Finished! 1/24 Hi-Nu Bust (SMS Version)

I've finished the 1/24 Hi-Nu Bust (SMS version), my first bust ever. I started it on May 7, and took about 4 months to finish. I took ~1 month off to move and play video games though, but I've put ~100 hours into this bad boy, and I could be way off with my estimate too. The hardest parts were a broken vfin and loose wiring that had to be re-wired. Decals are 80% from samuel decal, the rest are stock.

All airbrushed paints were done using PlamoColour's paint line. In summary, the Plamo paint line is very nice, and he provides a lot of paint, even in the 60mL size. The price might be the same as a large jar from another company, but the size of the bottle is about 3x larger than that. Even more value is in the 100mL bottle. The quality of the paints speak for themselves - the primer is GREAT for both resin and plastic, the paints are buttery smooth, and the matte spray leaves a VERY nice finish, and goes a long way to boot (covering this whole kit with a matte coat only took up ~40% of the bottle). My only recommendation - buy lots of paint in one order if shipping overseas, and pay attention to all of his thinning ratios!

All details were painted using a mixture of Testor's line of lacquers and enamels, Model Master's enamels, and Mr Super Metallics. I did an enamel wash using Model Master's gloss black, and as mentioned before the matte coat was provided by Plamo Colour. Decals are a mixture of the ones that came with the model and some samueldecal.com decals.  Great stuff!

I added a 1/24 size astronaut (approximately), just for scale and coolness factors. If you look on the arm, you can see I put an AE decal there for further immersion :)

Onto the pics! Shot with a Nikon D80, 24-70mm f/2.8 and a 70-200mm f/2.8, spot lighting with a daylight-frequency bulb.




















Closed vents:


Night shot:




A size comparison - note: the model on the left is on a stand.

C&C always welcome! I had a lot of fun building this bust! Thanks to all for the valuable feedback, and a HUGE thanks to Plamo colour for letting me try out the paints!

Lesson's learned: do NOT use liquid masking solution. Period.

Unrelated note: I have liquid masking solution for sale.

1/24 SMS Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 5

Almost completed with everything - gluing is going well. Just thought I'd document the LED wiring for those who haven't done it before (I haven't) and want to see what goes into it.

It's relatively easy, just some minor preparation and forethought goes into the process before final assembly to ensure all the wires are long enough and hidden. With a little bit of epoxy glue, I've adhered them to the places where they would fit the best.

1/24 Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 4

I have now added a flat finish, two pieces need white patch-up paint tomorrow, but I believe everything else is in final order. Should be finished here soon. Astronaut was added to add some scale to the kit. Should look pretty neat with the final presentation I'm hoping.

Pics here:








^^The friggin wiring was so small (22 gauge I believe), that when I pulled on it, it came undone. One trip to home depot and 1 hour of re-wiring with 18-gauge wire later, and we are in business!

When I have time I will finish this kit! C&C and criticisms ALWAYS wanted!

1/24 SMS Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 3

Eensy update, got lots done though.

Most parts painted and given a nice glossy shine with Future. Panel lining has begun, and I pre-fit everything to make sure everything will fit well. I'm thinking so.



Things left: Minor painting for parts, decals, flat coat, final gluing and assembly. Yay!

1/24 Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 3

Details, details, details.... LOTS of handpainting, this is sort of the highlight of it, but I've had to handpaint a lot of silver details in.

Once I finish with these last few phases of painting, it's onto clearcoating and decals.

Kit Review: SMS 1/100 Nightingale (NG Version)

1/100 NG Nightingale (SMS Version)
Manufacturer: SMS
Cast Quality: 10/10.
All quality pieces, no weak spots from what I could tell, details well preserved. The kit is VERY large for being a 1/100 scale kit. The shoulder pieces are the size of a 1/100 model on it's own! Some shallow panel lines in the cast, but they can be easily fixed with a scribing tool. The box is HEAVY and VERY big - always a good feeling when it comes to models :)


























The tail section is huge!

1/24 SMS Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 2

During my work in progress, I combined a few of the different brands of paint to compare against the Plamo Color paint line. I've used 4 different white paints so you (and I) can see the difference between paints.

I'll let the pics speak for themselves.








My experience with the Plamo Color primer has been wonderful - I prefer it over the other 2 - Mr. Resin Surfacer comes out very light, and the Mr. Surfacer is nice, but can cobweb with the wrong mixture, and both can be expensive. However, the Mr. Hobby thinner smells nice.

As for the whites, they are all the same. The only major difference being that the acrylic paint doesn't run the risk of thinning the primer underneath.

I am doing a pre-shaded build this time around, and I've got most of the white, blue and red parts done.

So far I have to say, the paints are easy to work with. The only weird thing was that I used the prescribed mixing ratio (1:1), and had issues with it being a bit too thick coming out of my AB. So from then on I just added a little bit more thinner. They paint on nice and smooth and are very consistent throughout. The best part is how big even the 30mL bottles are.

I think I'm going for a fairly standard color scheme, but with a red chin - I think it turned out looking quite neat.






Note: I know there are details to be added to the blue v-fin holder, that will be painted a different color, and details painted accordingly.

As you can tell the colors are vibrant. The 'darker' blue is straight out of the bottle, and the main color is with a bit of white added.

For the yellow parts, I wound up painting a primary layer of white, then yellow. However, it's slightly more greenish than I would like so I may go back and re-do it with a foundational layer of orange or red.



I began to put on some decals and use the Mr Hobby products (Mark Softer and Mark Setter), and holy cow these products are worth every penny. The silver in the picture below was painted with Plamo Color's Silver, it paints on pretty good, but is hard to hand paint I've noticed. I believe it is more for airbrushing.



Also, I began to paint some details. The silver is just a simple silver lacquer from Model Master, and the copper is Mr Metal Color, however the red is the lacquer from Plamo color. It was very easy to paint, self-leveled and is very vibrant to boot. I know I may have made little mistakes, but I plan on going back and touching those up.

1/24 Hi-Nu Bust WIP - Part 2

Update time.

I recently was asked by Plamo Color if I would be interested in using his paints for this build. I admit, I was curious to see how his paints fared, and it was great that he was a model builder FIRST, and a paint guy second. I was also cool with this because he told me he was merely providing the paint, and he wanted me to be honest in my review. So I will be.

I'm going to be testing his paint vs Mr. Hobby and Tamiya, two of the larger, more widely accepted 'quality' brands.

That said, here are the paints he sent me, and the packaging (which was nice, and came super fast from the UK)



Keep in mind I did not use Photoshop to enhance these colors. I am a huge fan of how vibrant his colors are (I chose these on purpose).

I wanted to delve right into priming, so I used the primer and his thinner at his prescribed ratio (40primer:60thinner).


It sprayed on quite nicely and was very easy to work with. Easier than Mr. Surfacer (which can be a hassle at times), and went on much easier than Mr. Resin Primer Surfacer in my previous experience with it. I will have a full head to head on my next WIP update (probably tomorrow).

The results of the primer speak for themselves: smooth, and this is with one coat in many areas (some requires a minor touch up spray). How it actually adheres to paint will be tested later.




Doing the math, I'm probably going to start using his primer exclusively now - it is cheaper than Mr Hobby and all it's variants per mL, and is at par, if not better than it. I sprayed almost the entire head today and barely used 1/8 of the bigger bottle. I'm officially a fan.