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Gerbera924 In reply to mhz [2004-06-03 17:12:34 +0000 UTC]

Painting Gundam models takes practice, lots of practice and patience. However, there are methods that can make beginners look like professionals in a short time (though practice and patience still is necessary)

1. Equipment - Airbrush is a vital tool in painting a model because you can adjust the flow of the paint coming out. Airbrushes go from $13 - over $200. I use a inexpensive $20 Testors’ Aztec, though i would prefer a Tamiya's airbrush (don't have enough cash to get one). When I use an airbrush, i always use acrylic paints, though some prefer using enamel paints (but you must first thin it with thinner before you can use it in airbrush). Why not spray paint? Well, with spray paint, you cannot control the amount of paint coming out, and if you over-spray the model, many of the details will be filled in by the paint.

2. Techniques - Techniques is the most important skill of all. You can have many good equipment and have bad results if you don't know the correct techniques. There are many excellent tutorials online that tell methods of painting models. However, the first step is to completely finish building your model. Fill in any gaps with putty, then let dry and sand the uneven parts. Once that is all done, go ahead with painting. You may have heard of this, but there is a technique called the MAX technique where you paint the whole model with a base coat of black. Then you use an airbrush and go over the center of the pieces with white, while avoid painting the edges. The finished result will give it a kind of worn out/ burned edges kind of look with darker edges. I personally am not much a fan of the MAX technique, but I sometimes use it (not uniformly) to give the model a worn look. The MAX technique can be done with any colors, Ex: Black, then White. Or White, then Dark Blue, etc. For extremely small details, I use a toothpick and or small brush. Another useful tip (you may have heard of it) is called dry-brushing. Example: On the PG Wing Zero inner leg frame, it is charcoal grey. I would next take silver or a lighter gray color and dip my brush into the paint, then stroke the brush on a paper towel with ridges (to get excess paint off). Wipe the brush on the paper towel until there is very little paint left (to where if you brush your brush across a sheet of paper, and very little paint will appear on it). Then carefully, lightly brush over the edges and ridges of the model (in this example, the frame of the leg). This will bring up the detail to make the model look more weathered. This would be good for the feet, knee, hands, elbow, and other places where rubbing of metals would occur. Dry-brushing White is often used to bring up the details of parts that are dark in color.

3. Research - These are just basic techniques, and there are too many to list, so I would recommend getting online and just finding sites that have tutorials. There are many different methods and opinions on how one should approach painting a model, so doing research does help.

Hope this helped.

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