing it with an ammonia dampened paper towel but it didn't seem to work. Only solution was to use my hobby knife. That did the trick, surprisingly. So in the end, the clearcoat was pointless! I do like the look of the matte metal on the gun though.

The plan now is to maybe go semi-gloss, oil wash everything then decide if I like it semi or want to go back to flat/matte. I'm hoping the extra clear layers will tighten things up, as the gun almost doesn't sit open with its own weight.

[mickyg]

Some progress pics of the freshly painted (the green parts) gun. Apologies for the lousy pics. I borrowed an old fujifilm 2mp camera. They're clear but the colours are terrible! I've adjusted them to give a better idea of the colours but they're probably a bit too blue still.

First with flash, the rest without.

[Cent]

Finally got the canopy: tinted in light blue, single outer coat. On the back of the kit instructions it shows a darker purple, but I generally like my canopies to be lighter.

[mickyg]

Looking good Cent! Can't wait to see yours completed.

I had a bit of a disaster this weekend with the gun. I remembered I had some clear gloss acrylic spray (lacquer based) for automotive use out in the garage, so figured after painting the red light things on the stock, that I'd put a gloss coat over everything, in preparation for the black oil wash. I wanted it to be easier to wipe off. So after spraying a few light passes, it looked nice and wet and I left it for a few hours. When I came back, the coat had wrinkled and instead of a nice, glossy coat, I had a wrinkled, mottled finish. And since it's lacquer based, I'm guessing it's not going to come off. Needless to say, I'm pretty annoyed. I can try to sand it back, but there are so many irregular surfaces, that it'll be nearly impossible to do a decent job. Or, I guess I could attempt another coat, which will no doubt fill in all the panel lines, thereby losing any detail I'd hoped to achieve.

If anyone's got any ideas, I'd love to know how I can avoid this in the future and possibly, how it happened. Some relevant details:

• Base colour is water based tamiya or gunze acrylic
• Over coated with Testors dullcote spray (not model master, just the regular stuff)
• It was a cold, dry day (around 10C/50F?)
• Before using the clearcoat, I warmed it up in a bowl of hot water.

These pics don't show the severity of the wrinkled finish but should give an idea, at least.

First, a pic of the red light steps.

1: paint silver enamel over the rectangular area

2: overcoat the silver with clear red (in this case, 2 drops of red, mixed with one drop of clear orange):

These were pre-gloss coat. Now the wrinkle finish pics:

[mickyg]

So that was the bad news. The good news is that I had a win with the blue paint and majority of the blue parts (not that I lost on the rest of the blue parts, just didn't paint them ). I got the tail fins and the stripe on the shins done, plus painted all the other big parts, to cover any plastic swirl marks or sanding marks. I'm still amazed at how spot on the colour guide is for matching the plastic. It was hard to tell where I'd painted, in fact.

Masking these areas was tedious. I tried a few approaches and finally settled on using the panel lines as a guide to cut the tape, after it was applied. So you line up the flat side with a feature on the part that doesn't need cutting, then cut against the panel line on the other side of the tape. It worked really well.

All the parts painted. I used blutac to hold everything down and a bit of it to mask areas off on the cockpit top as well. Versatile stuff! And who knew a huggies box would come in so handy!

[Cent]

Wow. Funny you mention that Testors Lacquer Dullcote. I used that on my VF-25F, and only lightly! Ended up with a bunch of watermarks and speckling just like yours. It wasn't that bad, since all the white on my VF-25F was unpainted, but even so.. I've had bad experiences with that spray, but I don't know why that happens either. I've heard that putting lacquer or enamels over top of acrylics is a bad idea, but at the same time, I've also heard its fine. I'm totally stumped, and I've just decided to stick to mixing Tamiya Flat with Future for my matte coats. Even Createx Matte coats work poorly (too glossy).

Oh btw, I was using Acrylic Tamiya Clear Blue for my canopy. When I tried to mix that with future to tone down the blue, I got this stringy mess. For some reason Clear Blue does NOT mix well with Future. It was almost the same as when I tried to water down decanted Tamiya Airsprays. Also disaster. In the end, I had to dilute the Clear Blue with Tamiya Clear and a bit of water. Having too much clear makes it really thick, yet having too much water has the blue solution just not stick at all to the canopy, so a good balance had to be achieved.

Also, the decals are a pain in the ass. The rear foot cover decals (the horseshoe foot cover with the white decal stripe) are terrible. You can barely get them in place without having them wrinkle left and right. I don't even think they follow the curvature correctly, resulting in the wrinkles. The front decals fit perfectly though >_>. I was seriously contemplating just painting these decals on. Bandai also has huge decal borders, often oversizing the decal, or giving it contour issues. I think I'd have been seriously screwed without some decal softener. I'm working on the underwing edges right now, painting the white stripe and the red/blue light decals instead of using the provided waterslides.

