You are going to see many advanced techniques and very professional looking models on this board. But not in this topic. Make no doubts about it, I am an amateur. I will also be detailing my ERRORS in this topic and trust me there are many. This will be my SECOND time to paint a model. I hoping that some of you can provide me with a bit of advice as I go along with this. Maybe some hints or some recommendations.

I don't have and airbrush so I use spray cans and hand paint.

I built the G04 about 3 years ago. It was a birthday present from a co-worker. After I finished my OYW RX-78-2 a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted the G04 to be it's "partner". I plan on painting it in the same scheme.

Like this.


Here is what the G04 looks like.


As you can see, I pencilled in some lines on the leg because I wanted to add some extra panel lines.

I wasn't sure exactly how to do it so I just looked at the OYW Gundam as an example and kinda sketched some lines on it. Didn't use a ruler or anything just wanted to get an idea.

More on the panel lining a bit later.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

So... I've decided that with each new kit that I do from now on I'm going to try a new technique. This time I'm going to try 'custom panel lining'. I was initially going to tape it all up like I saw in the tutorial and try it the slow way but... I couldn't be bothered and tried to do it by hand. It actually didn't look THAT bad but it wasn't the look I was going for.

Practically it looked like this.




Up close



As you can see it's not that clean. There are a lot of extra scratch marks. The problem is that I'm a ****ing perfectionist and re-scratched it a bunch of times to get the symmetry right. The end look didn't look bad from a distance but up close it didn't look that great. And to make matters worse I decided that I actually didn't really like the design of the panel lines that I chose.

I realized that I probably should have sketched them out on paper before etching them.

Mistakes made:

1. Not planning the lines thoroughly enough.
2. Not checking for symmetry before etching.
3. Not using tape or some type of guide for the lines.

This is supposed to be a machine. If you try to etch parts that are are supposed to have been done by a machine you should probably use the correct tools to do it accurately. I did it by hand and it looked like I did it by hand. So I decided to start over.



I'm using this stuff.


Tamiya Putty Basic. Grey. Squeezes out of tube. Smells strong but spreads easily. I used this stuff on my OYW beam rifle and it melted the plastic but I could get a surface texture I liked and it didnt look that bad after.

I went a local hobby shop and found a bunch of different types of putty (the above pic)... but I didn't (still don't really) what the difference is so I just bought the cheapest one (lowest risk financially), thinking that I'd just figure it out as I went along. I later bought some Tamiya Epoxy Putty - Smooth Type but more on that later.

After it dried I sanded it down



I then tried to paint it. That became an entirely seperate headache.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

There's some materials on the different types of putty and their suitability in the tech areas.......I started off like u using the cheapest type.....but I know the tamiya basic putty is not suitable for fixing the panel line to rescribe cos when u rescribe, they tend to fall off again...

For scribing panel line, go slow and it can avoid disasters later. Enjoy the hobby and no point rushing to finish. All I can say is practice and practice and never give up.

Happy trying!!!

 IP Address: 160.96.200.36

Thank you for the advice! I will keep that in mind because I still intend on going through with the panel lining.

Before I started working on the G04 I spent a lot of time just... playing with it! Looking at things like how well the armour fit together and posabilility, articulation and the like. The G04 comes with extra shoulder armour that I always kept on. I decided to strip the G04 down to it's essentials just to see what the base suit was like and I realized that I liked it very much. Particulaly the beam guns on the forearms.



Since I 'completed' the G04 I've had it in basically the same pose. Fully armed and armoured. I felt as if now the G04 itself was telling me "I don't want to be so heavy!". So I decided to 'lighten' him up. Strip off the optional armour and auxillary power packs and make him a light mech with a big gun. After all it seems kinda silly for a heavy assault mech to be using light forearm mounted beam guns. At least it seemed silly to me.

So I decided to do my second modification (but my first time trying it). Articulation enhancement.

Started with the knees.

Comparing maximum articulation with and without armour.


This is the modification that was needed.


This is the end result


I was doing all of this while waiting for the paint to dry on the parts that I puttied up.

No pics but let me explain what happened there.

1. Sprayed with racing white. Could still see the lining I did and dark putty spots. Uneven drying with pools of paint at the edges.

