Full Styrene Custom Base and Texturing with Paints

I wanted to do a quick project that would help me focus on painting and weathering so I decided to pull out an old unfinished project and crafted a quick base using styrene. As I've said in my previous post HERE, I am trying to improve my bases and the overall presentation of my builds. I want my build to look like sculptures.

I basically used my old 1/48 Zaku and removed most of it's limbs. I will need to detail up and add battle damage effects on the kit before painting. But painting and weathering of this project should be fun as I am working on a 1/48 scale. Meaning rust streaks and paint and armor chippings are very much visible unlike on 1/100 kits.

After setting up the pose of the limb-less kit, I then started painting the ground work. As is obvious with the photos above, the ground work and the whole base is made entirely of styrene. I used PU reducer to melt all those styrene chips together.

I am using the paints to create rough texture and not "paint" the ground work. After the modifications on the kit, I will be re-priming the whole thing using Vallejo Surface Primer ( Black ). I want to show everyone how I quickly added texture to the smooth surface of the styrene ground work with paints. I left this curing earlier today and should be nice and hard once I get home from work.

I basically hand brushed 2 coats of Vallejo Grey Primer. It surprisingly dried after around 30 minutes and dried smooth. Weird as I was not careful and just applied the primer thickly. Apparently the Grey primer has some sort of self-leveling properties.

I think but I am not sure, the Vallejo Acrylic Studio are the cheapest paints from Vallejo. This huge bottle only costs around 8 small bottles of Vallejo Model Color. Such a bargain for a paint this much. I was expecting lesser quality in terms of opacity from this paint. However the photos shows just a couple of coats which reveals that it is very opaque! Pretty high pigment count for it's price range.

I do think lighter colors of the Vallejo Acrylic Studio are not as opaque. As lighter colors tend to be more transparent and requires more coats of paint to fully cover the surface.

I did not let the Vallejo Acrylic Studio to dry at all... I immediately dabbed some Vallejo texture paint ( Oxid Paste ) to the surface. Resulting to some blending of textures and colors. I honestly need some Vallejo Black Lava texture paints as that paint has heavier or has a rougher texture. Adding a bit of Black Lava paint should give more variation to the texture.

This will dry to a nice rubbery - plasticky material and once you dabbed more paint or texture paint, you will be producing a rougher texture. The textures shown on the photo were hand painted on a very smooth ( primed ) styrene ground work. So painting over this surface should produce a rougher texture.

I then need to modify the kit and add battle damaged effects soon. Once I finished working on the kit, I could then re-prime the whole piece and start the actual painting. As I've said, I used the paints above to create the basic texture of the ground work and not to paint the kit. Stay tuned and you'll see updates of the results soon!

Last tip with dabbing paints and using texture paints... make sure you use really old OR really cheap brushes as texture paints ( much more dabbing texture paints ) will ruin your brushes. Ruins brushes much more than dry-brushing actually.

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

Read more >>

1/48 Zaku Hangar Diorama WIP041014

I just finished my first ever Gunpla project after 3 years of hiatus yesterday, and was able to squeeze in a bit of work on my 1/48 Mega Scale Zaku diorama project before going to work today.

Not much work done really, but I am pretty happy with the result and wanted to share it immediately.
Likers at my Facebook page ( DC23 mech arts ) and members of my group page ( DC23-mecharts ) has already seen this update. I usually post first at Instagram ( @dc23_mecharts ), then my Facebook pages then blog about it.

Anyways, I added more bulk to the crotch area as I can't resist making it bigger ( dang I love big crotches ). Majority of the scratch built crotch are .3mm thick Tamiya pla plates, .5mm Tamiya pla plates and a few 1mm thick pla plates. I also added a foot part (?) from the MG The O.

I will be cleaning up the scratch built part before adding more details soon. So far I like how it looks on my 1/48 Mega Crotch Scale Zaku! Hope to post more updates, but will work on my old pending commish soon. Stay tuned guys!

 

Thanks as always for dropping by! Just enjoy the hobby! :)

Read more >>

1/48 Zaku verDC23 WIP 033114

Old habits die hard. And so I am slowly over detailing this project as usual.

I originally wanted a classic looking Zaku that does not look too customized. This is the same kit I am placing on a huge 1/48 Hangar Diorama. Obviously I am already obscuring the classic look of the Zaku.

I feel that the visor matches the round left shoulder armor and it should hopefully compliment the big crotch and skirts. This should give my Zaku that extra armor look without the need to kitbash 5 kits! ;)

I am going for a hyper detailed kit that wont look absurd and still resemble your classic green Zaku. No funny kit bashing super mecha monster ongoing here.

BTW, cutting 1/48 armor is hard! It is thicker than your usual MG armors but nothing my Hasegawa saws cannot handle. It has been a while since I customized a kit like so, I almost forgot how relaxing it is. 

Anyways, hope you like my update so far. Thanks for dropping by! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! :)

Read more >>

Zaku Hangar Diorama Layout - Digital Sketches

I am still at work but I am so eager to work on my 1/48 Zaku hangar diorama already!

I can never do Gunpla in my office as it is too messy ( plastic dust and the smell of thin cement ). Although I have my own spacious cube, I can only display kits but never work on them. So I thought of drafting my Zaku hangar diorama in my computer. Actually I did some sketches in my notebook earlier today but I think my sketches are too rough to understand.