Below, I masked and airbrushed the hexagonal bolts on the wingtips, airbrushed the canopy frame, and painted the remaining inner blue stripe on the vert. stabs. Pic qual sucks though.

Edited August 10, 2009 by Cent

[mickyg]

Looks great! Did you use the decals for the white parts of the stabs or is that paint? Either way, it looks really good. I figure I'll paint mine but am a touch worried the white won't match. I'm thinking the little hinge pieces under the nose (the ones cast in blue for some unknown reason) are going to be a pain to colour match. I'm going the lazy route for the white parts and will just clearcoat the white plastic. But for areas that should be white and are cast in another colour, I'm going to have to do something that will match. The colour callout sheet lists white with a hint of gull grey. I'll try that on some white sprue to see how it looks. The hinge parts I mentioned are ABS (I think) and will likely need a primer first (will use mr surfacer 1000 white, airbrushed on). If I'm lucky, maybe that'll match, but I doubt it.

Wow. Funny you mention that Testors Lacquer Dullcote. I used that on my VF-25F, and only lightly! Ended up with a bunch of watermarks and speckling just like yours.

I'm not sure I follow exactly. I thought my dull cote was OK, but the gloss one, not so much. I do wonder if the gloss overcoat reacted with the dull though. Perhaps it hadn't fully cured yet? Mine had sat for 3 days so I figured that would have been sufficient.

Edited August 10, 2009 by mickyg

[Cent]

Sorry, I completely misread what you posted >_< I have never tried using clear gloss acryllic sprays, so I can't comment. =X

But I did use the dullcotes, and I didn't like them, like I posted above. I'm glad you didn't have any issues with it.

I did paint all the colors on the fins, and while it is difficult to color match, I wasn't going to be too worried about it anyway, since I much preferred them to matched decals anyway. However, it worked out well, since the flat white paint matches the white decals very very closely. As for the 2 shades of blue used on the fins, those are matched with the 2 shades of blue present in the body of the plane. Since everything was repainted, everything matches. The only issue then is to paint instead of decal every place where there is a blue decal present. Honestly, that won't be too difficult to do, I'm just wondering if I'm going to be a little lazy or not. If the colors don't match well at that point, then I will just paint it, and color wont be a problem at all.

[Darth Mingus]

Hi guys,

What you are seeing is the Laquer overcoat reacting to the paint underneath. You cannot paint lacquers over anything other than bare plastic or other lacquers because lacquers etch the surface they are painted over.

For overcoats, you should stick with acryilics whenever possible.

[Lolicon]

Wow your Gs are looking great! Hope you guys don't mind me plundering your methods for mine.

Yeah, lacquers pretty much eat anything except plastic and other lacquers. Though I'm often tempted fate by using Gunze Sangyo clear coat (lacquer-based) on parts that I've painted using Tamiya acrylics and so far haven't had any problems.

Tamiya acrylics do not mix with Future at all. Most of the time you'll just end up with colored egg drop soup... the best tinting method I've seen (and used myself) has been acrylic ink diluted in Future (with food coloring added to adjust the shade). I'll try to get a better pic later, but it's perfectly even and transparent:

Also, like you guys, I threw out all the decals for the tailfins (except the SMS logo of course) and painted it.

[mickyg]

Hi guys,

What you are seeing is the Laquer overcoat reacting to the paint underneath. You cannot paint lacquers over anything other than bare plastic or other lacquers because lacquers etch the surface they are painted over.

For overcoats, you should stick with acryilics whenever possible.

I thought that too. But here's the weird part - the Testors dullcote is a lacquer! I put my automotive gloss coat directly over the testors dullcote so I thought lacquer over lacquer would be OK. Apparently I was wrong. There was a slight reaction with the dullcote over the colours but not enough for me to worry about. The reaction from the gloss coat though, it's just terrible! I'm going to have to use another method when it comes time to clearcoating the whole thing. I've got testors model master semi and gloss clears in the bottle. The plan was to thin those before airbrushing. But since these are most definitely lacquer based, I've got to find some sort of lacquer thinner that is less reactive than what I've got currently. The stuff I've got will melt plastic on contact.

Anyone got any words of wisdom for testors clear (Model master in a bottle) and appropriate thinner?

[Excillon]

Wow, that's a really good question. What I would do is take a junky old kit or some sprues and try different ratios of diluted thinner. Start with the weakest mix and work your way up. I always removed lacquers and enamels with Pinesol, but I don't think you want to use that...if anyone else knows the answer to this please speak up, I'm dying to know.

