its a really great kit, well detailed inner frame and details are well done. when i first saw this kit, my first impression wasn't so good, but i found out its a great kit anyway. and looks really good with metallic colors.

but it annoyingly comes with a lot of foil stickers. :(

i snapped together the torso and the head, and finished priming it too.

working on a metallic blue and silver color scheme, and i'll be adding extra waterside decals here and there. I'm going to be doing a silver under coat before stopping it with metallic blue to add an extra metal like effect. 

i'll make other posts as i make this project, keep building guys!

thank you readers for passing by this post. don't worry this won't take much of your time... so why wash parts? washing your parts is an important procedure when building gunpla, because it helps your paint and primer stick to the plastic. washing your parts removes the leftover grease from the plastic when it was molded, this is very important especially if your doing a resin kit.

materials:

> dish washing liquid

> basin

> small towel

> alcohol/degreaser

this won't be a hard thing to do, and almost any beginner gundam modeler could do this. 

cut all the pieces off the runner.

place all the parts in a specific ziplock.

 label. just to make sure you don't mix up all the parts.

 wash your parts in a basin with warm soapy water. just mix dish washing liquid with the water and mix. let it soak for 10 minutes or more. once done rinse parts in clean water till no suds are left. repeat process to all zip locks.

leave to dry on a piece of cloth.

once thats done, it has to pass through a second cleaning.

fill a small container with alcohol or degreaser. and dip the piece once and leave it to dry. reapeat to all parts.

 return to its specific bags and proceed to assembling.

spray paints are one material that easily runs out while building gundams, but what do we do with it after? we throw it away right. but we can still use its cover as extra containers, probably for holding and mixing paint and thinner. well yeah, its pretty obvious that spray paint caps can hold things in them but we don't use them anyway, just to make you aware.

but not all caps have the design for this and have an inner circular frame, so if paint falls into the outer frame, it would be harder to reach and it might dry up before you get to use it all.

here is a good example of what i mean, see the two circles? well we would only need the center one so off to cutting!

well all you need heres a cutter or some scissors.

first cut off one side of the outer frame, and slowly work your way into the center without puncturing a hole into it because how can it hold paint if it leaks.

it should look something like this once you rid the other remaining plastics around it. actually this is not only used for holding liquids, see the three trenches on the top? well if you put something to weigh down the center you can also use this to stand your brushes while painting! great huh? well hope this helped, and keep recycling!

removing nubs is an essential procedure when building gunpla, if not taken out properly it may weaken the plastic or ruin the final look of your model. this process is will lengthen your assembly but it would make a nicely built model

materials:

> pliers

> hobby knife/ sharp cutter

> different grits of sandpaper (500 or higher)

> disposable mask (optional)

> gloves (optional)

so whats a nub? a nub is a piece of plastic that sticks out of the main part when not properly cut, and its really annoying to look at.

so to start of this tutorial, cut away from the piece. by doing so it reduces the chance of the plastic being damaged.


heres a small diagram on where to cut:

piece |----\-- gate
        ^ cut 

hey guys! welcome to weathering 101 which is dry brushing. the good thing about dry brushing is that it's effects are not permanent unlike battle damage, and can be easily washed off with its specific thinner. so what is dry brushing? dry brushing is a painting technique that adds extra details on your gundam like burns, scratches, rusting, and many more. this is also accepted as battle damage, though its not the very serious ones. dry brushing, takes more time than an ordinary paint job, but it is very useful in making your model look more realistic.

materials:

>small flat tipped brush

>acrylic paints ( black ) it depends on your wanted effect

>piece of paper/ cloth

>cotton buds

>thinner

>graphite pencil

in this tutorial i would only be using  black just as an example on how dry brushing works, but there are a lot more pigments used in dry brushing.

first, shake the paint bottle a couple of times before opening.  when opened there should be a small amount of paint stored on the cap.

using the paint stored on the cap, dip your brush adding a little paint on the tip.

since we are not going to use most of it, rid the excess by dabbing your brush on a piece of paper or cloth.

keep wiping until paint is barley, or not coming of it.

to know if its about right, it should look more like the one on the right side.
(the lighter one)
once thats done, you can proceed to brushing the piece.

lightly brush the edges and the curves of the part, you must do this multiple times before you actually get to see the effect on the piece.
get this right, and it should look like this.


tah-dah! master piece. it looks pretty rough huh? so for the people who don't really like this kind of look (like me), you could "fix" it a bit, by doing the step below.


start by dipping a cotton bud in a dish of thinner and carefully smudge the paint about the piece towards the flow of gravity. this would slightly tint the whole piece making the weathering smoother and even.


make sure to focus on the damage on the part before you proceed on weathering anything else, because it's damage right? try making it stand out more by starting the dry brushing from there.


the final step, using a graphite pencil, shade the edges of the piece to give it a metallic shine.


and thats it, try experimenting on other colors for the dry brush technique like: black for burns, silver for scratches, and brown for rust, make your own combinations to make your gundam look more interesting!

for me, this is the most basic and easy type of battle damage to do. as you know most gundams who enter battle collide into other objects, leaving small dents and scratches. to imitate this battle damage would make your gundam look more realistic. this is very simple to do so don't worry about the difficulty.

materials:

>metal file [thats too easy]

so wear are you supposed to apply the armor damage? this is mostly found on the edges of it's exposed parts, or the ones most likely to get worn down.

so using the file, carefully scratch the edges using the flat or the side of the file. try putting pressure on the file making different depths of the scratches.

try experimenting with the different angles of your file to make creative results.

once you have done most of the sides it should kinda look like...

 this!

the worn out edges would look a lot better once dry brushed.

part after dry brushing and adding black paint chips.

thanks for reading!

welcome to gundam web.'s tutorial page. learn some tips and tutorials on how to improve the overall look of your gundam. feel free to comment on my posts if you see any corrections, or if you just want to drop your opinions. don't forget to check back on this site once in awhile, because I'm always ready to update this whenever i get the chance. have fun reading!

-GW

there are many kinds of ways to do battle damage, and I'm going to be teaching you guys how to do an easy and simple battle damaging process for your gundams. though i usually do the cutter type battle damage, there is also what i call melting. melting are used for slightly small bullet holes that actually got to melt through the gundam's armor.

materials:

>barbecue stick/ nail

>candle

>lighter (or anything you could use to light the candle up)

>cutter

so to start this tutorial, find a logical spot for this type of battle damage. because you surely can't have bullet holes under a shield right? so that is step one, find an area to damage.

lets start with prepping the materials that would be used in this tutorial.



light up a candle and burn the point of a barbecue stick.


blow the flame off the stick once it starts to glow red. if its not red, your wrong.


 while the tip is still hot, carefully pierce the area where you want the damage to be done.


slowly remove the stick once the hole's depth is to your liking.
remove any excess melted plastic and clean off and remaining amber.



using a cutter, draw some scratch lines in the direction where the bullet came from.
(if its was shot from the left, make scratches on the left side of the hole)

finished.


 more bullet holes on the shoulder armor. once properly dry brushed, you will see the bullet's effect.

finished product.