Anyone into gunpla - Japanophiles unite to share tips on painting our toys (GUNPLA IS FREEDOM)

[Gar For Archer]

Since I got my first paycheck from work, I decided to buy some kits, so I went down to the hobby store and got some. Say, it is about snack time, some cup noodles will hit the spot!
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Now, if you're confused as to why I posted this here is because this is one of the models I bought. Yes, I bought the meme cup noodle kit (the last one in stock too) for a quick build.
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(Comes with lid and a closing sticker to keep the lid closed when cooking (closing sticker not shown)).

Now, this kit has a good amount of separation color wise, but there is a lot of stickers. Small details like the tiny divide for the U in cup is a sticker (most the stickers are big, but the small ones are really small). Also the shrimp also had to be stickered on both sides and it was folding stickers too so it kinda looks off.
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The labels (and some small details to the Japanese text) are stickers. The red parts are separate pieces. Overall its a change of pace and could be fun, but due to the stickers and kinda confusing build (you have to follow the seam of the cup so it looks right), its kinda hard to recommend to some that hate stickers, but if you're looking for a quick and entertaining build, I'd say pick it up. Now I got the galantmon figure-rise as well, but I'm not 100% sure when I'll work on it, maybe later today or Tuesday, my day off. So, I hope your builds go smoothly and have a great day!

I wanted to get this kit just for the memes but wasn't a fan of the lid just being a sticker. Like, what the fuck are you supposed to do, just stick it on and never look at the noodles inside?

 

[Syn_32]

I wanted to get this kit just for the memes but wasn't a fan of the lid just being a sticker. Like, what the fuck are you supposed to do, just stick it on and never look at the noodles inside?

There is a window where the cup noodle logo is and to view in you remove the cup noodle logo... somehow? It feels securely in place but the instructions mention it.

 

[Bionicle of War]

Hello friends and welcome to another custom paint job, but... it turned to shit very quickly. See, I decided to take a mass production eva kit, paint it glow in the dark green and have it be interesting, sadly, due to the age of the kit in question or the paint being unusable, it kept peeling off when it dried and it doesn't dry evenly, so unfortunately that dream died (cue Komm, susser tod) but fortunately it somewhat bonded and it looks kinda interesting (more marbled with white underbody and green glow in the dark paint), and I even tested the glow and it looks cool (not bright but its enough to see to the naked eye) and I'm honestly happy it kinda worked, but I'm not painting things in glow in the dark paint due to it being super delicate.

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Looking at it now it looks frogish? I was aiming to make it look like kiwi farms logo... dream died yet again (continue Komm, susser tod)...
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I may do panel lining, but I don't want to mess with it even further if the paint keeps being difficult. He has wings, but I don't want to peel anymore paint, lest I lose what mind I have left. So in summary, DO NOT buy folkart glow in the dark paint, yes it works, but its too fragile for model kit needs.

I hope everyone's builds are going smoothly! I also have another kit arriving soon (how soon? Dont know, its coming from Japan via EMS) and its gonna be interesting (no paint on that kit due to its rarity... what information I got on it is very limited and USD prices for that kit is insane!) So look forward to that, I'm sorry if I disappointed you with my craptacular paint job, its not my best and I just got tired of dealing with that paint... hope you have a good day and good builds!

(P.S. : don't worry I'll be fine, just kinda exhausted from dealing with paint being stupid.)

Edit: after several hours, a few beers and a few slices of pizza, I can safely say I'm done with the kit paint wise for right now

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Looks a lot better, I did some panel lining, but the paint is very rubbery once I was done painting it, so the lines look a bit sloppy
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I painted inside the mouth, which sadly can't be opened (unless you get the retooled version which has posability) that was the simplest of the paint apps
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I also did the sword up a bit using some metallic grey but it kinda smeared at the ends a bit (I just say its eva 02's dried blood and gut stains just to make an excuse) but it came out okay?
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What bits of white you see I did touch up after this shot, but the wings I don't care about too much... so this lizardman eva isn't going to fly, and the paint weakly glows (which sucks that its weak after applying near double digit coats of paint on this thing...) so it can be a glow in the dark lizardman (cue x-files theme). Anyway, while lmhg kits are fun and simple, I don't really care to paint any future lmhg kits, they are really big and require more paint that I can't get right now due to the alcohol, not drunk or even popped, just don't wanna give myself anymore issues. So hope the update was worth it, till then, hope your builds go smoothly

You must have much better self control than I do because I know I'd be tempted to put it on a crucifix like in the movie.