[Cent]

Nearing completion. Placing down final individual part matte coats and then I have to finish the decals on the front half of the plane after fitting the pieces together. One regret I have with this kit is that I used a gundam marker near the beginning, and it just looks terrible. =/. I'll be watering down some black acryllic for the panel lines next time.

Painted the red/blue lights on the tips of the wings, and the white stripe on the underside. Partially assembled legs, waiting on some remaining parts to dry. The shoulder hexagonal decals had to be sliced up into tiny triangle pieces, but I got it fitted together pretty well. Excuse the layer of dust >_>

Edited August 11, 2009 by Cent

[mickyg]

Looks great! I love seeing things come together, after staring at the same separate parts for so long.

I think I figured out what happened with my clearcoat. I noticed a few spots on the gun where the gloss looked OK, then remembered how I'd put the dullcote on. I stuck the gun, by its handle, into a blob of blutac, which means that some of the parts on the gun didn't get any dullcote sprayed on. Where there was no dullcote, the gloss looks fine.

So it looks like my acrylic automotive clearcoat reacted with the dullcote. It does not look like any of the underlying acrylic paint had any issues at all. So the good news is I can probably spray the gloss directly onto my paints, without any issues. I'll still test it on some scraps but that makes me a feel a lot more confident about the whole process.

That said, I've got semi and gloss clear of the Model Master bottles and am still wondering what I'll end up using to thin it. The automotive stuff is just something I had lying around from an old project and I'm not sure I'll end up using it. Looking at WM Cheng's builds, he never uses a high gloss even for what he decals over. So perhaps it's easier for me to just abandon the can and stick to airbrushing with what I've got.

[ATMacross]

Thanks for showing us your progress step by step. I just got myself a 25G (yay for sales at HLJ) and I want to just slap the thing together and play b/c I'm impatient, but I do want to paint it at some point. So my question is, have you or anyone put it fully together first and then taken it apart again to paint? Is it hard to take apart the pieces after you're put them together? I haven't don't many snap together models before. My last one was a VF-2SS from Macross II and I don't think it wants to come apart. I did paint that one first where it made sense.

Thanks in advance!

[mickyg]

I know exactly what you mean! I don't know if it's obvious from my pics but yeah, I completely assembled it, then took it all apart again to paint it. But to do it right, you need to keep the thing clean, so no decals or stickers. And without those, it kinda looks like crap! It is definitely possible though, just need to be very careful when you disassemble it not to bend any pieces or break them. Some of them fit very tightly. The best advice is to cut any pins that fit into holes at an angle near the ends. So the pin is still there but it's got a sharp angled point instead of being flat. This still allows the pin to lock into the hole when assembling but makes it easier to take it apart too. It's tricky to get right though so be careful!

Edited August 12, 2009 by mickyg

[Cent]

Haha. I skipped initial assembly altogether, since I assembled a VF-25F before... And reading through Micky and Cheng's builds, I knew which parts needed to be painted beforehand. =P

However, you may still want to preassemble certain pieces for painting, especially if you want to putty the gaps between the pieces. This applies for things like the arms, nosecone and stuff. Doing that makes masking a lot tougher though. You can read Cheng's comments on that to see what I mean.

I spent most of the day assembling my VF-25G... And wow. I had way too many super-snug pieces that I really had to be careful not to scratch off the paint when the parts rubbed together. Some scratching on the kneecap occurred inevitably, even despite the coats and coats of clear coating I put on them. I applied the remaining decals and set to dry. Not enough sunlight to get a good image, but i took a few pics anyway.

[mickyg]

Wow, you work fast! Looks really good with the two tone colours too.

I considered puttying the nose and arms but then decided it was too much effort, and more importantly for me, the seam in the nose is actually that way in the anime too. Probably not super realistic but then again, maybe a removable upper and lower panel on a real jet would make sense? I don't know enough about radomes to know the answer to that one. If David H drops by, perhaps he can answer that one. Can a radome be two parts?

[ATMacross]

Thanks for the tip!

That looks great Cent!

- ATM

[Cent]

Okay, well I've just got to do the forward red lights on the sides of the fuselage, and to dab in the paint for the vents along the plane. Here's where it is now. Placed it on the provided and hastily-made stand from the armored VF-25S. to take pics. You can see in a few pics that assembly has gotten some of the white paint to rub off onto the blue >_> FML. I'm still thinking of adding weathering... But I usually don't like weathering. So I guess that will have to wait.

Edited August 13, 2009 by Cent