YunYunFan Garage Kit Guide

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YunYunFan's Garage Kit Painting Guide

So you want to start painting garage kits and you have no idea what to do or how hard it'll be, this guide is for you

Tools

I know what you're thinking, garage kit tools are going to cost an arm and a leg but that's not true. Here's the rough cost breakdown (assuming no more inflation)

sanding tools (~$60-80), putty (~$20), pinning (~$20), glues (~$20), airbrush (~$100), compressor (~$80), brushes (~$30), misc (~$60), Paints (~$150-200), paint booth (~$100), respirator (~$30), safety goggles ($5).

total : ~$700-800

Sanding tools

Sandpaper 600 and 1200 grit - a whole pack of 5 sheets should last you 3-4 kits or more.

Needle Files (round + flat ) - Most frequently used sanding tool, get the best ones you can get: e.g. Grobet Cut # 4. I got mine used off ebay, should be $11 new for each. clean the files with brass brush.

Nippers - get a decent/cheap one, not that important.

Tweezers - get a good pair, don't need to go overboard like me with Dumont no 3 or Peer Vigor Brass Non-Magnetic AM Pattern Tweezers.

Optional sanding tools

dremel - good to have for those big tabs that you're too lazy to file

sanding sponges - a nice alternative to sandpaper, can also be used with the Mr.Polisher PRO (Hobby Tool) if you're too lazy to use files.

Putty

Tamiya Epoxy Putty - used to fill in gaps and even sculpt new pieces. Do not stock up on putty. All puttys have an expiry date. buy only as needed.

Tamiya basic putty - quick and easy to use for filling small holes.

Cyanon (white superglue)- OPTIONAL - hard to find outside of japan, good alternative to basic putty

Light curing putty - OPTIONAL - expensive, never used it. super fast curing.

Pinning tools

brass rods - get two sizes: 1.5mm - 2mm and 0.6mm- 0.8mm. For me, I use a 1.57mm and a 0.8mm rod. If you need anything smaller, just glue it.

drill bits - 0.2 mm larger than whatever rods you use.

drill/ pin vise - you can use either or. I just use a handheld cordless drill that I already have, just make sure that the chuck can handle small drill bits.

magnets -(OPTIONAL) magnets are weaker than pins since they are superglued flush with the surface. but if you want to easily exchange parts, they good for that purpose.

Glues

museum putty - good putty to hold pieces in place temporarily, but can be used in the final product.

UHU glue - nice glue for holding things in place where superglue can't

Superglue - used for just about everything.

Epoxy glue - nice alternative to UHU glue, more messy to use

Airbrush

Get at least a mid range $100 dollar airbrush such as GSI Creos or Iwata and the cleaning kit (nozzle wrench). Get a spare nozzle/needle if you want. if you are just going to get one airbrush, get a 0.3mm needle airbrush dual action.

Compressor

get the cheapest one, with a tank if possible. you're not going to use more than 30 psi. I use a tankless cheap compressor in my setup without issue.

Brushes

get cheap disposable size 0 synthetic brushes in order to save your more expensive brushes for the eyes.

Eye Painting brush.

GodHand - kamifude fine point, medium or long. I prefer long to easily draw longer lines and short for fine details. God hand is synthetic though.

For other brands: get kolinsky sable size 4/0, preferably with a large handle.

G-06br Finish Master Ultra Fine R clean stick get at 2 packs, don't get the normal size one, it's too big

Miscellaneous

Tamiya Paint Stirrer - buy it

Painting clips - get as many as needed (around 30)

Painting clip base - OPTIONAL- I use a scrap piece of wood with holes drilled in it

masking tape (10mm + 6mm)

masking tape cutting guide OPTIONAL

Masking Putty- I use Rodico 6033 putty instead, but alternatively use silly putty

liquid masking - OPTIONAL get this or masking putty

1.5 ml Eppendorf tubes - get the 1000 pack for 20 bucks

1.5 ml Eppendorf tube rack OPTIONAL

10 ml glass beakers - OPTIONAL, you can use metal paint trays as an alternative

spray pot

0.5 ml droppers

Paints:

There are three types of paints: Acrylic water based, Enamels and Lacquer. If you have a painting booth, get lacquers, otherwise use acrylics. Why choose one over the other? lacquers are better since you have more colors to choose from, shinier finish, dries much faster and doesn't clog. Cost wise they're about the same so why choose the inferior product? but whether you choose lacquer or acrylic, you will need enamel paint.

