The base color may not necessarily be black. You can use a totally different color. In my case, the base color for the white armor is dark brown.. the reason I use the color is to give a dirt like outline of the edges.

Another thing I learn from doing this is that the parts looks so much better with this technique as oppose to without using the highlighting technique. Not to mention it is much more challenging and interesting. The hard work really pays off…

This are some of the first take on the currently on going IWSP Gundam. These pictures are taken using my Sony Ericson K-801 camera phone. Sometime the pictures turn out decent enough… but for these initial shots, it lacks the clarity.

The initial coat (base coat) are flat black used on all of the IWSP pack. The wing are one of the more difficult place to apply this technique due to its large flat surface. Getting the even tone across of the areas take a lot of getting used to. There are a lot factor you need to consider such as the air pressure, and getting the right amount of paint with the right amount of air to it.

Since I am using a dual acting airbrush, this is not a huge problem.If you don’t have a dual action airbrush, my suggestion is get one! Doing the Max Technique takes a lot of time and patience.

The IWSP cannon looks pretty decent when using this technique. It gives the impression of high intense heat on gun’s metal surface making the paint a bit faded. I’ll post more pictures when more progress are made. The inner frame of IWSP gundam has been painted and shaded and it looks cool. More pictures will be uploaded soon.

[Some of the stuff i got from my trip to Kuala Lumpur]

Notice at the background of the picture, my IWSP Gundam was all ready for the first coating of dark grey base color. Since this will be my first time applying the max technique.. we’ll see how the IWSP Gundam will turn out. Anyhow..

I’ve set foot once again in City Square. The last time I was there, I was still in high school, which is almost 20 years ago. The place doesn’t look quite alive like the newer shopping centers but that don’t matter as the hobby shop is the one I’m after.

The Gunze Sangyo acrylic paints and Mr Surfacer was bought in City Square but the Future Floor Acrylics was bought from Ace Hardware in Ikano Power Center. The Bandai Modelling Tools kinda neat and don’t cost too much. I got that from Toy’s R Us in City Square Basement. That shop was there for ages.

The Future Floor Acrylics retails at RM 56.50, almost bought two but decided to see how long that one bottle will last. If you are wondering what on earth does a modeller do with a floor cleaner, you can google it. Basically I use it for the final coating of the model. You can make your model shine or you can add Tamiya X-21 ( Flat base acrylic) to it and get a satin finish to. The MK-II gundam’s final coating was not done using Future, but a mixture of Tamiya clear gloss (X-22) and Tamiya Flat Base (X-21). I use the ratio of 1 part flat base and 10 part clear gloss.. add thinner to it at a ratio 1 to 1 and voila, you’ll get a nice satin finish to it.

Apart from making a final coating for your model, Future can also be use to make clear plastic parts shine. Just dump it in a Future liquid, making sure all the parts are submerged and leave it overnight. Come tomorrow morning your clear part will be clear and shiny.

Perfect Grade gundam kit can cost a fortune but for me its really worth its price. In previous post I’ve suggested you have a look at www.dalong.net if you want to see any Gundam Kit (unpainted) with a detailed review. Since the pages are all written in Korean, it’ll be great to see how the google translation deals with it. Wait… I’ll check it out

Well the translation certainly isn’t great but at least you get some idea of what the webmaster trying to say… which is better than nothing.

Back to the topic at hand. A perfect grade gundam kit stands at 3Ocm and the details are just amazing. All the joints are can be articulated and you can certainly pose the model in way imaginable. The only limitation being that some of the armor may hinder the movement of the internal skeleton.

Did I mention that each of the fingers can be articulated and movable? The external armors are removable and some of the hatches are able to opened and closed.

All of the models in Dalong.net are unpainted. It just doesn’t do justice for a model of that amount of detail to be left unpainted.. to me; it’s just not right. Another thing is that some of the more experience modeller (me; not one of them) use scribe pen to put more panel lining onto the visible armor plates. A scribe pen is a pen with needle like tip to etch the surface. You can buy it or you can make it yourself.

