Tips on Gunplas needed...
Tue 2011/01/25 22:08 JST
So I bought my very first HG model kit and I was very worried whether I was going to do stuff that is going to ruin the model kit.So, I bought a HG Astraea 1/144 and started to do the head first and did some paneling with a grey marker cause the pane line marker seem had to sold out of the shop where I'm gonna start to but my model kits. If you mind, PLEASE give me some tips/pointers/advice of what I should do and do not and please rate on the paneling and other stuff what I had done with the head. So,thank you for sparing your time to read this.
Parts like here need to be right against the line; you can see there's some white left over that's not painted. running a few more coats would help make the color more solid and less patchy.
Nub marks; try not to cut right against the part, as it may pinch the plastic and you end up with a small crater. Try cutting a millimeter or two away, and slice the excess off with a knife or sand it down.
Not sure what you were doing here, but run another coat over it or two to help solidify the color. You can also use paint remover or a toothpick (my favorite) to remove the excess paint.
If you use the kind of marker where you just rub off the excess panel line with a cloth (or your fingers...), then I'd suggest doing that before actually cutting the nub marks off (after you cut the part off the runner, but before you sand the excess off); this almost eliminates the possibility of you getting the marker in the nub mark area, meaning you don't get those strange grey-ish rectangles all over your model (even if you decide not to use topcoat).
http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/213/Gundam+Modeling+Tutorial.html
http://otakudan.com/2008/02/how-to-build-gundam-model-kits.html
Panel lines are smudged, some cleanup wouldn't hurt.. Also there are nub marks, you can try using sandpaper on those.
ummm, what do you mean by gray marker? Regardless, as people have pointed out, the panel line is too thick for my opinion. Some parts also should be paint than marker too... Anyway, if you are doing panel lining take either a qutip + acrylic thinner, or a eraser. One of them should work in getting rid of the marker (if you had the Gundam Marker brand, you should be able to do it with a qutip just fine, as well as smudging can be done with them too..)
Another thing you may want to invest in are Knippers, Sandpaper and Hobby knife, so you can get rid of those nubs better, as well as sharpen some of those points, so they look sleeker. Happy modeling~
Your lining is pretty messy, you can always just get a pencil eraser and rub off the excess. If you want to be a good modeler, the first thing you must master is getting rid seam lines by cementing and sanding. I wouldn't follow Danny's guide too much because a lot of it is total bull crap.
i like this guy already. there are other guides besides dannys which can be followed and are more indepth and easy to pick up
but being his 1st time gunpla id say take it easy on the novice. besides i like to see newcomers to enjoy and appreciate gunpla.
As most people here mentioned, panel lining would be the first thing you need to master.
The standard Gundam Marker + Staedtler eraser would do wonders for your kit. If you let
the excess to dry however, the eraser might not do any good, sanding the part would
lead to thinner panel lines not to mention get rid of nub marks as well. Nub marks are
a big no-no for any kit. The next thing you have to decide on is whether or not you
want to paint your kit or not. Painting brings out the best on any kit IMHO, but no-paint
finishes could look good too (applying a matte topcoat seals the panel lines and
decals in). Speaking of decals, go for dry transfers and water slides, stay away from
the clear stickers that Bandai includes along with the kit.