MG Hyaku Shiki; consistency is a witch!

[DarKev]

Hello Folks

Okay I am about to admit this to the world. I am about to give up. I was attempting to recreate the gold effect on a gold chrome stripped 1/100 MG Hyaku Shiki kit and I just can't get a consistent finish.

Whoops let me back up a bit. I stripped the molded gold chrome off the kit parts using formula 409. I then started assembly. Each time I got to a step that required the chrome armor, I air-brushed the parts frist with chrome silver and then a mixture of transparent yellow and orange. to get the "gold" effect.

One minor problem in the process the more of the transparent paint you airbrush, the darker the gold you get. Now this is all well and good, but if you make a mistake and spray just a moment too long the piece gets toooooooo %@#@$#$#^ dark. So instead of a consistent gold surface I'm all over the board on each part I airbrush.

So unless I can somehow get the finish I was hoping for, I going to go retro on this thing, "FLAT Tamaya YELLOW"!!!

Any comments, suggestions or similiar ranks are appreciated.

DarKev

[Mr. Badwrench]

Consistency is a kindly old wise woman?
This sounds like a tough nut to crack. Perhaps you could ramp up the pressure, say 30, 35, even 40 psi, open up the airbrush and spray from about 18 inches away. Treat the airbrush like a spray gun. You'll get broader coverage, without the dark overlapping transitions. You'll also go through paint faster, but that doesn't sound like it will be a problem, if the results are worth it.

Another thing, you could turn the problem to your advantage. Mask off individual panels, and paint them one at a time. If the depth of color differs a bit from panel to panel, fine. It makes for an interesting scale effect, sort of like what Trek modelers try to achieve with aztecing.

[[][][]]

Yeah, that is a tuffy. I suppose if nothing else, you could have all of the part a dark shade to maintain consistancy. I would actually like to see what Mr. bardrench mentioned, it would make for a cool and unique paintjob. But whata ever you do, please DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT do the retro yellow.

[DarKev]

Hello Folks:

A bit of Clarification. My consistency problem is between armor parts, not on a single armor part. This would be the third time I've stripped (thank the modeling gods for the guy that invented S.a.K.) the gold paint off the thing and tried the process again. I'm getting better but my consistency is still a negative number on a 1 to 10 positive scale. By the way, what's wrong with the retro yellow??? My patience is rapidly running out on this project and retro yellow is looking better and better each time I strip the "gold" paint away.

DarKev

Yeah, that is a tuffy. I suppose if nothing else, you could have all of the part a dark shade to maintain consistancy. I would actually like to see what Mr. bardrench mentioned, it would make for a cool and unique paintjob. But whata ever you do, please DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT do the retro yellow.

[[][][]]

I was just kidding in that post, is all. Theres nothing wrong with it, just some kits look better in gloss (metallic). You could go with yellow, It wold still look nice, dont get me wrong. Well, after a thourough hours woth of searching (I want the paint a gold finish on a future model, so this knowledge would benifit me as well)...I got nothing. All I can say is fiddle w/ the airbrush I guess. Try misting it at a lower pressure or making the spray broader, but in light layers untill you get the shade you want. Thats really all I found out in my shearching. Sorry bro.

Edit: Oh yeah, sorry to go off topic, but how do you hyperlink in this forum?

[Kylwell]

Having done this trick once or twice all I can say is try to build in such a way that you can spray all at once.

I know, that makes it all so simple.

In reality it's a pain in the arse. You end up painting them in a row, then looking for defects and re-spraying what needs to be darker, then spraying a few of the others when you get the first too dark...sigh...

I tend to thin transparent a bit thinner than I do my usual paints and work slowly, running a few thin coats and trying to build up slowly.

[Mr. Badwrench]

Edit: Oh yeah, sorry to go off topic, but how do you hyperlink in this forum?

There are a couple of way to do it. You can simply cut and paste a url in, like this:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/
...where the url appears unchanged, what you see is what you get. When you hit the submit button, the url will become active. You can also do it like this:
{url=http: //www.starshipmodeler.com/}click me!{/url}
...but replace the round brackets with square ones, like in your name, []. When posted, the result will look like this:
click me!
This is especially useful for those url's that are three million characters long, which, when written out the longhand way cause the screen to stretch out five or six times the width of my monitor, requiring most people to scroll back and forth anoyingly just to read the thread.

Back to your regularly scheduled topic.

[Go Flight]

Maybe try using Alclad II. It comes in a gold -
http://www.alclad2.com/lacquer_colors_closeup.html

or how about Bare Metal Foil? It comes in gold as well.
http://www.bare-metal.com/foil.htm

[[][][]]

Thx Mr. Badwrench, for explaining the hyperlink, speaking of metal foil (and the skiki for that matter, it brought a page to mind). This one was done in gold foil, I think it was a pretty good job. Good luck on ur delima.

[DarKev]

Hello Folks!

Well I think my problem is solved. Taking Cill Chainnigh's suggestion I tried to find some alternative options while I was out of town on Business. While I did find the Alcad II line at a Book/Hobby/Gaming store they didn't have gold. But they did have a whole host of gold colors in various gaming figure paints. I finally settled on a "Polished Gold" from the "Game Color" line by the Italian company Vallejo. From what I can tell, its a darn near perfect match to some old pictures I have of a "gold" painted Hyaku Shiki in a Z-Gundam Hobby Japan Modeling Book I still have.

So Folks, as always Thanks for all your help and suggestions!!!

DarKev

Maybe try using Alclad II. It comes in a gold -
http://www.alclad2.com/lacquer_colors_closeup.html

or how about Bare Metal Foil? It comes in gold as well.
http://www.bare-metal.com/foil.htm

[KingofSka]

Why don't you try mixing the clear yellow and chrome silver prior to airbrushing?

I'm thinking 1:1 ratio, or more silver to less clear yellow.
The paint should be consistent when thoroughly mixed.

I think it's easier than spraying silver, and then clear yellow.

It's what I planned to do when I finish constructing my HGUC Shiki.

[onezero]

Alternatively, you could spray ALCLAD gold over a gloss black base. *That* would give you consistency... You get a chrome shine to it if you first spray gloss black, then several clear gloss coats. ALCLAD does well over Tamiya acrylics, as well as Testors' enamels (but let the undercoats thouroughly cure before you do the gold bit)

[[][][]]

Why don't you try mixing the clear yellow and chrome silver prior to airbrushing?

I'm thinking 1:1 ratio, or more silver to less clear yellow.
The paint should be consistent when thoroughly mixed.

I think it's easier than spraying silver, and then clear yellow.

It's what I planned to do when I finish constructing my HGUC Shiki.

I just checked in to see and the forums are back up, im so happy! About the mix, I dont think it will work. It seems that the clear mixturee is sprayed over the silver so the silver base would show through and create a metallic yellow+orange paint mix (otherwise known as gold) the mixture you mentioned would probobally give you a toatally different effect (or color for that matter). Show us some pics when you are finished DarKev.