I’ve seen a blog that actually shows you how to make one of these scribe pens with old mechanical pencil and a needle.

Finally got around attaching a Youtube video review of RX-78 Perfect Grade Kit. Run a search for Gundam PG in youtube and you’ll get several video reviews of a Perfect Grade Gundam Kit.

When I was doing the MK-II Gundam this is the one thing that really troubled me… how the hell do I paint the eyes on the gundam. I’ve googled it and go through forum and search specifically on how to paint the the eyes. Alas, I never did find out the techniques…. until just now.

I was randomly searching MK-II trying to find out the full model name of the kit and stumbled upon the site. These are his steps taken to paint a Gundam eyes:

1. Paint the clear plastic with a coat of black.

2. Air brush a layer of white on the eyes.

3. Use tamiya clear green (or clear yellow or clear blue) on the white base you paint in step 2.

What you’ll get is eyes with kinda glowing effect on it. I’ve yet to test the method. I’ll give it a shot for my upcoming IWSP MG gundam. I”ll post the result when I come to it.

For the MK-II however, I did not paint the eyes. I just stick the sticker (god forbid) supplied with the kit and spray painted a few coats of clear to make sure that it doesn’t peel off. I was a bit surprised at how good it looked.

This is where I Found the post. Gamerabaenre. The site also provide tutorial and tips on how to airbrush your precious Gundam Kit.

After spending a few hours yesterday in setting up my camera and tripod, I’ve managed to get some shots of the painted gundam. These are some of the shot that I’ve uploaded onto ww.Flickr.com.. all in all there are 23 pictures. Feel free to use the pictures in your blog or website. All that I ask is that you provide a link back to this blog.. apart from that you can pretty much do anything you want with it. Even sticking it up on your forehead.. ;P

I played around with the white balance and lo and behold I’ve got a yellow tinted picture that kinda look cool on the gundam. The actual backlight is suppose to be white. In all of the shots I don’t use any flash. Flash will ruin any great pictures.

Just a hint about painting the gundam. The initial coat of gundam does not indicate the final look of the gundam. Since I’ve used a non glossy (matt) colour, the first coat seem to have no gloss at all. It is absolutely flat. Personally I prefer a satin finish, a matt finish with a touch of glossiness.

All of these are controllable and easily achieved through the use of clear coating. You can clear coat as much as you want. It’s all up to you. More on this later.

Notice that the color is pretty much clean color with little to no shading at all. Next project is the IWSP Gundam. I plan to use the Max Tecnique on my next gundam.

(Warning: I posted the pic above at the max resolution i.e.a about 1.5Mb) I’ve completed this gundam kit a few weeks ago and this is the picture taken before it was painted. I love the detail from this Master Grade kit, the articulation of the joints and the small details. I bought it off eBay for about RM160 ( about US $50).

What I hate about it is the way that it felt plasticky (for lack of better way of putting it). Its way too shiny and looks kinda cheap.

One way of solving this problem is too paint the kit. How to paint a kit? If you got steady hands and patience and lack the financial resources, I’d suggest you go with handbrush. If you lack patience and got shaky hands (I attribute the shaky hands solely on overdose of caffeine) like me, then the only way to go is airbrushing.

By the way this will be my very first painted Gundam and a first time for me in using an airbrush. It can be daunting using the airbrush for the first time. But after doing for days it will eventually be fun. I am now sticking my MG IWSP Gundam on stick ready for the very first coat. I’ll add more pictures on the painted MK-II gundam. All I need to do now is get the Gundam ready for a private photoshoot!.

One site that I found to be handy is this www.dalong.net .It’s a korean site but is has almost all of the gundam kits on review. However the review are all in korean. I don’t bother to look at the text… the are loads of unpainted gundam kits. If you are looking for gundam kits and want to see how it will turn out. take a gander to that site.