What do you mean by that? I know lacquer generally goes on easier and in fewer coats, but are there actually different techniques you have to use with the different paints?
I have a big jug of hardware store lacquer thinner I've been using as a general paint cleaner (seriously, that shit will even eat months-old dried acrylic off a brush leaving it good as noew) and just bought a bottle of Mr. Color Thinner, which I've heard can be used with Tamiya acrylics despite being a lacquer thinner.
Also, something I haven't seen a 100% clear answer on - can you use Tamiya panel liner (the stuff that comes in a bottle) or Gundam markers directly on Tamiya paints? I know as a general rule you don't use "hotter" paints on top of "less hot" ones, but with Tamiya acrylics specifically, due to the fact that they're still solvent-based, I've seen differing opinions.
I have a big jug of hardware store lacquer thinner I've been using as a general paint cleaner (seriously, that shit will even eat months-old dried acrylic off a brush leaving it good as noew) and just bought a bottle of Mr. Color Thinner, which I've heard can be used with Tamiya acrylics despite being a lacquer thinner.
Also, something I haven't seen a 100% clear answer on - can you use Tamiya panel liner (the stuff that comes in a bottle) or Gundam markers directly on Tamiya paints? I know as a general rule you don't use "hotter" paints on top of "less hot" ones, but with Tamiya acrylics specifically, due to the fact that they're still solvent-based, I've seen differing opinions.
Tamiya acrylics can be thinned with lacquer thinner because they're solvent-based. It makes them stronger and dry faster, but still not to the same extent as 'proper' lacquer. I remember trying to use panel liner on top of tamiya acrylic and it dissolved almost instantly. Ate right through the paint like it wasn't even there. Same with markers. You can always test it though on a 'waste' part or a sprue.
As for technique, it's really hard to describe and depends a lot on what you want. If you want matte colors then you can spray lots of light, thin coats with lacquer much faster and easier than with acrylic. The airbrush will effectively dry the paint the moment it's laid down, and you can layer it up very quick. However this is exactly the opposite result you want if you intend a nice smooth, shiny layer of paint, because the individual paint particles are drying so fast they leave a somewhat rough surface that won't reflect light evenly. For that you need to spray a wet coat, which is a lot harder to pull off because you need to judge the very fine line between a part that's completely covered in a film of liquid paint and a part where all that liquid if just going to clump up in a corner and look horrid. I personally would recommend buying some polystyrene sheets or something similar and practicing on those at different PSI and thinner ratios, keeping a detailed notebook of the results.
I've noticed that a lot of people doing painting tutorials online have wildly different standards. It really depends what you want to accomplish. If you want really fine, realistically detailed, rugged finishes that reflect a gritty warzone, go look at military modelling channels. If you want a bright, shiny sci-fi aesthetic where everything looks like it just rolled into a Tesla commercial, look at racing car modelers. Frankly, a lot of English-speaking gunpla painters just aren't as good as the above two kinds because gunpla painting was pretty exclusive to Japan until the advent of the internet, whereas military and car painters have resident neckbeards who have lived and breathed their craft for decades.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNM5EknY1XBA9buLmJqYLdw - A guy who does very good tanks and other military miniatures. Extremely high-fidelity realistic finishes and in-depth tutorials. Also a genuinely fun guy to just listen to.
While waiting for my tools and sander to show up I started the first 3 episodes of ZZ and...it's OK I guess? Tone is very subdued compared to the end of Zeta and is very episode of the week in feel. Will probably finish it this weekend and jump over to Gundam Wing since I haven't watched it in years and forget almost everything. From there I'm not sure. Any series recommendations? I've seen MS Gundam 0079, 0080, Zeta, Char's Counterattack, Wing, and G.
Both Unicorn and Origin are worth watching. Origin is kind of an AU of the MSG tv series and backstory so some stuff is different (for example Origin has a completely different scenario for how Char met Lalah).
I'll also throw X and Turn A in for recs. Probably the best AUs with G. And V, because it's wild.
Just learned my parents are getting me an air compressor for my brithday this week, so the old airbrush that's been sitting still tied in its box since maybe the mid-80s will finally see use because I have a LOT of things I can do with it.
Starting with an old 00 era kit, the Throne Zwei, which really needs airbush power to fix the color problems.
Unicorn OVAs > anime from what I heard and, man, the OVAs are just so gorgeous they could be worth a watch. Also for Marida Cruz.
