[Beginner] Colors of Gundam Mechas, Some Advice Please!
Alex Sack
My question simply, what brand of paints do you use that can match up
the colors properly? Also what type of paints? Should I use primer?
Any help on the whole painting process would be really really
appreciated! I haven't been painting my kits, just assembling them!
(I know its a crime). I am thinking of painting them but frankly
really don't know whats involved other then paint and a brush! :-)!
Some advice,
Alex
dro...@upei.ca
>From: is...@idt.net (Alex Sack)
>Subject: [Beginner] Colors of Gundam Mechas, Some Advice Please!
>Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 23:15:55 GMT
>Okay, I am really new at this (sorry!).
So was everyone at some point. It's OK.
>My question simply, what brand of paints do you use that can match up
>the colors properly? Also what type of paints? Should I use primer?
Citadel Color paints (the ones for Warhammer 40K) are water-based paints, come
in a huge variety of colors, and many of their colors match up perfectly to
the plastics used on lots of Bandai's kits. I am guilty of lots of "limited
painting". I'll usually just paint only the details and parts of the kits
that aren't in the proper colors. I really hate to screw up a neat System
Injection job, or paint over parts of a kit that are in a color I like and
don't have the paint equivalent of. That's why I really like the Citadel
paints. The color "Enchanted Blue", is identical to the blue plastic used on
the V and V2 Gundam kits used by Bandai. "Golden Yellow" and "Blood Red" are
really close to the colors used in most burner nozzles.
Of course, some older kits look really bad unpainted, or they're molded in
colors that are too icky. For example, I actually painted all of my 1/144
R-JaJa. (I'm not typing "R-JarJar" for a reason.) Citadel Color paints turned
out to work perfectly (to me, at least). "Blood Red" for the base color,
"Crimson Gore" for the alternate color, "Golden Yellow" for thrusters, and
"Scorpion Green" for a bright but not pale green for the mono eye.
Although I hated to spoil the fact that it was a 1/144 kit done in 4 colors of
plastic sold for only 500 yen, I did fully paint my Capule.
OK, I admit that I am not an expert painter (I've never done weathering or
successfully used washes), but I do know the basics.
The first and most important thing to remember when painting is patientence
(which I think I just misspelled). Take it slowly. A rush job has a very
good chance of looking worse than an unpainted kit. Trust me on this one!
The second is to let it dry! Citadel paints in thin coats dry really quickly,
which is really great if you just want a base coat before doing the main work,
but if paints are applied to areas where there are other paints (this is
especially true for enamel paints) that haven't dried yet... it can get very
icky. And hard to clean up.
The third is to WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY. Painting is messy
business, and paint on your hands can be smeared onto other parts of your
model by accident. This can happen really easily if you are doing several
areas of a part in a single color (on multiple sides), and when you turn to
part over to paint the other side so that you don't waste the paint left on
your brush, you may accidentialy touch the still wet paint with your fingers
and when you set the part down, you notice that you've smeared paint all over
your part. It's easy to fix with waterbased acrylic type paints (like
Citadel) if you catch it right away, but it is much harder to fix with enamel
paints. However if the only way your kits get displayed is via photos on the
web, using a poorer quality camera can save you. (you can't see the horrible
smears on my kits... I think).
Finally, yes use primer. Primer is your friend. Unless it runs out when
you've only managed to prime one side of the 1/1200 White Base's sprues.
D'ye know how much white paint it takes to cover puke green?
I hope I managed to help even a little bit!
Chill the Devil Dragon
"Yuji Kaida kicks ass. He also did the cover painting for the RTG role
playing game Mekton Zeta, which has been for sale in North America for quite a
while now."
Alex Sack
I am still deciding whether I am going to paint all of the parts or
just some. I have the PG's (unbuilt) and I am still wondering if any
painting is neccessary.
Alex