MacrossJunkie

Wow, that is pretty insane. Never seen white turn to grey before. That looks like cases of plastic just breaking down over time rather than exposure to sunlight, particularly since areas like the chest piece would have been covered by the GBP armor. As expected, painted parts like the white on the transparent wing lights and the die cast legs are still pristine white. They must have had some very different mixtures in the plastic batches for one wing to turn sherbet orange while the other one is relatively okay.

Ah, okay. It seemed to be okay on the ABS plastic of the DX, I guess not so much for styrene. Tamiya probably figured it wouldn't matter on models since panel lining isn't usually the first thing one would do most of the time unless one is just snap fitting a model together and going straight to panel lining it and being done with it. Still, that's good to know. They must use turpentine as the thinner medium or something for it to have that kind of reaction.

I guess we're probably thinking of two different things here. I was thinking of the cases where paint has actually come off and is showing some of the plastic's color underneath rather than imperfections to the surface of the paint where the paint is still there. One would require matching the paint and touching it up or just accepting it as is, if the former scenario. If the latter, then yes, it would be just like imperfections to the plastic surface and you can hide that with a clear coat. I also get why you're saying matte since it's less reflective so it doesn't show bumps and such. Same reason one would paint a wall with a satin or matte paint if using it to project on. A gloss finish would show every bump and imperfection on a drywall surface.

In this case, Lolicon and MKT are talking about scratches or scrapes on the paint itself rather than on plastic which would require paint matching to touch it up.

Nice save at the end.

Level of air humidity or lack of it can also affect drying times. VAFI instructions say 2 drops for every 10 drops of paint or a 1:5 ratio, but I don't bother doing that as more always comes out than I intended anyway... I would say on average or 1:2 or 1:3 ratio. I don't put much in the airbrush cup at any given time so getting that ratio accidentally is easy to do.

What's wrong with the Tamiya panel line wash on Bandai plastics? I've left it on my DX VF-1S for a couple days and then cleaned off the brush touch points when I remembered to with a paper towel and/or cotton swab and some turpenoid. Cleans up perfectly.

Have you tried using the Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver (VAFI from here on)? Also what psi are you spraying it at? If it's not laying on smooth, it's because it's drying too quickly and isn't getting enough time to level. Instead of thinner, try the VAFI to slow the rate of drying so that it has more time to level. I also had the same issue until I started using VAFI mixed with the varnish.

Well, at least partial credit still goes to you for choosing to use it. Haha. I have a couple bottles of that same stuff but under the ProModeller label, still made by Flory though. Good for if you don't want to deal with fumes as it's water based. These days, I use either the Tamiya panel lining washes if I can get away with it due to me being lazy and the brush applicator is built right in so there's one less brush for me to have to clean. Otherwise I'll use an aircraft panel line wash from MIG Jimenez or mix some oil paint with odorless turpenoid. If you push in the back plate, you won't need to use the tape anymore or worry about nub rub (that sounded dirty). You can see from the pic that there's no contact made with the fin.

I like yours more actually. Yours is more of a dark gray compared to the black wash the person on TD used. My personal preference is panel lining that is not overly emphasized and used relative to the color the panel line is on. So for white, I prefer grays which is more subtle and realistic, imo. Black on white is too stark a contrast to me and doesn't look as good.

If that's referring to the panel lining, @Lolicon did his a couple weeks back.

Or stock up on decals, then when your toy looks like it's been soaking in pee, time to repaint it and apply those decals!

Just drip it in and move the ball joint about to spread it around. For the first hour, move it about every now and then so the joint doesn't seize up. Let it dry for 24 hours.

One thing to remember is that there is no cut off line with how much or how little will cause yellowing. I don't think there is a level where it causes no reaction and then after a certain point it does. It's all "how much over time is acceptable"? It's all cumulative, so if you had a toy exposed to the sunlight, even if you bring it into pitch darkness and leave it there for 10 years, whatever reaction that happened with the exposure to the UV light, even if not visible to the human eye, still remains and does not revert back. That said, the lower the better, obviously. I think the better question is how much yellowing will a certain amount of UV light cause over a given period of time? That in itself would be difficult to answer too since it depends on the plastic and all the variables that goes into making it.