I'm not a fan at all but you might like it if you can get past two crucial elements of the story... the main antagonist is not who he says he is and it's supposedly very clear he isn't in the novel the anime's based on but for some reason (marketing?) the anime felt the need to tease and imply and write otherwise, and also the "Mankind alone has a God-- POTENTIAL!" theme is retarded. There's a reason Unicorn is so beloved in Japan and I think it's mainly because it's the ultimate culmination and conclusion to Universal Century (the OG Gundam series) many generations later. I know there's "Narrative" or whatever but I don't see anyone talking about that except for the Phenex Unicorn gunpla kits.
Narrative quite honestly doesn't know what it wants to be. Its kind of like a coda to Unicorn that's supposed to deal with Newtypes but at the same time it really isn't.
Also, Bandai really screwed people over with the model kits, particularly the B-Packs of Narrative Gundam. The pack itself either exists by itself as add-on armor through P-Bandai...for which you have to use the core Gundam from the A-Packs set and they're not really supposed to be used simultaneously, so you have a literal psuedo mobile-armor lying around for B-Packs, or you got lucky like me and were able to snag the actual complete B-Packs set during the Gunpla Expo last year, because the stupid thing is a Gundam Base exclusive and they put it up on the english P-Bandai site that weekend.
Also Gundam 00 is pretty great but it's been a while since I saw it.
Honestly, I would say IBO is actually pretty good right up until the last episode involving the mobile armor, where Barabtos is allowed to use 100% of its power and duels the Hashmal like it's DBZ but with swords and laser weapons instead of martial arts.
Do not watch anything PAST that episode because it just NOSEDIVES with the plot. Except maybe Iok's death in the penultimate episode, but you can just catch that by itself on Youtube.
Its like with MS08th team - the bulk of it is actually pretty good, just skip the last part after the giant mobile weapon is destroyed, because everything after is just shit.
Got my hands on a very rare, out of print 1/144 Real Grade style Kotobukiya mecha from 2008: Linebarrels of Iron's titular mecha (specifically "Mode B" the black form). It's incredibly sharp, looks full on Ow the Edge, only has two swords and a pair of holding hands (alternate of open hands) for accessories, and a whole slew of nub marks.
Clearly developed as a quick cash-in on an anime few realized would be almost immediately forgotten, whether for its frustratingly fickle tonal shifts or the crap CGI, it's the "Limited Edition" kit of the series 1/144 Linebarrels Kotobukiya line. Remember, this is Kotobukiya, not Bandai, so there's somewhat limited range of motion, no cockpit you can open, no pilot figure--nothing.
That being said, the articulation isn't too bad compared to what it's capable of in the show.
Apart from some stupid design decisions on the kit modelers' part there's other aspects that are really cool. I like that the tubes on its neck are actually soft rubber which fit into the neck and stick nicely into the chest when building. Turning the neck makes the tubes slide a bit but never pop out or shift out of place, giving it an almost semi-organic feel, which fits.
(See what I mean about the CGI? It's the epitome of JANK)
Kotobukiya has many flaws but details are not one of them. It's perfectly show-accurate (arguably the most show accurate of any Linebarrels merch). However, because it's Kotobukya the spiky bits are extra spiky and everything needs to hard force to snap together.
The kit designers sat around a table with design documents and terse expressions, all glowering at a single picture of someone on the table--YOU--and asked themselves, "How to we screw this guy in particular?"
You're gonna hurt your hands no matter what you do. Wear gloves? Peirced through. Use a cloth? Plastic is so hard and the angles are so sharp it doesn't matter. Nothing you use to shield your fingers from the malice of this kit will suffice. This isn't a normal kit. This is a kit designed to torture a man, and its smaller scale only makes it worse when trying to fit literal spikes into a tiny hole and there's nothing to grip but the spikes on the spikes to fit them into other spikes. Even the rounded portions or flat sides have edges sharp enough to deep-crease or even cut your finger.
It's like a Real Grade of nightmares. specifically designed to hurt you, born from hearts as black as its plastic (and just as nubbed).
Also the head has a swivel at the base of the neck and a hinge for its head. No ball joints. It's just straight retarded.
I do like that it comes with a stand that's posable. Also the tail has a seamless part underneath that you can pop off and fit in the simple but effective peg for it. There's even a smaller base you can fit the stand into but it doesn't look as good. After a bit of superglue to secure the polycaps forming the inner shoulder ball joints and hip hinge and it's fine. In fact, this is easily the most secure and solid Kotobukiya build I ever had. No jiggle or looseness at all. Nothing feels like it's gonna break, either. Speaking of seemlines, I barely notice any compared to most of their kits, though maybe that's because mostly black and gray and I can't see them as easy.
Or maybe all the nub marks keep distracting me.
