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

[CHARizard]

Well my builds for the month are done. All thats left in my backlog are the HG Aegis, RG Unicorn FA (never finishing this kit) and the MG Zeta 2.0.

RG Nu Gundam FF. Awesome kit, love the color scheme. Easy to apply stickers, lots of poseability. I went for just letting it stand with its funnel out. I paid Scalper price ($80) so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like Gundam Base only kits.

RG Sazabi. Another awesome kit, really fun and easy to put together like the Nu (about 5 hours). I bought a chinese funnel effects kit and it works pretty well. I still need to top coat it once the weather gets nicer.


From left to right

HG Gelgoog. Really dated, put together in about an hour. I bought some third party Zeon decals to put on it since it comes with none. I only really bought it because I want all the 1/144 Char suits.

RG Z'Gok, not much to say about this one. The legs suck and its an older RG so it just sucks to build in general. I decalled and coated it and will just stick it with my other 1/144 Char suits.

HG Gouf Custom. Older kit, but I love the result. It just looks so good straight built.

HG BUGU. Really nice kit, but all the Origin kits are nice. Comes with some nice stickers.

HG Dom Prototype. Another Origin kit, straight forward easy build. Huge gun that the kit has some trouble holding, but I think top coating will help that shoulder joint.

HG Zaku Half Cannon. Final Origin kit. I build all these Origins in a day and they felt very samey at the end. Still a good easy build. It can hold the backpack cannons like it does in the anime no problem. I actually ended up liking the color scheme, I thought it was gonna be a dirty yellow but it works well after panel lining.

No loser builds this go around really besides the ZGok which just refuses to stand up straight. I think I have built enough from Origin to safely say that any of those kits are a good buy. Hoping to get my hands on that Unicorn Crystallization kit this year, and maybe a FA Gundam Ver Ka ( the price just dropped under 100 on those on Ebay so maybe they got reprinted). If I enjoy Witch From Mercury I will probably pick up a few of those kits, I dont want to buy the Lfrith and find out I dislike the show later.

 

[Kanto20]

happy that there's a gunpla thread on this site. i'm doing a pretty simple kitbash at the moment, just gonna make this into a Zaku II A-Type in use by The Sleeves. i was lacking a second smooth pauldron so my Bugu had to donate one. will be painting it of course.

 

[Kanto20]

Well my builds for the month are done. All thats left in my backlog are the HG Aegis, RG Unicorn FA (never finishing this kit) and the MG Zeta 2.0.
View attachment 3610614
RG Nu Gundam FF. Awesome kit, love the color scheme. Easy to apply stickers, lots of poseability. I went for just letting it stand with its funnel out. I paid Scalper price ($80) so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really like Gundam Base only kits.

RG Sazabi. Another awesome kit, really fun and easy to put together like the Nu (about 5 hours). I bought a chinese funnel effects kit and it works pretty well. I still need to top coat it once the weather gets nicer.

View attachment 3610616
From left to right

HG Gelgoog. Really dated, put together in about an hour. I bought some third party Zeon decals to put on it since it comes with none. I only really bought it because I want all the 1/144 Char suits.

RG Z'Gok, not much to say about this one. The legs suck and its an older RG so it just sucks to build in general. I decalled and coated it and will just stick it with my other 1/144 Char suits.

HG Gouf Custom. Older kit, but I love the result. It just looks so good straight built.

HG BUGU. Really nice kit, but all the Origin kits are nice. Comes with some nice stickers.

HG Dom Prototype. Another Origin kit, straight forward easy build. Huge gun that the kit has some trouble holding, but I think top coating will help that shoulder joint.

HG Zaku Half Cannon. Final Origin kit. I build all these Origins in a day and they felt very samey at the end. Still a good easy build. It can hold the backpack cannons like it does in the anime no problem. I actually ended up liking the color scheme, I thought it was gonna be a dirty yellow but it works well after panel lining.

No loser builds this go around really besides the ZGok which just refuses to stand up straight. I think I have built enough from Origin to safely say that any of those kits are a good buy. Hoping to get my hands on that Unicorn Crystallization kit this year, and maybe a FA Gundam Ver Ka ( the price just dropped under 100 on those on Ebay so maybe they got reprinted). If I enjoy Witch From Mercury I will probably pick up a few of those kits, I dont want to buy the Lfrith and find out I dislike the show later.

if you're talking about the FA Thunderbolt i've seen it at my local Hobby Town so hopefully you were able to get one!

 

[Uziel Gal]

Got a new Maschinen Krieger model done during the downtime and somehow managed to access my recovery email. Welcome back if you made it.