 

[Syn_32]

You must have much better self control than I do because I know I'd be tempted to put it on a crucifix like in the movie.

I've built super minipla, which is stickers only and some of them are very tiny, but yea I'm a very patient person to a fault and lol yea I get where you're coming from, tiny stickers are the work of Satan and can be annoying to work with.

 

[Baby Cakes]

Well, the online expo was a disappointment. I'm hoping Bandai implements something akin to the United Maintenance Plan soon. Just release frames for each mobile suit family and sell the armor and the mobile suit's weapons together in a separate box. I think it would make any kit developable. So many kits need updates or first releases. They should really think about developing kits in the most efficient way moving forward from this covid bullshit.

I'm waiting for supplies and haven't got a lot done. I glued in the Gouf Custom's heat wire assembly into the Efreet's wrist with some pla plate and putty (finally used pla plate). Then I cut the side armor pegs and generator pipe holder off of the Nacht and glued them to the new kit. Everything fits perfectly except a tiny gap in the arm where the heat wire assembly is. The Hildolfr guns wouldn't be able to be holstered properly so I'm going to look into using CAD to design two sub MMP-80's, holsters, and new armor pieces to make it look like a more refined Efreet. Maybe one that would have appeared in Thunderbolt.

Spoiler: Efreet

Since I had a lot of time, I built the Gyan Krieger and it's awesome. The special right hand it has is something Bandai should include with every Zeon kit. It pivots up and down allowing the Krieger to pull off those classic fencing poses. It can hold every melee weapon I have, too. I'm thinking about cutting a Gouf shield in half and fitting it to the Krieger shield and taking the spike off of the head and replacing it with a scratch built officer crest like the Gyan Eos. If you can get your hands on the Krieger, it has my recommendation.

Spoiler: Gyan Krieger

 

[Syn_32]

Work has been a pain, but I got around to building Gallantmon!

Gallantmon I have history with, as I had the digivolving figure of him as a kid. This kit was pretty straightforward, the shield and lance gimmick is implemented well, just a little tricky because the shield gimmick parts need to be in a certain way or it won't work or even latch properly.

The cape is made of a flexible plastic and can be adjusted, but assembly can be a bit fiddly to an extent.

The shield comes with a stand due to it being a bit chunky and you have to remove the hands so he can hold the lance and shield. No stand for Gallantmon included but he should hook up to an action base or figure-rise stands. Stickers are thankfully minimal, the cape has a few stickers, eyes should be stickers but I forgot and couldn't care because tiny. The red part on the helmet has stickers, either one big one or smaller ones are included.

(This pic captures the shield and lance gimmick.)
Closing thoughts, its pretty cool not too many fiddly bits and relatively straightforward. Would recommend to Digimon fans who remember series 3 of Digimon or someone that finds the design interesting.

As for the next kit I am unsure, work has been busting my ass and I'm trying to help my mom get out of a shitty home situation so I am not 100% sure when I'll pick up another kit right now, but I'll see what I can do. I hope your builds are going smoothly and have a great day!

 

[EyelessMC]

My people! Man, I missed this thread. Great to see you guys' builds coming along so good, too. Recently hit my 90's HG Evangelion kits with some extra paint and matte. The result is great, although I did matte spray over the stickers. Came out good either way I think.

Painting by hand is fun with smaller fine details. I see what miniature hobbyists like about it. The matte top coat made the plastic look much better (Tamiya spray can matte clear) and solidified the joints a bit, too. Matte really is magic.