A clever design choice was to have the knee joint molded in such a way that when the leg is straight you can't tell its knee is bent, and as you bend the leg it follows the knee mold, giving yet another semi-organic illusion that the leg itself is bending. I might've explained it oddly but you can see what I mean above.
As for what we could generously call our "feet"...
This is yet another example of the idiot-savant conflict in the engineering that's all over this kit, with the feet being designed by an idiot-idiot.
There's a sort of kick-stand gimmick to the legs since the mecha really has no feet, but it's not what you'd expect. You need to use a pick or something narrow and sharp to pluck out the back of the "foot" and then reattach the piece at a different slant. It's only the illusion of simple design but really a nuisance. Why they didn't just do a simple hinge for the thing is beyond me.
Another stupid design decision was that the sheaths for the swords--its only weapons, mind you--aren't sheaths. They have the barest indent where you think you could slide the sword in. Instead you have a separate pair of sword hilts without blades that you plug into them. Again, the illusion of simple design. The swords themselves are fully molded as shown and technically are slightly longer than the sheathes they come from. No idea why they didn't just hollow out the sheaths and extend them a couple milometers but whatever. I've seen worse, like Evangelion figures with separate portions of the pilot plug to give the illusion you could slide it in normally (like you can with every other kit ever designed by someone not screeching retarded).
Overall I like it but that's mainly because Linebarrels is a heavily underappreciated super robot with a great overall design and the Mode B color scheme just roars with 90's and early 00's edginess.
I got mine for $65 (not bad considering it's out of print from '08 and originally sold for $32 in Japan) but good luck finding any Linebarrels anything for less than $100 naturally, and don't even get me started on the 1/100 scale figure which, though tempting despite being just a figure with a ton of posability and accessories, has a price that can murder a man. Also that's the only one I found available on ebay.
I haven't finished the anime because it's burdensome to endure but I can tell you that nothing is worth that price from this series. Nothing from any series is worth that price!
Over quarter of a grand for anything less than that recent RX-78 Perfect Grade Unleashed or the MGEX Unicorn is insanity to me.
No, Re:Rise is actually the good one. And yeah, it's got animal people on Eldora, but it also has actual stakes.
The problem with the first Build Divers was fuck all ever happened because the main character couldn't ever lose (except for the one time the show suddenly remembers he shouldn't be curb stomping a literal veteran of the game who has practiced martial arts longer than the kid has been alive). The single best episode is the one episode he's not actually in because two side characters actually go through character growth.
My tool kit got delayed in the mail by a week and finally showed up. It's Zaku building time! I also snagged a HG RX-78-2 Gundam the Origin kit on the cheap.
Got through a bit more ZZ as well. I think a lot of the backlash to it was overblown.
@Forever Sunrise how long does a 10ml jar of paint last? Like, how full should by airbrush jar be if I'm expecting to paint about a kit's worth of parts? I'll be picking up some Mr Color lacquers from USA Gundam Store, if 10ml is only going to last 2-3 kits I'll definitely double up on common colors to save on shipping.
yeah, that was pretty much my experience with the Kotobukiya Eva kit. Really made me appreciate Bandai's engineering a lot more, that's for sure.
In other news, I'm a fucking retard and somehow lost the hip piece for the kit I was planning on painting, so instead I spent the last weekend reverse-engineering and 3D printing a replacement. Fortunately, runners seem to be the same diameter as the pegs, so I just trimmed a length of it for the pegs. The kit you see in the background is a First Grade Zaku. Don't buy a First Grade Zaku. I wasn't paying attention and mistaked it for the more recent $5 kits that actually have decent articulation and color separation - this thing on the other hand is a hunk of red plastic with only the bare minimum of articulation.
No, Re:Rise is actually the good one. And yeah, it's got animal people on Eldora, but it also has actual stakes.
The problem with the first Build Divers was fuck all ever happened because the main character couldn't ever lose (except for the one time the show suddenly remembers he shouldn't be curb stomping a literal veteran of the game who has practiced martial arts longer than the kid has been alive). The single best episode is the one episode he's not actually in because two side characters actually go through character growth.
Got my hands on a very rare, out of print 1/144 Real Grade style Kotobukiya mecha from 2008: Linebarrels of Iron's titular mecha (specifically "Mode B" the black form). It's incredibly...
@Forever Sunrise how long does a 10ml jar of paint last? Like, how full should by airbrush jar be if I'm expecting to paint about a kit's worth of parts? I'll be picking up some Mr Color lacquers from USA Gundam Store, if 10ml is only going to last 2-3 kits I'll definitely double up on common colors to save on shipping.
