Airbrushing
My new airbrush arrived! The Iwata Eclipse HP-CS!
Unlike my old airbrush (RIP) that had a 0.5 mm needle, the new one comes with a 0.35 mm needle. A needle with a smaller diameter allows me to paint with a higher precision. This is great for me since I've been struggling with the 0.5 mm needle while painting the RG kits that are mostly made of very small pieces.
Time to take it for a spin...
... by applying a clear top coat on pieces painted white... I was able to finish applying the gloss varnish on all the wing pieces that does not require masking.
After all that was done, I figured I'd try testing out with something more visible.
I was very surprised at how well the paint applied with the trigger pulled back so little. In fact, the bottom spoon was only sprayed a single pass while barely holding the trigger back. I will have to remember this so that I don't accidentally cake the paint job next time.
I also took this as an opportunity to see how the Vallejo Metal Color series look in-person. Both spoons are painted with Chrome color on top of gloss black primer. The top photo was a thicker layer (three pass) of metallic paint and the one below was a thinner layer (single pass). I'll have to wait for the paint to cure to really get a good comparison but it seems that the thinner layer has a much nicer reflective property than the thicker layer.
Panel Lining
As for the rest of the pieces, I figured the glossy top coat on the non-wing portions of the kit were fully cured by now so I started doing the panel lining.
For panel lining, I am using this Testors fluorescent blue enamel paint.
Unfortunately, I struggled quite a bit trying to dissolve this in lighter fluid. For some reason, this color did not mix with the lighter fluid even though I did not have any problems with the black enamel paint from the same brand last time.
After struggling for quite a while, I decided to try dropping a few drops of enamel thinner into the solution. I really wanted to avoid this since I've first-hand experienced last time how caustic enamel thinners as they ate through a thick layer of lacquer top coat. Fortunately, everything worked out without ruining the acrylic paint job.
All in all, it turned out pretty good but I wished some of the panel lines were deeper. With 3 layers of coating over the pieces (primer, base color, and clear gloss), many of the panel lines became too shallow for the enamel paint to properly seep through. I should really look into investing in a few scribing tools so that I can deepen some panel lines before I start the paint job.
Today I Learned:
- Some enamel paint won't dissolve into lighter fluid
- Dropping a few drops of enamel thinner into lighter fluid can really help dissolve the paint without making the solution too caustic
- May be worth deepening existing panel lines before painting
- Wear gloves while doing panel lining
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