PG Aile Strike Gundam Gets Some Paint

So today I got a chance to do some airbrushing which I haven't gotten a chance to do for about a month. Always fun getting everything set back up and mixing the paints I needed for the day. Most of the pieces that I airbrushed today were for my Perfect Grade Aile Strike Gundam that I am currently talking my time building. Today was devoted to the white armor pieces that go around the legs. First off let me show you the airbrush that I have been tooling around with for the past few months.

This is my Paasche Model H, it is a single action siphon feed airbrush. So far this little baby have been alright to me, It's a bit fickle at times but nothing I can't work out. I'm looking into getting a newer gravity fed airbrush as soon as I have the extra cash. It would be nice to buy the Tamiya Dual Action one but its a bit expensive.

Heres a quick shot at the paints that I use, notice they are all Tamiya. I have found that these paints shoot really well and are very easy to clean up. Best thing about most Tamiya paint too is that it is Alcohol based so instead of getting bottle after bottle of thinner you can just use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.

Earlier this week I prepped all the pieces that I painted today. I shaved any nubs off, sanded the whole piece smooth, then prep sanded them with 1000 grit to give them a smooth yet textured surface for the paint to stick to. After standing I did probably the most important thing, I washed all the pieces. If you are going to paint, I can't stress how important it is to wash your plastic. Washing will get any of the greases from your hand along with the release they use to get the plastic out of the molds off your model, this allows the paint to stick much better. I just soaked them in some warm water with regular dish soap, gave them a quick scrub and rinsed them all very well. After I set them on a paper towel to air dry so I didn't add any scratches or lint to them.

Now that I had all my pieces prepped I was ready to spray today. As I said before I sprayed all the white armor pieces for the legs today but I didn't just spray them white. I decided I wanted to do some preshading so in order to do this I first had to spray the pieces a darker color. Preshading is basically adding depth to a piece by simulating shadowing and highlighting. As I said before first you lay down a darker color, then once that dries you can spray a lighter color on top and graduate it out so that you create shadows.

 Heres one of the larger pieces, notice its relatively darker towards the edges and panel lines. This is because thats where most of the shading is going to occur.

Another picture for good measure...So I took my time spraying all the pieces I had to do today (about 35 all together). The color I used was a mixture of white and black to make a grey, then I added a touch of blue to cool down the whole mixture. I premixed all my paint so when I do the other white pieces the tone will be the same. I took a break for dinner and came back to shoot the white on top (always a good idea to let the paint sit for a bit before you spray another layer.

I may have had the white balance on my camera a bit off so the shading is a bit hard to make out. You'll notice it along the panel lines and edges its slightly darker. This subtle shading will look great once it is together and panel lined. This effect is achieved by starting out in the center of the piece (where you want it to be the lightest) and working your way out. Once you get close to the edges you pull the airbrush back to increase the mist size, this will cause a graduating effect allowing some of the black to show through. Once this is done I tend to turn up the pressure on my gun a bit and spray a large mist from a distance, this will blend and soften the edges.

A few more pictures for good measure again....

The shading looks particularly good on small pieces with a lot of panel lines and edging. Its a bit more noticeable on this piece. I must admit its a bit tricking to learn exactly how to do this, there are many factors that come in such as the consistence of the paint, the pressure, how close you are to the piece, the size of the needle (In my case, since I'm using a single action airbrush). I'm still learning and I wouldn't know anything I know now if it wasn't for forums and other bloggers. One page that I often refer to is Gamera Baenre's Page, he has many great video tutorials to help you along if you are just getting into Gunpla. His work in my opinion is awesome and is one of the reasons I started this blog.

So thats was a bit of my day today, I got the wood for my spray booth and Ill be working on that tomorrow along with finishing up some of the painting I started today. I think there are 4 pieces I didn't get a chance to finish.