I painted the entire exterior of the 1/100 Grimgerde (one of my absolute favorite kits, by the way) and used up about half to two thirds of one 10ml jar.
I also recommend not painting in huge quantities all at once. I prefer loading up an airbrush with enough to do... twenty-thirty parts in a batch. The reason being that if you've messed up on the thinning ratio (I usually go 2/1 thinner/paint for Mr Color) or your PSI is too low/high or Jupiter is in Equinox or any other external factor, you don't face the prospect of losing a significant amount of paint all at once. I especially recommend this for anything metallic, as metallic colors benefit the most from a good technique and precise thinning ratio that can take quite a bit of experimentation to get perfect.
yeah, that was pretty much my experience with the Kotobukiya Eva kit. Really made me appreciate Bandai's engineering a lot more, that's for sure.
In other news, I'm a fucking retard and somehow lost the hip piece for the kit I was planning on painting, so instead I spent the last weekend reverse-engineering and 3D printing a replacement. Fortunately, runners seem to be the same diameter as the pegs, so I just trimmed a length of it for the pegs.
That's a lot of cleverness for someone claiming to be a retard. lol
Great idea, though. Makes me want to see the finished result all the more after this. Also thanks for the warning since I nearly bought that same Zaku kit for the same mistake.
I forgot about how bad the first rebuild looked. Great point. Linebarrels itself is essentially the case study for why mecha and CGI have no business being together, too. Especially with its weird speedy jank that looks like a puppet on crack.
(also, you do good reviews of kits, do you do a blog or something?)
Right now im working on finishing a bandai EVA-01 kit that i've had since i started, but shelved halfway completed because it was too hard for me at the time. going back over it with the tools i have now, im trying to fix all the fucked up nubs i left on it and stuff. anyone else build this one?
I forgot about how bad the first rebuild looked. Great point. Linebarrels itself is essentially the case study for why mecha and CGI have no business being together, too. Especially with its weird speedy jank that looks like a puppet on crack.
imo, the rebuilds are still a fun watch, the new one looks pretty decent, but im mostly in it for the mech action, though this new timeline is fucking nuts as well. im also reading ANIMA right now, and thats even crazier than the rebuilds. some of the evangelions are pretty fucking cool. hope we get kits for them sometime.
ahh, i see. well you're real good at it! id post reviews but honestly i dont know much of what im doing here, and im also sketched out on posting pics from my phone to this site lol
I finally finished the initial assembly/painting on my RG NU (until my HWS set arrives, I got it for retail!). Now I just have to apply decals and topcoat.
Question for everyone ITT: how the fuck do I into waterslide decals? I have some tamiya markfit, what's the best way to not absolutely fuck up?
sacrifices to the gunpla god, and luck.
to be serious though, i think the way ive seen people use it, is you kind of like, use a toothpick to hold it to the model, and then brush the markfit on
Well, it's done after fumbling around for 5 or so hours.
The little pipes on the waist gave me a hell of a time and the directions were hard to interpret at points but other than that, a pretty relaxing time. The noob questions I have are as follows:
I assume sanding the little sprue points smooths them out to get them flush with the rest of the piece, right? The nippers did a good job getting it pretty flush.
I had left the stickers a bit undone as of now since I suck getting the tiny ones on, and goofed with the chest one since I wasn't paying attention. I'm guessing you put them on before you do the full build? The tweezers help with this alot I found.
The black lines on the reference model are done with pen of some kind?
Well, it's done after fumbling around for 5 or so hours.
View attachment 1866047
The little pipes on the waist gave me a hell of a time and the directions were hard to interpret at points but other than that, a pretty relaxing time. The noob questions I have are as follows:
I assume sanding the little sprue points smooths them out to get them flush with the rest of the piece, right? The nippers did a good job getting it pretty flush.
I had left the stickers a bit undone as of now since I suck getting the tiny ones on, and goofed with the chest one since I wasn't paying attention. I'm guessing you put them on before you do the full build? The tweezers help with this alot I found.
The black lines on the reference model are done with pen of some kind?
Sanding requires a few steps. I use a glass file to remove the bulk of the material (if necessary), 1000 grit to smooth it out, and 2000 grit to prep for polishing, and a rag to return the shine to the plastic. Panel lines are usually done with a marker or a wash, marker's he easier and more accessible option.
well, i finished the eva kit. pretty good. hard as fuck to pose without a stand, gonna have to buy one.
but, one of my kits got near a heater, my cat knocked it around without me noticing. and now its all floppy, wont hold any pose. anyone know how to fix this? its one of the few i've handpainted and i was actually really happy with it, i'd hate to see it just become one that has to stay in a sitting position constantly.
