Unicorn Banshee Update 4

Some good progress:

Painted some of the underframe today


Had to airbrush fluorescent red on to make it look consistent.... painful taping was needed though.

Gundam markered the black on for a consistent finish.


Gotta love the fluorescent Red paint. Adds excellent detail.


Some problems I'm running into: the gold paint flakes off, so I get some shiny speckles on the blue paint. It's not too significant, but enough to make me mad.

Banshee update 3

Progress has been good so far - just lots and lots of sanding and painting.

The pink Psycho Frame piece it seems are made of some sort of smoother plastic that is more difficult to paint than the regular plastic pieces.

As an example, here you can see how tough it is for the primer to stick to the piece:


And after one coat of gold (acrylic paint mind you), there is lots left to be desired with pink showing through:


However, after a final coat of gold is applied (make sure it's a THIN layer)


Random shots of my WIP:

Some pink showing through (though the pink bits won't show on the final product):


And just a preview:


Waist and midsection next!

New Decals for the Banshee!

Got these from the ebay user: globaltoy. They are pretty nice preformed water decals - I put them next to the ones I got from Neograde. And it was reasonable shipping time for these (~2 weeks).




Not going to go too crazy with the decals, but I want the options.

Unicorn Banshee Update 2

Testing out the gold to see how it looks with the shield before I begin painting it. I think it's going to turn out great!


Tested out some paints with the airbrush, got a good mixture of the blue and black.


Began work on the shield as my first test subject before I went into it head first, after sanding (800 and 1500 grit) and priming (Tamiya fine primer):


I think the result turned out fantastic. Can't wait to see the finished product :)


Here is a pic of the paints I used:


- Tamiya Fine Plastic Primer
- Tamiya Thinner
- Model Master Acryl Shiny Gold (1/2)
- Tamiya Black
- Tamiya Blue

Unicorn Banshee Update 1

Worked on my Banshee over the past few days. Progress is coming along great.

I finished cutting, sanding and cleaning all of the pieces, and began assembling the Unicorn in it's most basic state.


The reason I put it together is to get an idea of how the pieces fit together, and take the separate sections apart and finish them one at a time in a given night (I don't have a ton of time to work on Gunpla). If you are not painting your kit, this is where you can begin putting on decals.


Just for reference, I put the unsanded/untrimmed pieces of the Banshee head on to get an idea of what it's gonna look like. Looks great so far!


I also began testing paints and finishes that different washing would yield.

This is the result using spare pink pieces cut from the runner of the psycho frame:
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-I think it's obvious that the top piece is the best - it gives off a nice shine, even coat, and no color leaking through.
-Without the plastic prep, the paint pooled in certain areas. The plastic prep helped with keeping the static and maybe some molding grease I missed.
-The one on the right was not a pink piece, but you can see that the primer helped bring out the natural shine of the gold paint.
-And the bottom one, well, never do that. Color leaks through, and it just is bad in general without sanding.
Note: I used 600, 800, then 1500 grit sandpaper, in that order, to sand, when I did.


^^I sanded, then began priming the Psycho Frame of the shield with Tamiya Fine Primer (white) (sorry for the bad pics with standard flash)


Mixing paint, I'm using:
- Tamiya Acrylic Thinner
- Model Master Acryl Shiny Gold 1/2 (#4407)

I used a mixing ratio of approximately 1:2 (thinner:paint) with slightly less than 1 part thinner. I used a pipette to get the measurements, and got it to a slightly milky mixture - I'll be putting a tutorial up soon. I'm putting this for the airbrush newbs (like myself), because I never knew until I watched the pro shows from Japan where they really break it down for you. Then, just evenly apply the paint.


^^ Here is the result after painting with the airbrush.



^^ Looks great IMO. Gives off a nice shine in person too.

To get this gold, I bought 4 different golds and experimented with them in the same way with the runner pieces. I experimented with: Tamiya spray gold, tamiya bottle of Gold Leaf, Model Master Acryl Shiny Gold, and
Tamiya Titanium Gold. The Model Master turned out the absolute best in terms of shine and color.

To view the videos for the Japanese modeling TV show, visit my fellow gunpla builder's blog: S.L.'s Gunpla Blog. The videos are linked to on the right hand side.