Pretty easy. The "feet" provide a wide base.

Yeah, I don't see why not. Looking at that, I would start with 1 to see if that's enough to get out the blemishes. If not, then 2 and then 1. If that's still not enough then do 3, then 2, then 1. Though some good advice is to test the 1 in a minor area you wouldn't really notice to make sure it leaves a polished glossy look to the plastic and not swirls. I'd also recommend putting some masking tape over the painted areas just so you don't accidentally damage or remove any paint.

You could try Tamiya's fine and finishing compounds for light scuffs. Or if you already have some polishing compounds for cars (for removing swirls from a car's clear coat), you could try that first. If that doesn't get the scratches out, you'll likely want to start with some very fine sandpaper before using the compounds. It's hard to judge from your pics, but I would guess that you should be able to get that out with compounds alone without having to resort to sandpaper.

They changed it again? I can't even remember what they called it before that. Each name change becomes less and less memorable. I still have a bottle of it for it was still labeled as Future, but it's unlikely it will ever be emptied as I've switched to using the Vallejo Mecha line of varnishes for my gloss coating needs as it's tougher and more scratch resistant made specifically for applications that the name implies. Though I guess I would use Future for models with non-moving parts since it's cheaper to use by far.

I think most of the Bandai DXs I had have had some scuffs out of the box. The problem is that the majority of them have a very glossy smooth surface so those scratches and scuffs show quite easily. Those surface scratches aren't too bad. They can usually be buffed out with some buffing compound and a microfiber cloth if you really felt like it, just be careful not to hit the painted areas. For me, since I do stuff like clear coating them, the scratches and other surface imperfections disappear with that too.

Thanks! I actually didn't use anything like the Tamiya weathering kits for this. If curious, most of the stuff I used were either Vallejo Mecha paints or the Oilbrushers, pigments and shaders from Ammo by MIG Jimenez. I used a combination of medium grey and black Oilbrushers and airbrushing some shaders. Medium Gray and white Oilbrushers were used for the boosters along with some polished metal and black pigments, along with airbrushing. A silver oilbrusher was used with some thinner for the panel lining and also drybrushed with a stencil brush for the scratch effects. Orange and black shaders were used for the canopy. Silver and crystal blue were used to redo the lenses on the gunpod and the starboard tail fin light. silver and crystal red for the port side light. Yeah, neither did I. HLJ said they won't be shipping replacements to me until the situation with shipping to the US improves. Who knows when that would be so I just went ahead. Thanks! I also like the SV-51's battroid. It's ugly and mean looking in a good way.

I said yolo and decided to transform it anyway because I wanted to see how it turned out in the other modes GERWALK mode Fighter mode

I might as well share my first weathering job in a few years. Only took battroid pics for now because that's how I ended up, doing fighter first, then transforming it to GERWALK to do the parts exposed in that mode, and then finally battroid to get the last bits still hidden. I'll wait a few more days for the clear coat to cure before transforming it to GERWALK and fighter modes so I can take pics of those. Yamato and Arcadia versions side by side:

Ah, yes. The place where they accept all denominations including the church of Water Way Ain'ts where they don't believe in land masses being an obstacle to boats.

The 1/3000 assembled toy and the kit are structurally identical. The toy actually came first before the kit did. In addition to the assembly instructions, it also came with the same transformation manual that the toy did. When I compare the kit and the toy, the range of movement, including the legs are the same.

That was something like $2000-2100 MSRP if I recall and I think made with HDP rather than ABS? The downside to it was I think it couldn't bend the legs at all. I don't recall if it came with decals or if you had to paint it all. Still, I would have loved to have that if I could afford to blow 2k on something like that. Edit: For reference, found one of the old threads on a 1/2000 build.