I made the RG eva rifle from selected pieces bought from MechaPartsGuy. It fits loosely in the hand but meh. Kit's almost thirty years old anyway.
By the way, in case anyone wants to read the superior version of Evangelion here's a MEGA link to the entire comic in English:

804.88 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

 

[Moguro Fukuzou]

Got around to finishing up the Baund Doc (besides the stand) and thought I'd give some thoughts.
Pros:
-Very unique build that acts as a nice break if you've been building similar kits that use more unified runners
-Amazing color separation on the kit, don't really think you'll need much paint as the colors already pop (especially the pink).
-Overall a fun build.
(Few) Cons:
-The dark blue parts you have to be very careful cleaning as it very easily leaves marks, might want to touch up with some paint to cover that up. I was being very careful and still have some noticeable discoloration attempting to remove nubs.
-Few stickers you are given are weird and prone to crinkle, leaving visible lines, so be careful on lining it up perfect the first time. I skipped them besides the one for the head, might just want to use paint.
-Putting together the waist is somewhat annoying to do as you're trying to stick together to large pieces that have awkward shapes.

Even with those cons I'd still highly recommend the kit, though I'd also say take it slow as it being so unique made me run into problems at points putting it all together. Haven't really pulled off any cool poses yet as I still need to build the base, but here are some size comparisons (hopefully they load properly) for anyone curious (pardon the dusty kits, haven't been able to clean everyone yet):

Spoiler: MG + HG size comp

Here's him next to the MG Gm Command (colony type) and the HG Grimoire, he ends up being a good size taller than the HG and just a little more than the MG. This isn't even accounting for how much wider he is because of the butt.

Spoiler: RE/100 Size Comp

Was curious myself and stuck him beside my only RE/100 I have the Gundam MK-III. They're around the same size. Also, I find it kind of funny that the picture looks like the Baund Doc is cowering before a death glare from the MK-III.

 

[EyelessMC]

Hey fellow model robo autists! I come bearing gifts! lol
Mobile Suit Gundam Char's Coutnerattack: Beltorchika's Children the Manga (fully translated)

548.62 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

Alright actually it's just the entire translated manga that you can find online but collected into a single .zip. Even so, considering the RG Hi Nu is coming out I think it'd a fun companion piece for everyone.
Also ot a new Kotobukiya frame arms coming in soon so hopefully I'll be able to share some pics.

Spoiler: story ending spoiler

I hate the ending. The story is definitely better than the movie since it feels like a proper conclusion to everything and ends a lot better. However, I hate the solemn ending it has with the last shot (before the ruined Nightingale image) being Beltorchika holding her pregnant belly and grieving her lost Amuro. I know Tomino loves the sad endings but even the original novelization had a better bitter-sweet angle with Char meeting Sayla and confirming to her how Amuro's battle changed him for the better.

If Beltorchika was shown giving birth or smiling at her baby and telling him about the entire story with wistful smile then it'd have been a better bitter-sweet. Just ending on her crying is painful, man.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

Preordering Koto kits is suffering.

 

[Syn_32]

Hi... yes I'm still alive (although I keep screwing up my feet I'm still alive), but I have had a few model kits that have proven my hatred for glue as a primary bonding agent instead of being used for support. I tried to build a posable resin kit, I gave up because I was losing patience (and I think it was bootlegged anyway, no labeled parts, the instructions on printer paper, it was hell so it sits unfinished because I don't want to mess up another resin kit). So after that, I ordered a volks kit of a character from cyber troopers virtual on, a game series that started on the Sega Saturn, and still has a kinda cult following to this day. I got the kit in, was so excited, but by the time I "finished", I was angry and disappointed...

(Pardon the clothes mountains you see, I built this in my bedroom and I tend to just throw clothes on a pile (because I am lazy and I live on my own so no one yells at me about it, it doesn't bother me but if you are, sorry.)