Panzer Kampf Anzug Ausf N 1 Nixe

Spoiler: More pics

 

[The Lawgiver]

I need to put it together still despite getting it months ago and I'm too lazy to check if I mentioned this but I managed to get one of those 30 minutes missions kits that seem to either be on eternal pre-order or scalped to shit online. Also gonna try waterslides for the first time in my life despite knowing how they work whenever I get around to it. I don't got anything fancy like an airbrush and for the last few years weather has been absolutely dogshit for spraypainting fucking anything in my area which turns the spray into a greasy puffball cloud that hangs in the fucking air instead of going onto the god damn plastic. I'm definitely gonna have to try to handpaint on the details I might want to add, though I'm worried about how smooth it's gonna go on.
Also, about a week or so back I managed to get 2 more kits of a different variant of the same style of mech. If these eventually end up becoming easy to find without an absurd upmark from the cheap MSRP, especially the other variants that are a lot more bulky or lanky, I'm definitely gonna get a lot more and make some absolute abominations. Till then I refuse to pay 30-70 dollars for a 10-16 dollar model kit.

I still have yet to find the old ass professionally painted red Zaku I bought used when I was a kid. It might not even have been a zaku, but my point is the previous owner painted it much better than anything I could have ever done. It wasn't on the basement shelf I remembered it being on all these years when I went to get it so I'm just occasionally haunted by the question of"where the fuck did it go?"

Anyways, sometime i gotta dedicate a day or so to snapping together some snap together kits I have so I can send pics here.

 

[Fungible penis]

RG grandpa worked on last week. Waterslides taking ages to arrive from China, will start something else in the meantime.

Spoiler: Pics

 

[Gar For Archer]

Sick paint job! Not usually a fan of weathering, I prefer the shiny new-car look myself, but you did it in a really nice and understated way.

 

[Fungible penis]

Sick paint job! Not usually a fan of weathering, I prefer the shiny new-car look myself, but you did it in a really nice and understated way.

This was a black primer on everything, then building up the panel shading as best I could with my crappy free airbrush

 

[A Snek]

decided to take this up as a hobby when kf was down and being all doomerpilled at the internet just being so bland now, honestly for how much i loved bionicles as a kid this really hits the spot. got an airbrush coming to really make them pop.

zone of the enders kits need a reprint though the prices are just getting stupid. of course the main kits i really like are like, $60-200 range

i'd love some recommendations for some more unique kits though! at the moment my current list of "get sometime down the line" is weird tails, entire zone of the enders line, and knights & magic ikaruga moderoid. i definitely want to get more challenging than HG real soon.

 

[Bitcoin Henchman]

i'd love some recommendations for some more unique kits though! at the moment my current list of "get sometime down the line" is weird tails, entire zone of the enders line, and knights & magic ikaruga moderoid. i definitely want to get more challenging than HG real soon.

A fun higher grade model is MG Gundam Wing Ver. Ka. I like the way the did the wings on the kit, and a more unique one is the Figure Dictus kit, literally it can be a hand and I think it's weird and interesting

My wife thought the sailor moon inspired gundam fighter g kit was funny and so I have bought it to build for her, I haven't started yet because I'm finishing a kit right now but she's excited to have it for her desk lol

 

[Kanto20]

decided to take this up as a hobby when kf was down and being all doomerpilled at the internet just being so bland now, honestly for how much i loved bionicles as a kid this really hits the spot. got an airbrush coming to really make them pop.

zone of the enders kits need a reprint though the prices are just getting stupid. of course the main kits i really like are like, $60-200 range

i'd love some recommendations for some more unique kits though! at the moment my current list of "get sometime down the line" is weird tails, entire zone of the enders line, and knights & magic ikaruga moderoid. i definitely want to get more challenging than HG real soon.

welcome to the hobby, fren! word of advice, eBay and Amazon are your enemy when it comes to shopping for kits, these are the sites i usually use for buying gunpla: https://newtype.us/ https://www.usagundamstore.com/ . what kits have you built so far?

 

[TchPiKinmup]

What are the best 1/100 aquatic mobile suit kits?

 

[A Snek]

welcome to the hobby, fren! word of advice, eBay and Amazon are your enemy when it comes to shopping for kits, these are the sites i usually use for buying gunpla: https://newtype.us/ https://www.usagundamstore.com/ . what kits have you built so far?

I'm working on a little green HG unicorn guy with plans to airbrush him black and green, have some weathering and cracking on the edges like the coldness of space really fucked him up, this kit: unicorn man, and i have this other simple dude coming in the mail i think i want to paint kinda like a peacock or something on those back wings this dude, i know it probably sounds a little unappealing to people who really enjoy gundam but i am more in it for the building and customization.

speaking of ebay, i found this kit, labeled as ZotE jehuty, but i think it's some sort of bootleg? it was on clearance and totally one of those "Red flag" kinda purchases, but it intrigued me so much i could not pass it up. any idea of what it could be? just a bootleg jehuty or something? either way i'm honestly excited to paint this weird fuckin thing. I searched the RT1823 and it does come up on kotobukiya's website, but its in moon runes and has a 0 yen symbol next to it, so.. i'm out of ideas, maybe a weeb with good mecha knowledge can help me here

A fun higher grade model is MG Gundam Wing Ver. Ka.

