Salt technic on gunpla

Today, we speak about a ‘simple’ technic to creating chipping on model kits : The salt. Yes ! You’re read correctly, a simple salt to obtain a nice chipping on your gunpla. It’s a technic which work with an airbrush. I think it cannot work with brush … But I’m not sure. Maybe I will test one day.

I make a HG Jo hound model kit few month , and I wanted to obtain a heavy chipping. I decided to use only my brushes and little pieces of sponges. But this time, I decide to use the salt.

Prepare your model

First, you need to prepare the surface of your gunpla. For the example, I use the hand of the HG RX-79 ‘Ground type’ (1/144) from « the 08th team » anime.

Like for a classic preparation, I use a primer. In this case, I was a black primer from Vallejo mecha color. After, I added the rust coat. I used a red/brown primer color from GreenStuffWorld. You must a really hard paint because we will be ‘violent’ in a future step.

The Salt technic

Now, it’s time to use the salt.

Put some water gently at the surface of the piece where you want obtain chipping (often on the edges). Personnaly, I used a little sponge. Then put the salt directly on the piece like it’s raining salt. It will be trap by the water. To obtain various effect, try to use different sizes of salt. In my example, I used a really fine salt to try to respect scale.

Some advises :

  • Don’t forget to protect the parts where you do not want salt.
  • You can do that directly in your kitchen … because you’re going to salt everywhere … Believe me.
  • WAIT ! To paint, you need to have a dry salt, so wait ! … 8 or 12h in a dry place ?
It’s seems to be dirt, don’t worry !

Paint (when the salt is dry)

Paint your part as usual, the salt will work like a mask. You can use a pre-shading if you want. But becareful to the pressure you use on your airbrush. If the pressure is too high, the salt will be remove. On this example, I worked with the Mr. color white C1 diluated at 50% and applied at 1bar.

Salt chipping

To finish, You must remove the salt. I used a toothbrush with some water and I brush … brush … and brush again. If you remember, I said you must use a hard and dry paints. That is the moment where you’re going to see if your paint it’s good.

after removing the salt
After removing the mask tape

Salt chipping on gunpla is a good way to have random chips on a your paint. I think it’s a simple technic which give good results.

See you soon 😉

A-Wing Interceptor

My new build is a starship from Star Wars the A-wing Interceptor. I use a simple kit from Revell.

Outboxing of the A-wing

Revell didn’t lie with this message « Build and play ». There is no runners inside the box all the parts are cut, so you can directly build the model kit. You don’t need glue, each pieces are perfectly adjusted.

After Few minutes (maybe 10 min), you finished. It’s clearly a build for kids. It’s not enough for me, because I want to change the colors and add some damages.

A-wing revell flashfan981

Some problems

For a beginner, it’s a perfect kit but if you’re looking all pieces in details, there is a lot of problems. Some examples :

  • The wires are not detailled correctly
  • They wrote the manufacturer’s name directly on the starship 😱
  • all the joints are visible
  • the nubs from the runners are visible too …

First to improve this kits, it’s to remove or fix this details. For this classic work, I used classic tools :

  • Nippers
  • Hobby knife with a fresh blade
  • Various grits of sandpaper
  • Putty to fill holes

Painting

For this kit, I wanna try the citadel air paint. I primered it with a grey from vallejo. And let’s go for the Citadel paint.

I begin on the reactor with several coats of runefang steel. The paint is thick, to use it in my airbrush, I mixed it with the thinner from Citadel.

I was surprised, because I’m not familiar with the paints from Games workshop. But the result is excellent and smooth, I like it. I continued to paint some details (wires, metal pieces,etc.) with a simple brush on the reactor, the cockpit and other parts.

See you soon 😉 to continu this A-wing Interceptor model kit.

MG Exia #05

Custom paint gunpla

Introduction

Definetly, I love this model kit. So I take my time to obtain the best result I can. For this post, I will speak about the custom base coat paint and the panel lines work. I don’t like the base plactic aspect of the model kit. So I prefer a custom paint gunpla.

A good way to improve the general aspect of the gunpla, for me, it’s to use the black and white technic before to paint the main color.

Technic : the black and white in action

Like on my previous work on the MG Exia, I painted a black primer coat first (ref : vallejo mecha primer black 70.642) . Then I highlighted the parts with white paint (ref Mr. Color : C1). To finish, I applied the base coat with the desired color.

I used this method for all the pieces, It’s long but I like the final apparence of the gundam.

MG Exia's - gunpla MG Exia
Arms painted and ready for the assembly

Did I say I love this Cobald Blue (ref Mr. Color : C80) ? 😍😍😍

Final painted result

After several hours of painting, this is the finish work. I’m really happy of the final result. I think the paint imprive the volumes … isn’t it ?

Custom paint gunpla MG Exia

Custom paint gunpla MG Exia

Panel lines

After that, I put a gloss varnish coat (ref : Mr Color. C46) which is very important to protect the previous work. It was ready to receive the enamel juice to improve the panel lines. Like usual, I used the panel line accent color product from Tamiya which is a perfect product for me. When I have more time, I made it myself with a classic black enamel paint thinned with white spirit. To clean it, I used zippo lighter fluid 😉 with cotton sticks or a little brush.