Now, you may be saying "This looks fine! Why are you angery?" Its because its super fiddly and not good feeling. The neck joint is way too lose, so forget head posability, some joints don't move properly due to joint tolerance issues, and worse of all, it required sizeable amounts of super glue to hold most parts together. Hell, when I connected the lower waist to upper body, the crotch panel fell off and the legs fell off a very small connection to the part that connects to the upper body. Whoever designed this kit, and Volks specifically deserve the cross for this sin of a kit. Long story short, I'm dissatisfied... I was looking forward to a nice kit to build because work has been rough (most days is a skeleton crew and we are expected to get a million tasks done by the end of day). If you wanted a Virtual On kit, I'd say try to get the Hasegawa 1/100 kits, unless thats adhesive based, in which case avoid, or the Wave 1/144 kits if you can source them due to age. I don't know when I'll pick up another kit, I'm eyeing a few right now, but with work taking up so much time, its been rough to say the least.

I hope your builds go smoothly and you have a great day!

 

[The Lawgiver]

I found some weird small $14 gundam kits thrown in a random aisle in target and bought one after debating whether to get the normal zaku or a white one I think is from some movie I've never seen but looked cool. Got the green fucker. I thought it was weirdly pre-built in box when i first opened it only to find out the damn thing needed to be pryed apart off what was actually a fancy ass parts storage method and ended up actually snapping one of the tubes accidentally while doing so. The end result is a really neat and super posable tiny gundam model and it'd have been a lot easier to make if my house didn't have such ambient ass lighting during the night. I'm probably going to dabble in trying to paint it because the pure black hands look kinda off to me. I was thinking of getting another and I Figured I'd check the internet to see if I could find it online and found out it's being scalped for $70 dollars. Yeah I don't think I'll be seeing the other one that was in the store again.
I'll try taking pics later unless I forget

 

[Uziel Gal]

Anyone into Maschinen Krieger models? I wasn't sure if that's Gunpla adjacent enough to post in this thread. I dragged my lightbox out today to take some pics of an MaK model I just finished, and figured I'd take some new picture of some of my old favorite past model projects, which included some Gunplas.

Spoiler: Lots of pics

MG RB-79 "Madball Custom" - This has parts from a Hasegawa 1/48 Macross VF-1 weapons set, and a Bandai Build Fighters Giant Gatling

MG RX-77-2 Guncannon - I don't know much about Gundam lore other than Origin and Thunderbolt, but I was thinking when I built this one that Gundam mechs probably aren't made of materials that rust, but their consumable stores like rocket pods and stuff probably are.

 

[iceteayo]

Getting back into Gunpla after a hiatus. Rewatched Unicorn again on a whim and ended up ordering the ECOAS suits and the Jestas Londo Bell had. Got the P Bandai one before all the normal ones came in though.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Anyone into Maschinen Krieger models? I wasn't sure if that's Gunpla adjacent enough to post in this thread. I dragged my lightbox out today to take some pics of an MaK model I just finished, and figured I'd take some new picture of some of my old favorite past model projects, which included some Gunplas.

Spoiler: Lots of pics

MG RB-79 "Madball Custom" - This has parts from a Hasegawa 1/48 Macross VF-1 weapons set, and a Bandai Build Fighters Giant Gatling
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MG RX-77-2 Guncannon - I don't know much about Gundam lore other than Origin and Thunderbolt, but I was thinking when I built this one that Gundam mechs probably aren't made of materials that rust, but their consumable stores like rocket pods and stuff probably are.

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Hot damn, that's awesome! Love the eyeball robot, reminds me of a Doom demon.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Forgot to send the pics but I'll send better ones soon-ish? whenever I get around to it. Point is I ended up finding 2 more zakus and 3 gundams of those weird small kits, each in a different store. One of the gundams was the OG gundam but the box was ripped open and someone stole half the contents so I didn't get it. One was a model I wasn't super familiar with and I didn't get it because I was looking for the zaku specifically that day. Third one I found was a strange looking one that looked like the original gundam but slightly different and I grabbed it. Looked it's long ass name up and it's from the same thing as the white zaku, so I looked into it and it's not a movie but a miniseries thats a sequel to the original gundam and it came out 30 years ago. SHEESH!