Anyways, I was cracking my head the whole day for a layout that should look a bit unique. I understand that hangar dioramas are overplayed and so many has done good hangar dioramas already. I want a hangar diorama that is not too boxy like the traditional and classic layouts ( see this classic layout by Nathaniel Barrera circa 2005 ). I was even thinking of copying Ronnie Phoon's diorama which is sort of a reclamation of a broken down Zaku.

Reclamation dioramas will offer me creative ways for layout and placement and can have so many different settings ( desert, ocean, underwater, moon base ). But I always wanted a traditional basic hangar diorama for my display cabinet. No concepts whatsoever, just plain and traditional maintenance diorama for my 1/48 Zaku. So I ended up with the design and layout as seen on these photos.

Now I present to you my Quarter View Hangar Diorama! This Layout is basically your basic hangar diorama. The major difference is that the walls and the whole layout are tilted to the left side a bit. The main base for the diorama will be square as usual, but the walls will be angled to show a quarter view of the hangar cross section and of the main kit ( 1/48 Zaku ).

Hopefully this layout will create a different look for a traditional hangar diorama and should give more depth to the whole piece. Searching for creative ways for a hangar diorama for a couple of weeks now and I think my simple layout should look a bit different than what others have done in the past.

I will be filling it up with catwalks, ladders, cranes and bridges in the actual execution, but at least I now have a guide for the basic angles and layout of the my project.

I hope I did not waste your time with this post. I am just too excited to share my idea. Thanks as always for dropping by! Until next post guys! Just enjoy the hobby! :)

Read more >>

1/48 Zaku Hangar Diorama - Unboxing Again

This Zaku hangar diorama project is basically a dream project that I have shelved ( boxed ) for a loooong time. My very last post about this project was way back January of 2012 ( see post here ). So at least I have done the boring work of removing the seam lines ( albeit some are still visible ) and could jump into modifications and diorama construction already.In fact I have also constructed a wooden box for the hangar, but will redo it as I find it kind of too big for the kit.

I plan this to be my BIG side project as I still need to work on a few pending commission works this year. I plan to work with this from time to time and not on a regular " kill yourself " mode basis.

I think I am capable of modifying and painting the 1/48 figures this time around than years past. My short experience in painting miniatures ( see also this post ) will aid me in painting these little critters.I hope I can push myself to modify one of the figures to look like Char like in this diorama. If I cannot and my skills with green stuff will not allow me to do a Char figure, then fine! But I still want a really busy Zaku hangar diorama no matter what.

My last ( and only ) really complicated diorama was my " The Graveyard " diorama done back in 2009. I feel after looking at my Galleries ( 3 of them ), that I have regressed through the years and have not done really good projects before my self imposed retirement. So I think It is about time I push through with this dream project that I could show off in my display cabinet hopefully at the end of the year.

BTW, I have used some of these 1/48 figures in my The O II Hauer project. These figures are so fun to paint and as I've said I think I will do a better job this time because of my experience in painting miniatures. Basically I have 26 1/48 figures to use in this project. I think the number of figures will be enough to make it look really busy!

Anyways below are more photos of my materials for this 1/48 Zaku hangar diorama project.

Read more >>

1/48 ZAKU project WIP - quick initial mods

Just wanted to share some quick work I have done on my 1/48 Mega Size Zaku I got from GreattoysOnline.com. The original plan was just to straight build the kit, remove seam lines and place on top of a diorama as inspired by Julius Lim's 1/48 Zaku diorama " LOST ".

However I thought of doing some quick scratch building for the waist of the Zaku to practice for my future sbing projects. I always dislike the short skirts of the Zaku as it looks like girlie skirts or boxer shorts. The Zaku skirts just looks too revealing for me.

So I decided to add another layer of skirts to the existing skirts. Note that instead of replacing the existing skirts, I added another layer which adds up to the complexity of the overall look. The sb'ed skirts does not totally cover the original skirt armors thus giving it a layered armor. I also did a quick crotch for the kit as I also find the original crotch not too manly enough. The butt skirt was also extended and might bulk it up a bit with either putty or more pla plates.

Aside from the white scratch built parts, and the tedious seam line removal. I re-drilled the holes all over the kit as they look too shallow. I also removed a section on the left shoulder armor and have yet to decide what to put in it. A mesh is the quickest way to cover that or layering of pla plates. Notice also that I sawed portions of the head part so that I could access the mono eyes even after seam line removal.


IMPORTANT SB TIP!

I am not much of a scratch builder. In fact this is the year that I will try to practice my basic scratch building skills a little bit more. BUT I would like to share a tip out of observation.

Make sure that you clean up scratch built parts much more your detailing.

Notice that I stopped the scratch building at this stage of the build and blogged about it? See that the crotch part is totally clean already even without the use of putty?

Basically the tip is simple, make sure that the " base " shape is clean already before you move on to detailing. It is easier to sand and file simple square boxes before you add those tiny little details that you might over sand while trying to clean up initial mistakes and imperfections. Anyway this tip will be much clearer as you follow this project. Now here are some photos guys...

Read more >>