Progress Report - RG Wing Gundam Zero Custom (9/13/20)

Decal

I completely forgot until yesterday that I was originally planning on adding decals to these pieces.

I wanted to put some assortment of alphabet decals across the wings. The application process wasn't particularly hard but arranging them properly took quite a lot of effort.

That is one side done. The other side was a bit easier.

When applying decals to a curved surface, decals often leave folds that do not perfectly conform to the shape of the surface. To fix this issue, I used Micro Sol - a solution used for softening decals - by brushing it lightly across the top of the decals.

Spray Can

The glossy top coat I applied to the feathers dried up nicely but I wasn't quite happy with how the gloss finish looked on the feathers.

So I decided to give it a matte finish instead.

I didn't have any airbrush-ready acrylic matte varnish so I had to use a lacquer spray can I had laying around instead. Usually, there are some concerns when applying a lacquer-based layer on top of acrylic-based layer. Lacquer is a more "hot" chemical so it can corrode through acrylic paint when you apply lacquer on top of it. Fortunately, we have a layer of clear top coat protecting the layer of actual paint. This usually helps because the lacquer will only be able to eat through the clear coat before it can reach the paint layer and cause any visible damage.

Before using a spray can, it's usually a good idea to leave it in warm water for a while first.

This allows the propellant to become more active (heat makes molecules move around more), making the spray can easier to spray with high pressure.

Applying top coat with spray can isn't very different from applying top coat with airbrush. I applied just enough coating to give it an evenly distributed wet and glossy surface.

Once the top coat dried, the glossy wet look disappeared and it started giving a nice matte look.

The semi-transparent color did not look very good with the matte finish but I was overall happy that it gave off a softer feeling that fits a feather better. Next time, I should make sure the paint job is completely opaque before applying matte finishes.

Airbrushing

I've been a bit hesitant to start the airbrush work because there's been lot of ashes floating around in the air from the wildfires. After some contemplation, I decided to give it a go since it did not look like the air quality was going to improve any time soon.

All I had left was to apply top coat on the 2 lower wings (which I just recently applied decals to) and the 2 upper wing pieces to give them a gloss finish.

And with that, all that's remaining in this kit is to reassemble them a couple days later.