Paint brands

Tamiya Acrylic : ok 7/10, not many colors to choose from since they're mostly focused on tank model kits

Tamiya Enamels: 9/10. no complaints except no magenta

Mr.Color: 9/10, can pretty much do everything with just this one brand

Gaianotes: 9/10, pretty good, but hard to find, very similar to mr.color in terms of quality

Primers:

Mr. Surfacer 1500 WHITE. get at least 2-3 bottles.

Thinners:

Mr. Levelling Thinner 400. Get two bottles, you can use this for other brands of lacquer paint as well.

Cheap can of Lacquer thinner from the big box store for cleaning shit up.

Lighter fuel - Ronsonol or zippo for thinning enamel paints

Isopropyl Alcohol - for cleaning

basic color paints

white mr. color - get at least 5 bottles. 1 bottle is enough for 1 kit.

magenta (get 2 bottles, one bottle can lasts many 4-6 kits)

yellow (get 2 bottles)

cyan (get 2 bottles)

black (get 1 bottle)

red + brown (optional)

see color mixing section in order to know how to mix colors.

Clear Finishes:

GX100 (get 3 - 5 bottles)

GX114 matte (get 3 bottles min)

gaianotes EX-03 clear 50ml bottle (used to dilute the clear skin paints, alternatively use gx100).

Skin paints (choose this or clear skin paints)

Tamiya Flesh (avoid)

Mr. Hobby Lascivus (pretty ok, not great, easy to use for beginners)

Clear skin Paints (choose one)

gaianotes 059 + 060 (hard to get but not impossible, I got mine off robotkai, 2 bottles of each would easily last you 10-15 kits or more, I got 5 bottles of each since I live outside USA)

gaianotes 041 + 042 (easy to get, but harder to mix right vs 059/060)

modo m-214, m-211, m-212 (easy to get off ebay, never tried it though)

clear red + clear orange (mr. hobby or other brand) only if you're desperate

model kasten c-12 (impossible to get outside of japan, forget it).

Metallic paints:

dull metallic - mr.hobby or gaianotes (get some enamel versions too)

mirror metallic - alclad black base + chrome

Enamel Paints:

Orange - 2 bottles

white - get 3-4 bottles, (roughly 0.5 botttle/kit)

blue- 1 bottle

red - 1 bottle

yellow - 1 bottle

black - 1 bottle

brown - 1 bottle

clear red - 1 bottle

clear - 1 bottle

magenta -get humbrol/testors, more than 1 bottle since it's hard to get

Safety Gear

at a bare minimum you'd need:

a respirator, p100 for acrylics and/or sanding. For lacquers get NIOSH-Approved OV/P95 (use it even if you have a spray booth)

safety goggles

Spray booth vented outdoors

disposable gloves

Sanding

I won't cover sanding/pinning/puttying much because it's all over the internet and everyone does it differently. But use a p100 respirator.

Before you even sand, the first thing you do is you have to count all your pieces and make sure it's all there.

Once you confirm all the pieces are there, you have to see how each piece is going to fit with one another. This step is really important since you have to cut off tabs. I've cut off tabs that were actually not tabs. But if you screw up, it's not the end of the world, just putty it.

To cut off a tab, start with the nipper and cut off 80% of it. If it looks too fragile, don't even start with the nipper, start with the file.

with the file, start with a lot of pressure and ease off on the pressure once you get to 95% of it. Once there isn't any obvious ridge, use the 600 grit sandpaper to get rid of any scratches from the file. The less pressure you put on the file, the less deep scratches you have to take off.

Do the same for mold lines.

You can use the mr Hobby Polisher PRO if you're too lazy to sand. I plan to get it in the future and will update this guide when I do.

