Complete - MG Char Custom Zaku II (1/12/21)

Panel Line Scribing

To add color separation to some of the parts, I can just mask off and paint but I figured this may leave unclean edges. So instead, I decided to scribe some panel lines where the color separation will happen.

Painting

Once the scribing was finished, I primed all the outer armor pieces with a surfacer.

The surfacer helped identify flaws from scribing mistakes. After fixing up the identifiable flaws, I went ahead and painted the parts I wanted red.

Once the red parts cured, I masked them off along the panel lines and painted the remaining parts in two different tones of black.

The flat black in the bottom picture is supposed to be a mixture of black and a little bit of white to lighten up the tone. I did this to create a two-tone look to give a more interesting color variation to the kit.

Enamel Detailing

Before adding the details, I applied glossy top coat layer to all the pieces. This process helps protect the color layers from getting damaged from the enamel paint and the glossiness also helps with the enamel washing (it is harder to clean the excess enamel off matt surfaces).

Once the top coat layer cured, I moved on to adding details using enamel paint.

Decal Decal Decal

To add some extra flare, I got some generic waterslide decals and applied them around the pieces.

The real fun part started with the custom decals.

I used Illustrator to create vector images (traced) for the FFXIV themed custom decal. In the picture above, we have the Maelstrom emblem (spent hours drawing this and ended up not using this one because I found a high-res image later...), Meteor icon, random ornament tracing from the game, and a Maelstrom captain symbol.

I then printed the images on a transparent decal paper.

After the inks dried, I added a top coat layer to protect the ink from getting soaked in the water later.

I waited for the top coat to cure then carefully sliced the decals out as close as possible to the edges of the images.

Once applied, the decals came out nicely on the brighter backgrounds (like on the red sleeves in the image above). But the ones that went on the black pieces didn't work out as nice.

The problem here is that a regular household inkjet printer does not print using white ink. This means that it relies on the white color of a generic printer paper for the printed color to look right. As you can see in the image above, this becomes a problem when I apply the emblem printed on a transparent decal on black surface.

To remedy the situation, I got some white decal paper and tried the whole process again.

The result (emblem, rank, warrior symbol) came out much better with the white decal paper. Though the challenge here is that I had to trim the decal perfectly to the edge of the printed images. This is generally easy but it also becomes a bit of a challenge when dealing with more complex images like the meteor symbol. For this particular decal, I ended up just using the transparent decal and painted a portion of the surface in a bright chrome color so that the color of the decal will look right.

Once all the decals dried, I sealed them all with a final layer of top coat (gloss finish on the metallic colors and matt finish on everything else).

Metal Etching

For this particular kit, I wanted to try something new I haven't tried before so I got myself these:

I got myself some metal etching to add some extra detail on the chest of the mech. I could have applied this as-is but I wanted to give it a yellowish tint first. Unfortunately, I can't just go ahead and apply clear yellow paint on the metal etching pieces as it will easily peel off. So I got myself a metal primer.

After applying the metal primer on etchings and letting it cure, I went ahead and applied some clear yellow on top.

Once the paint cured, I sealed it with top coat and glued them on using super glue.

Note that the super glue was applied in very small amount using a tooth pick. This is because super glue does not evaporate as it cures but instead just hardens in place. As such, we want to avoid using excess glue as any overflow will leave a visible mark on the surface.

Oops Forgot The Weapon

As I was starting to get excited to do the final assembly, I realized I forgot to paint the axe.

At this point, I was getting impatient so I brought out the lacquer paints.

As always, the first layer is glossy black base.

For the overall color, I used star bright iron (Gaia Metallic Color series).

I masked off everything but the blade, handle, and bottom pommel and painted them with bright silver candy base (Alclad II).

The nice thing about this particular silver paint is that it doesn't require a glossy black base underneath so I am able to paint it right over the iron color.

In the picture above, you can also see that I added a layer of clear red on top as well. My goal here was to add a very thin layer of clear red and add a thicker layer of clear yellow afterwards to create a gold color. unfortunately, the clear red was accidentally applied much thicker than I wanted.

As a result, the final color came out closer to bronze but I figured it was good enough.

Once the lacquer paints cured, I added a glossy clear top coat and started adding details.

