In the modelling world, the journey of a thousand miles begins first by opening the user manual. Had to brush up on the manual to make sure that I was disassembling the Rick Dias correctly, wouldn’t want to suffer a broken part during this step. As mentioned before, I’ve decided to rebuild the Rick Dias because of a botched painting job that resulted in the paint being so easily stripped from the mecha. Ideally by now I should be taking photos of the finished Gundam Kyrios, but since I’m using an alternative marker for panel lining that needs more than a day to dry, I have some time to spare.
I started working on it yesterday by stripping the Clay Bazooka of its paint by the use of a file then smoothing the surface by wet sanding with a 1000 grit sandpaper. After which I washed it with water and a sponge. After drying I applied some plastic primer then after that I painted the colors that were initially on it.
So far so good. Today I also started disassembling the Rick Dias and working on the main body. For now I was able to start work on one of the legs.
I did a scratch test on the Clay Bazooka and the paint doesn’t come off anymore. Lesson learned, I’m not going to do anymore model kit builds without first applying some primer coat.
Next step of this build can be found here.
This is an invaluable bit of education. I haven’t tried fully painting my plastic models yet but I’m definitely going to prime the surface of the parts when I do dive into full model painting.
I think it depends really on the type of paint you are using. With the Gundam Spray I used for the VF-25G Messiah, I experienced no problem with the paint easily peeling off of the part.
Given the choice I would prefer to not use a primer because of the added cost.
I should save up for a compressor already because they say that you can save a lot more money on paints by mixing your own
:D
I’d love to avoid the extra cost of primers but I’m not so sure if I can if I want paint to adhere well to my models. I have access to Tamiya’s spray paints, which should be good quality.
Good point! yeah, its really worth the added cost.