Pinning

Once all your pieces are sanded, it's time to pin. Use a scrap block of wood as a temporary base. First, drill a hole in the male part, and put a temporary pin that is just slightly higher than the hole that you drilled. Then, either using a rodico masking putty or liquid masking on the pin, you can mark the hole in the opposite female piece and drill. If the hole isn't precise or just slightly off, you can enlarge the hole by drilling sideways, this is easy to do with a handheld cordless drill.

Then cut the proper size pin, and superglue it to one of the pieces after you check the fit.

If you have big pieces and need extra stability, you may want to consider using 2 pins side by side.

once you finish pinning, put your model together, with museum putty for pieces you plan to glue.

Heat Bending

A lot of times, when pieces come out of the mold, it's not perfect. This is especially true for thin pieces such as hair. In order to fix these defects, what you do is heat up a bucket of water to 70 C. then dip the piece into the water with tweezers for 3 or so seconds, more if it's thicker. then take the part out and hold it in its final position while it cools. You can also do this with PVC figures.

Puttying

For small holes you can use either the epoxy putty or basic putty. Basic putty is a lot easier to use since you don't have to knead it.

For large gaps, or holes that you fucked up drilling, use epoxy putty. Mix the two piece putty with gloves. Once it's mixed put it where you need to in excess amount. Use water if it gets too sticky. You can save a lot of work by molding the putty before it hardens.

To mold the putty, apply water to the other piece without the putty. Fit the two pieces together and take it apart slowly. the water should prevent it from sticking with the other piece. Reshape any pulled pieces and trim off the excess.

Then once the epoxy putty is hardened after 12 hours, you can sand it down.

Cleaning

Next you need to get the release agent off your pieces, they usually use something like vaseline. So get a bucket filled with water and dishsoap. and swirl your piece in it and leave it in for 5-6 hours. Then rinse it in a bucket of clean water.

Painting

The general painting steps are: primer --> paint base colors --> paint details --> clear coat

Thinning paints

Always stir your paints with the tamiya stirrer before getting them out. You can use the scoops instead of the dropper to get smaller amounts of paint, use the gradations of the 1.5ml Eppendorf tubes to get an idea of how much paint you have.

for airbrush (paint: thinner), use 1:1 ratio up to 1:2 ratio. Generally I use 1:1 ratio for everything. I generally make a 1 ml batch, and leftover paint is poured back in the Eppendorf tube for future use.

You can thin the paint up to 1:5. But using paints too thin needs more patience since it causes the paint to easily drip, you'd have to let the layers build up slowly.

for brush painting, use unthinned up to 1: 2 ratio depending on what you need to brush

Airbrushing Technique

first hook your airbrush up to the compressor. pop up the dial on the pressure regulator and twist it to the pressure that you want plus 3 to 4 psi higher. Press the button on your airbrush make sure the pressure drops to the pressure you want. Use 30 psi for primers/clear coats/base coats and 20 psi for general painting/highlighting/gradients.

if you are new to airbrushing, practice with water in the cup. press the trigger down first before pulling back or else you get splatter.

then put on your respirator, goggles and gloves. check for respirator fit by doing negative and positive pressure test. if you smell paint, you're doing something wrong.

Next practice on disposable plastic spoons.

Spray 3 to 7 cm away from the object in short 1 second bursts. For larger objects, you can spray further away with 10 to 15 second bursts. You'll eventually get a feel for how far you should be away from the object after a while.

it's important to keep the airbrush moving slowly or else paint will accumulate too much in one spot and drip. keep checking for an even coat and fill in the missing spots.

you should let the lacquer/enamel paint dry for at least 5 min before a second coat and 2 to 4 hours for acrylic.

Getting base coats should take you less than 1 day to get decent at it. The biggest mistake you can make is getting too much paint on it and it starts dripping or not letting it dry before a second coat, where you'd get popcorning. you can fix popcorning by spraying just thinner and re-dissolve the paint.

Primer

Once you're confident in your airbrushing technique, it's time to prime your pieces. use the airbrushing technique I mentioned above. Always use WHITE primer. why? because primer color bleeds through the final paint. so if you use grey, your pieces would look dead and grey. it's not so important for darker colors but for any light colors, it'll show.

so why do you see so many grey pieces online? because it's easy to see the details and/or where you fucked up sanding. At best, I'd put on grey primer, repair sanding errors and strip the gray primer.