I think out of all of them you suggested I liked this one the most! I'm more for the sharp angle models than the rounder ones so dictus was definitely cool but not something i would build, i might pick up Ka for my first MG though!

 

[Gar For Archer]

decided to take this up as a hobby when kf was down and being all doomerpilled at the internet just being so bland now, honestly for how much i loved bionicles as a kid this really hits the spot. got an airbrush coming to really make them pop.

zone of the enders kits need a reprint though the prices are just getting stupid. of course the main kits i really like are like, $60-200 range

i'd love some recommendations for some more unique kits though! at the moment my current list of "get sometime down the line" is weird tails, entire zone of the enders line, and knights & magic ikaruga moderoid. i definitely want to get more challenging than HG real soon.

Recently saw this kit and thought it looked pretty interesting, definitely a stretch from the usual Gundam aesthetic. Personally I don’t really buy HG kits anymore though, so check out some reviews to make sure the kit itself isn’t shit.

Really the hard thing about recommending Gunpla is the stupid short print runs, there’s a lot of stuff I WOULD recommend if it weren’t out of print and only aquirable second-hand for 200% the list price. If the MG Barbatos ever reruns you should absolutely get it, it’s my personal favorite of my small collection. Fun to build with few if any visible nub marks, holds together solidly, and is INSANELY posable.

 

[Fungible penis]

I'm working on a little green HG unicorn guy with plans to airbrush him black and green, have some weathering and cracking on the edges like the coldness of space really fucked him up, this kit: unicorn man, and i have this other simple dude coming in the mail i think i want to paint kinda like a peacock or something on those back wings this dude, i know it probably sounds a little unappealing to people who really enjoy gundam but i am more in it for the building and customization.

speaking of ebay, i found this kit, labeled as ZotE jehuty, but i think it's some sort of bootleg? it was on clearance and totally one of those "Red flag" kinda purchases, but it intrigued me so much i could not pass it up. any idea of what it could be? just a bootleg jehuty or something? either way i'm honestly excited to paint this weird fuckin thing. I searched the RT1823 and it does come up on kotobukiya's website, but its in moon runes and has a 0 yen symbol next to it, so.. i'm out of ideas, maybe a weeb with good mecha knowledge can help me here

View attachment 3771768View attachment 3771760View attachment 3771764



I think out of all of them you suggested I liked this one the most! I'm more for the sharp angle models than the rounder ones so dictus was definitely cool but not something i would build, i might pick up Ka for my first MG though!

You've bought a resin conversion kit that is used with the original model to add detail/otherwise alter it.

It's for experienced modelers and not usable by itself, unfortunately.

 

[A Snek]

You've bought a resin conversion kit that is used with the original model to add detail/otherwise alter it.

It's for experienced modelers and not usable by itself, unfortunately.

well fuck, i plan on getting jehuty at some point anyway, but this is extremely helpful and i'll be returning it. thanks so much for the info!

 

[Fungible penis]

well fuck, i plan on getting jehuty at some point anyway, but this is extremely helpful and i'll be returning it. thanks so much for the info!

You're welcome, hope you enjoy the hobby and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

 

[Uziel Gal]

well fuck, i plan on getting jehuty at some point anyway, but this is extremely helpful and i'll be returning it. thanks so much for the info!

Or just hang on to the resin kit for when you eventually reach a point where you want to move up to that level. I know plenty of people, myself included, have at least one resin kit in the backlog that we're holding off on because we keep saying "one more model to finish before I have the skill to tackle that and not ruin it."

 

[A Snek]

Or just hang on to the resin kit for when you eventually reach a point where you want to move up to that level. I know plenty of people, myself included, have at least one resin kit in the backlog that we're holding off on because we keep saying "one more model to finish before I have the skill to tackle that and not ruin it."

i paid more for the shipping than for the model itself, and i do really like the look of it, so its not like it was a very pricey mistake. granted with how much i like the ZotE models i just might honestly, downside is if i *really* fuck up thats like a $100 model down the drain

sucks because every time i see something i like its a resin kit like these:




but hey, that's just more motivation to get good i suppose!

also thanks for being so helpful and cordial about this stuff, really means a lot as someone new to all this!

 

[Baby Cakes]

What are the best 1/100 aquatic mobile suit kits?

The Acguy for sure. It comes with a stand and missile effect parts.