Priming the Full Armor Gundam RX781 with Vallejo Mecha Primers

First off, I paint outdoors in my tiny red paint booth. Even though I am using non-toxic ( Eco friendly as branded by Shoppee ) acrylic paints in Acrylicos Vallejo. 

Sometimes I also use gas masks, but was lazy to wear one today, as it was steamy outside. 

Also, not seen here in the photos, I clean my Harder&Steenbeck ( which is so easy to clean ) in between sprays. I blow a couple of drops of airbrush cleaner in between sprays and dump and blow air through the airbrush under a pale of water. 

Anyways, I got this beautiful GSB Masterwork Full Armor Gundam RX 78 1 way back, from a close Gunpla friend in Omar aka Aor_or_die of Italy ( Italy Gunpla Champion 2008 ). 

I took apart the kit and cleaned it a bit with Vallejo sanding sponge ( 800 / 1000 grit ). Altho it is still not the cleanest resin kit in the world, I think it will do. I wanted to paint already.

After sanding and clean up, I then primed the pieces ( large ) with Vallejo Mecha Black Primer. 

Vallejo Mecha Black Primer

RATIO

40 parts Black Primer : 10 parts thinner : 10 parts flow improver

I actually thinned this a little more than needed, as I sprayed from a distance than usual. Some areas are hard to reach as I cannot disassemble the main torso part. Thinning a little more ( 2 drops each of thinner and flow improver ) allowed me to produce a smooth finish as the primer is not drying mid air. 

To be honest, I do not really stick to certain ratios as I also paint on canvas. Meaning as a fine artist ( sometimes ), I am used to varying opacity ( and sometimes consistency ) of acrylic paints ( I use only expensive professional brands ). Part of being an artist is mastery of your medium of choice anyways. 

So I do eye tests when thinning. ( My youtube video should show this more ). A silky milky consistency is a must. It should be creamy enough to stick to the glass cup ( a bit ). Glass cup I use to mix paint. But smooth or silky enough to slide through the glass when pouring to the airbrush cup. Also it is very important to have a piece of test paper in front of you, to test spray on, before spraying on the actual kit. 

 The Vallejo Mecha Color Black Primer is a gift from above. A couple of my social media posts shows the durability and adherence of this primer to the resin kit, during priming. The Black Priming went super smooth as expected. The consistency of the Black Primer was ready for airbrushing ( I personally thin all my Vallejo paints when airbrushing tho ).

Vallejo Mecha Sand Primer

The Mecha Sand Primer was my choice for sketching instead of the usual white. My experience in illustrations ( both digitally and traditionally ) made me choose this color for my sketching ( pre shading for older modelers ). 

The Sand Primer should give the Greens later on, more depth. The Sand primer should give a richer tone to the painting later on. 

I thinned the Sand Primer a little more than usual ( I lost count of the ratio ), as the paint was thick. Creamy thick like Model Color paints. More thinner, but not too much allowed me to control the paint as I was sketching. Control is most important when sketching. 

I did adjust the rear knob of my Harder&Steenbeck to limit the paint flow and lowered the air pressure to around 15psi ( I was black priming at 20psi ). 

Overall the priming went well! Albeit I had to thin the Sand Primer a bit more than usual. 

Conclusion

I love Vallejo Mecha Color Primers. LOL. 

I am editing the video tutorial of this priming tonight. I cannot commit on when I can finish my Youtube video as of this writing tho. But I hope you still found this article informative.

Thanks as always for dropping by! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! 

Cheers!