A bottle of surfacer 1500 lasts 5-6 kits anyways so it's not that expensive. Don't go crazy on having a thick coat of primer, unless you want to hide the green epoxy putty or whatever marks you left behind.

Base coats

Lacquer paint re-dissolves any lacquer layers below. Therefore, DO NOT do an overcoat of 1 color and paint the 2nd color on top. Always fully mask the part you don't want paint on.

In my example above, there are 3 colors: light blue, dark blue and skin. Paint the skin --> light blue --> dark blue. It doesn't really matter what the order is, but it's easier if you go from light to dark

Wait at least 4 hours after airbrushing the last coat before masking. Use tweezers to put the tape in place starting from the edges and layer the tape. If you need a thinner tape, use scissors to cut the tape with or without the cutting guide.

You can use plastic wrap in place of tape for big sections after the second layer of tape or so.

for odd shaped pieces of masking you have two options: putty or liquid mask. I've never had luck with liquid masks. but with putty it's pretty easy to put on and adjust with tweezers.

you can remove the tape right away after airbrushing with tweezers for lacquer paints, especially thin coats. for thick coats or acrylic, wait at least overnight to remove tape. If you find any spots that didn't have paint, you can just re-mask that spot after it dries and spray it again. Alternatively use a brush if it's a very tiny spot.

If you screw up by painting too thick and have the paint bleed through the tape, you'd have to strip the paint and start over.

Highlights and Gradients

Make clear paint. Mix 0.5 ml of gx 100 with a small drop of paint (~0.1 ml) darker or different color paint depending on your model. then go into the recessed area of your model and start spraying.

If the crevices of the model is hard to reach, then spray lighter colors on the exposed sections of your model instead. For lighter colors on top of darker colors however, you don't have to use clear paint and just use the paint straight out of the bottle.

here is an example of highlights. I started with grey/grey primer, and sprayed white in the center. Notice that it's no longer pure white compared to if I just sprayed white primer. It'll always be slightly grayish.

Note that you can also use enamels for this process if you're scared of screwing up.

Painting details

This is where enamels are used. Enamels don't mix with lacquer or acrylic. so you can even paint white enamel on top of black lacquer. You can see in my example above that there's lacquer paint on where the enamel paints should be, but it doesn't matter since it got covered with enamel.

First make sure your surface is glossy. I never buy matt/flat paint for this reason. If it's not glossy, spray some gx100 or any clear lacquer on top before proceeding.

My rule of thumb is, if whatever detail is larger than the brush you use, just spray it. For, buttons and ultra small lines, it's easier to use a brush. Remember to thin your enamel paints with the lighter fuel.

By now, I'm pretty sure you fucked up at this point and get enamel paint on where you don't want it to go. But that's ok because now would be a good time to bring out the G06br clean stick. Dip the clean stick in a beaker of lighter fuel, dab the excess and wipe off the paint where you fucked up. If the screwed up paint gets to where your clean stick can't reach, use a clean brush dipped in lighter fuel and brush it aside.

Using enamels for details makes sure that it's almost impossible to have a bad paint job.

If there's more than 1 layer/color of enamel detail needed, do another clear coat with GX100 on top of your 1st enamel paint, and then enamel the 2nd layer of paint. This way, if you screw up, it's no big deal.

This is what I had to do in the example where I had to do enamel gold on top of the black enamel, or the silver enamel on top of the blue enamel in the collar.

Once you're happy with the results. spray gx114 and your piece is done.

Painting Skin

Painting skin with lascivus is pretty easy. Use cl01 for base coat, and spray the crevices with cl03.

clear skin now for the clear skin method, it's pretty easy but more tedious.

First, mix up 50:50 ratio of 059:060 gaianotes in a 1.5 ml eppendorf tube and set aside. It should look like blood.