2. Sanded and primed the parts. Could still see the lining.

3. Sprayed with R. White again. Could still see the lining and dried unevenly. Again.

4. Sprayed with R. White again. Same issues.

5. Sanded it down again to make the surface more even.

So what was the problem?

The problem was that I wasn't spraying each part individually. I put them in styrofoam and sprayed so that I covered all the surface areas. Next time I'm going to hold each part in my hand and spray it properly. I'm also going to consider how the paint is going to dry and in what direction it's going to drip in. For now I'm going to lay off the R. White and just prime them properly. Afterwards I'll decide if I want to spray or hand paint.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

So continuing on with the 'increased mobility' theme I decided that I was going to do even more modifications to armour. No matter how slight. If it got me a couple more degrees of movement I wanted it.

First I took a look at the range of motion without armour


I want to get as close to this as I possibly can but... in my enthusiam I forgot to take a pic of the range of motion with all the armour on.

Anyways, in order to get those extra few degrees I needed to shave down the armour here.


Here is what it looked like after sanding.


As you can see I was left with those three holes and I thought that it might be a nice design to leave on. Like as ventilation or something. Decided I'd try to fill up the back with some pla-plate that I'd just bought. However... I was in for a rude awakening.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

Also used in the What you bought today topic

I found out upon opening that this pla-plate that it was actually... CLEAR and very thin. I was under the impression that it was going to be solid white like the type that the people of this board use.

Sad thing... is that this was the only time that I could find pla-plate and this is what I got! Just going to have to keep searching I guess. I have an idea of another place I could go to try and find it though.

But I couldn't use this pla-plate like how I wanted too so I decided to just cover the holes up with putty and sand it down later.



Didn't look so bad and I achieved my desired affect. Unfortunately that was just one leg... the other leg somehow turned out to be a lot more difficult.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

When I was filing the calf down, I took out the blue part that connects it to the frame. After I inserted it back in, it pushed the excess putty right through the hole taking a lot of the plastic with it!



after I sanded it down it looked like this.


I decided this time I'd try to use my new putty for the first time. It's the type where you have a light green and white putty and you knead them together until they form a uniform colour. After I did that I filled up the whole and spread it over the area liberally.


Try to do a simple thing and a series of mistakes happen after. Kinda makes you wonder if it was worthwhile. But I'm learning at least. Sorry if this all all sounds really tedious. Trust me... you're only reading about it. I'm living it.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

Busterbeam Wrote:Try to do a simple thing and a series of mistakes happen after. Kinda makes you wonder if it was worthwhile. But I'm learning at least. Sorry if this all all sounds really tedious. Trust me... you're only reading about it. I'm living it.

Ouch... sounds painful. We all have our horror stories to tell. Relative to some of the pros here, i'm quite a noob but i shall endeavour some advice.

Go slow and never work on impulse. Plan carefully and do lots of "dry runs" on scrap parts. The extra planning and preparation time spent is disproportionately small compared to the time spent fixing mistakes.

I'm not sure why you are experiencing drips in your paintjob. Are you using an airbrush or spraycan? Even with spraycan, there should not be drips if you do it correctly.

Note about plaplate. They come in different thickness. The one you bought is 0.2 mm thick and happens to be one of the thinnest (or the thinnest?) available. Not that 0.2 mm thick plaplate does not have its uses (and it has many) but since you are starting out on this whole modification business, i would recommend getting an assortment of plaplate. Tamiya has an assortment of 1.2 mm, 0.5 mm, 0.3 mm and 0.2 mm thick plaplates.

 IP Address: 222.165.98.28

thanks for the advice. my problem is that i cant seem to find pla plate anywhere but i still have some other avenues to check out. and about the drips... i think the whole problem was that I WASN'T doing it correctly. At least not as thoroughly as I should have. Could have happened for a couple of reasons i think. And yeah I was using spray cans.

 IP Address: 124.38.229.238

Hi, first time commenting on this WIP.

The MG RX-78-5 was the first kit EVER I worked on, so I am interested on what you will be doing with the RX-78-4. I gave up on it midway b/c I was just practicing and I decided to move on to a real work, but I always wondered what it would have looked like when finished (I airbrushed it in Zeon green/ dark green/ than gloss coated before moving on)

Anyway I will keep an eye on this WIP

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