I used enamel for the copper but I did not have any red and brass enamel for the rest. I carefully used the metallic yellow Gundam marker for the bolts (I recently learned that these are all lacquer). For the circles on the blade, I used water-based acrylic red to paint over the general area.

Once the red paint dried a bit, I performed an acrylic wash in a similar way to enamel wash. Instead of enamel paint, I used acrylic paint and instead of lighter fluid, I used water. Because the layer of lacquer topcoat underneath was so resistant to water, I was able to perform the wash cleanly.

Final Assembly - Maelstrom Zaku

Once all the final top coat layers cured, I was ready for the final assembly.

And the first step of assembly is... disassembly.

Once all the major parts were separated, I started adding the armors to the frame.

And to reassemble the previously separated parts...

Complete!

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Today I Learned

• Matt finish can make subtle two-tone color schemes hard to distinguish so try to make the different color tones less subtle
• Lighter fluid can eat through even lacquer if exposed for a long time so it's better to use a protective top coat before doing enamel wash even when using lacquer (forgot to take pictures but this happened while working on the axe and had to restart it from beginning)
• Transparent decal paper does not work well on dark surfaces (better to use white decal paper)

Progress Report - MG Char Custom Zaku II (1/5/21)

Frame Painting

Taking the experience from the previous project into account, I started out by masking all the joints.

This helps the model to stay posable even after it is painted.

As with all metallic colors, I start the painting with a glossy black base coat.

I used a polyurethane acrylic glossy black primer for this first layer. Polyurethane acrylic requires to be applied with a higher psi than regular acrylic paint. It starts out looking a bit thick and clunky at first but it smooths out evenly as it dries.

For the metal layer, I divided the pieces into three different colors: titanium silver, titanium gold, and copper.

After giving it a top coat, I started the assembly of the frame.

Upper body:

Lower body:

And the completed frame:

Joint Covers

I decided to paint the joint cover armor pieces metallic as well. As I did with the frame pieces, I started out with a glossy black base then I painted a chrome metal color over.

Once the chrome layer cured, I masked them and added partial candy coat layers with transparent yellow and red.

By combining transparent yellow and a little bit of transparent red, I created a gold color candy coat. (I also colored the clear color mono eye piece with transparent red while I was at it).

Exhaust Pipes

I wanted to do something different for the exhaust pipes that are found around the head, waist, and legs. Instead of the usual metallic colors, I wanted to give it a much nicer chrome finish.

I first started out by painting them with enamel black (Alclad II gloss black base).

Because the enamel black takes longer to dry than acrylic (note that I mentioned longer dry time, not longer cure time), it can produce a much nicer high gloss finish than regular acrylic glossy black paint.

Once the black layer cured, I went on and used chrome lacquer (Alclad II chrome) to give it an extra shiny finish.

Once the chrome layer cured, I sealed it with glossy top coat (Alclad aqua gloss).

Verniers

For the verniers, I also wanted to give a nicer metallic look like the exhaust pipes but I decided to try something different. Instead of using enamel black for base layer and top it with a chrome layer, I tried using a lacquer silver (bright silver candy base) directly as the base layer with no primer/surfacer.

The particular silver I used allows the application of it as a base layer without any prep layer (which is usually glossy black). This also means there is no surfacer that also acts as a filler that hides any minor scratches leftover from bad sanding work on the bare plastic. If you look at the photo above, there is a painfully visible dull area on the right half of the vernier. To prevent something like this from happening next time, either I'll have to be extra diligent with the sanding work or add a surfacer layer before the silver base.

Once the silver layer cured, I went on and used enamel transparent yellow (Alclad candy yellow enamel) to apply the candy coat.

Once again, enamel dries slowly so it resulted in an extra smooth finish.

For the bigger verniers (particularly the ones on the backpack), I wanted to color the inside with red. I masked up the vernier and used lacquer transparent red to color the inside.

Unfortunately part of the masking failed and the red spilled over. I fixed this mistake by using a q-tip soaked with lacquer thinner and gently rubbing off the red layer of paint.

I was quite surprised how well this worked. I had to be very careful to only wipe off the top-most layer and not hurt the yellow layer underneath. Fortunately, everything worked out nicely.