Naturally, I found uploads of the whole series on youtube, surprisingly not struck down or filtered/warbled to hell. Completely unaltered footage. So I'm now watching more "normal" gundam shit after god only fucking knows how long. So far it's pretty good. Found out the white zakus are literally stolen and repurposed zakus which is a cool thing I'm surprised didn't happen more than just in this thing. That is, unless it did and I haven't seen those series yet or forgot about them. They're also a kinda beige color in the actual anime which makes me wonder why they aren't that color for this kit. It's definitely a more off-white color than the gundam kit but it's more a grey offwhite than the proper beige. Both color schemes look cool so I'm not entirely complaining but this seems to just be how ALL the kits of this specific Zaku are.

 

[Baby Cakes]

Forgot to send the pics but I'll send better ones soon-ish? whenever I get around to it. Point is I ended up finding 2 more zakus and 3 gundams of those weird small kits, each in a different store. One of the gundams was the OG gundam but the box was ripped open and someone stole half the contents so I didn't get it. One was a model I wasn't super familiar with and I didn't get it because I was looking for the zaku specifically that day. Third one I found was a strange looking one that looked like the original gundam but slightly different and I grabbed it. Looked it's long ass name up and it's from the same thing as the white zaku, so I looked into it and it's not a movie but a miniseries thats a sequel to the original gundam and it came out 30 years ago. SHEESH!

Naturally, I found uploads of the whole series on youtube, surprisingly not struck down or filtered/warbled to hell. Completely unaltered footage. So I'm now watching more "normal" gundam shit after god only fucking knows how long. So far it's pretty good. Found out the white zakus are literally stolen and repurposed zakus which is a cool thing I'm surprised didn't happen more than just in this thing. That is, unless it did and I haven't seen those series yet or forgot about them. They're also a kinda beige color in the actual anime which makes me wonder why they aren't that color for this kit. It's definitely a more off-white color than the gundam kit but it's more a grey offwhite than the proper beige. Both color schemes look cool so I'm not entirely complaining but this seems to just be how ALL the kits of this specific Zaku are.

Sounds like you've started watching 0083. Check out Bandai's official Gundam channel Gundaminfo - they put a ton of stuff on there. There are some independent creators that have made some good content as well. Be careful, though - even learning about one mobile suit's development can spoil a prequel, sequel, and side novels that haven't been animated yet.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Sounds like you've started watching 0083.

Yeah, That's the one. Looking up some other shit I found out there's actually an accurately colored version of the repurposed zaku out there but it's a fucking 300 dollar figure instead of a model kit which honestly sucks. If I could afford, had the right ventilation/humidity environment for, and steady enough hand for an airbrush I'd fucking go to town repainting one of the million normal kits of the red zakus that have been warming the shelves over here the last 2 years that keep going on sale for %50 off.

 

[Baby Cakes]

Yeah, That's the one. Looking up some other shit I found out there's actually an accurately colored version of the repurposed zaku out there but it's a fucking 300 dollar figure instead of a model kit which honestly sucks. If I could afford, had the right ventilation/humidity environment for, and steady enough hand for an airbrush I'd fucking go to town repainting one of the million normal kits of the red zakus that have been warming the shelves over here the last 2 years that keep going on sale for %50 off.

If they're the 40th anniversary ones, I can understand why. They aren't models of Char's Zaku II - they're just Zaku II J's in red with a commander antenna. Great if you just wanted a red Zaku II J that will never go as fast as it's supposed to I bought one after seeing the prototype photos and wasn't disappointed at all by the build. I don't know if releasing it properly in green would help, but it would make sense to some people. Yes, Gunpla is getting very scarce and expensive on our end if you are looking for certain kits. Look up a 1/144 Hildolfr on Amazon.

Spoiler: Very disappointing.

Because MS IGLOO isn't mentioned often.

I'm curious about Gunpla stock and price in Japan. Also, I'm curious about what Bandai is doing. Hopefully something good?

 

[themotherflippin480]

Whoo gunpla!