Panel line accent color tamiya with zippo lighter fluid and brush. Custom paint gunpla
material used for the panel lines

I don’t finish all the mecha for the moment but this is some photos without and with the product applied on some parts.

I hope this post will be useful to improve your gundam and to work on a custom paint gunpla. Don’t hesitate to write a comment and to share of you like 👍.

See you soon for the waterslides 😉.

MK.44

Banner for the post about MK44 book from Lincoln Wright (paintonplastic.com)

After the excellent « Sci-Fi FAQ« , here is the new book by Lincoln Wright « MK.44 » dedicated to the models of the Maschinen Krieger universe (abbreviated as Ma.K) created by the Japanese artist Kow Yokoyama.

For those who do not know the Ma.K universe, I encourage you to discover it. I am not a specialist, but I really appreciate the visual aspect of the mechas, vehicles and figurines. The whole composes a very coherent universe which seems to me very inspired by war machines of the XXth century. In short, search a little on the web, you will find a lot of information about this little known universe.

A simple book ? Not only.

Let’s talk first about the book itself. It’s a beautiful object in large format (A4) with 128 pages in glossy paper that are filled with great photos and brief texts to explain the creative process and some layout techniques ! Important details, it is written entirely in English. It seems that it is the first book in the language of Shakespeare dedicated to Ma.K.

I’m a bit afraid to damage it over time by turning the pages over and over 😅. I hope it will resist to my incessant research.

Maschinen Krieger model kit and technics

For the content, Lincoln Wright proposes here to detail 4 times the same model (MaK 1/20 MK44 Ammoknights) treated in different ways. Some might cry « what a rip-off! But it’s always the same thing! », I will answer them « No! No! … and no! » Because with the 4 variations, we get 4 very different and interesting outcomes that have in common only the general form. We can appreciate all the work of transformation of Mr. Wright and the result is amazing. The photos of very good quality in large format or in thumbnails allow to see with precision the work in progress and they highlight the multiple details of the models. A small regret, there are photos and techniques already present in « Sci-Fi FAQ« . But despite the repetition is not serious as it concerns only a few photos in this huge album.

A nice bonus

Finally we will find at the end of the book a photos gallery of Max Watannabe’s realizations. We can see the same model of Ammoknights treated on several themes and admire the work of this other great artist. The « Taco (The Octopus) » of the last page is just incredible.

Conclusion

I can only advise you to read and buy this book. It has already inspired me a lot for my future creations as well for the technique as for the themes treated.

MG Exia #04

I continued to paint the MG Exia. I used the black and white technics to improve my model kit. That’s allow to make some artificial shadows and to improve the volume sensation. If you’re looking for a tutorial, I can advise you to go here (english) or here (french).

I painted the primer coat with the « one shot black » from Mig ammo [nozzle 0,4mm/1,5bars]. Then I used the white paint from Mr Color (ref : C1) diluated with a ratio of 50%/50% to paint the center of some parts [nozzle 0,2mm/1bars]. I decided to work with the paint made by Mr. Hobby for this project.

To finish, I a apply the base coat. You can see the result on the piece below with the « White MS » from Mr. Color (ref : UG01) [nozzle 0,2mm/1bars].

I hope you can the difference between the leg painted and the leg ‘out of the box’. I used exactly the same light for the photos. I think it looks great, no ?

See you soon 😉

Rusty Jo

It’s done, I finished this week-end the HG Jo Hound. It’s totally hand painting, it was a real pleasure ! I love to add weathering effect, dust and rust ♥️. I modifued some parts and adding a real green plastic lens … from my daughter’s toys 🙄.

I will probably write a post to describe all the products used to this realization.

To see more, you can go on its gallery : ▶️ here ◀️

See you soon 😉

HG Jo hound 1/144

I can’t use my airbrush during summer, so I worked with my brushes. I build the HG jo Hound from Kyoukai Senki anime series.

First, I modified some parts of the mecha and I textured the armor plates. Then a black primer coat from an old can from Vallejo.

Then I worked on the different rust effects. It’s a real pleasure 😃😃 !

I open his gallery if you wanna see more pictures : ▶️ HERE ◀️

MG Shenlong #01

Hey ! With summer’s holydays, I’ve got my kids at home and it’s impossible to work correctly with the airbrush (lacquer paint ar too dangerous with kids around). So I decide to build different kits during the next weeks and I will paint them together.
If my childrens are cools with maybe I will finish the MG Exia.
The first kit is a mechas from the gundam wing anime serie, The Shenlong (EW ver.). Enjoy !
To see more, go to the gallery : ▶️ here ◀️ !

See you soon ! 😉

MG Exia #03

I work a lot this moment, so I post when I can but I progress on my differents builds. The Exia is on the good way. I paint slowly because I use a lot of masking tape between each step. But I love the result.
‘Be patient to obtain a beautiful work’ that what I think.

In a same time, I work on a car model kit and that is an story 😀

See you soon 😉