Then get a 1.5 ml eppendorf tube, fill it with 0.5 ml of clear, 0.5 ml of thinner, and 1 scoop (with the tamiya paint stirrer, roughly 0.05 to 0.1 ml) of the 50:50 mix. the result should look like light tomato jelly (see below picture for reference).

Spray this diluted mix on the model. The guide in japanese says to spray clear primer (finisher's) but we don't have that here, so spray gx100 all over first. It should take you 4 - 6 coats or so to get light color skin. If it doesn't take 4 coats (too little coats or too many), adjust the dilution. Make sure to dry between coats of at least 10 min.

Now that your model looks like a pale vampire, it's time to add the highlights. Since there's a ton of work you did to get to this point, you can use enamels for highlighting. Use clear red enamel, or fluorescent red/pink. If you screw up, just wipe it off with lighter fuel and try again. start with spraying the crevices and work your way out.

this one is an example of the clear skin I did with the Abigail Williams Kit, I diluted it too much and had to do 6-7 coats. If you err on the side of diluting it too much it's ok, it's just going to take longer. But if the paint is too concentrated, it's no good. From the picture you can see that the clear skin method is clearly superior to lascivus (carlos.jpg).

Once you're done, spray GX114, multiple coats if necessary to get it matte.

you can adjust the ratio of 059:060 depending on your preference. more pink is generally preferred. My Abigail Williams is 60% pink. If you have a tan colored model, go heavy on the orange.

Stripping paint

by now you should be able to paint 99% of the model minus the eye (or skin, which sometimes I leave for last).

But what if you super fucked up a piece and need to repaint it. wat do? use glove, dip paper towels in isopropyl alcohol, and start wiping the paint off. You can also dip the entire piece in alcohol. For crevices use a toothbrush.

if the paint is stubborn. use lacquer thinner but make sure to use eye protection

Eye Painting

now eye painting seems hard at first, but it's not hard just tedious. Don't be intimidated by those videos that did the eye in 10 min, it's unrealistic for unskilled people like us. But with enough practice, you can do it in 4 hours or so. Otherwise stick to decals.

First you either have to clear coat the primed head with gx100 until shiny. If you're painting with lascivus, paint the skin first while masking the white eye part out with putty, then spray gx100.

outline

first have a reference image. use this as a guide, for the example below I used this.

Use enamel orange. why orange and not black? because I tried outlining with black, and it's a giant pain to erase your mistakes. With orange, it's easy erase and hide mistakes.

twist off a cap of the 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube and scoop some orange enamel paint on it. And pour at least two different 10 ml beakers with a little bit of lighter fuel, one for the cleanstick and the other for cleaning your brush.

Use unthinned orange enamel or very lightly thinned with lighter fluid. Dip brush in the lighter fuel if it gets too gunked up or too thick.

Draw the eye lash. it should be on the top of the fold of the eye socket. It's ok if it looks sloppy. use the g06br to make the eye lash look neat. if you're completely unsatisfied, wipe off the entire eye with the cleanstick. You can wipe off tiny crevices that your clean stick can't reach by using a clean brush dipped in lighter fuel.

then look at your reference photo. see how many different extra lashes you have to add to the eyelash. start your paint brush from the eye lash and go outwards. and use the clean stick to make it sharp. Try not to fuck up the underside, the top side is easy to wipe off, but not the underside.

this step should take you roughly 1 hr per eye since you'd be making a ton of mistakes.

then move on to the eye ball. again, try to match the reference picture, and don't worry about wiping off your mistakes. Do the major separations of the eye, but not the details. when you do the other eye, make sure to check for symmetry and/or reference picture.

for the eyelid fold, do the same process, paint a big line on top of the eyelash, and thin the line using the clean stick.

And finally do the eyebrow, which should be very easy at this point.

painting the rest

now that you get the outline done, it's time to celebrate since the hard part is over. check the other parts of the face for any unwiped paint that may have accidentally got there using sunlight or a very strong light. then spray gx100 on top of the outline and let dry for at least 10 min if you spray thin or up to 4 hours if you spray thick.

Next use the brush to add black/brown to the eye lash/brow. Alternatively spray the eyebrow if there is a gradient. it should take you a lot faster this time since you already have the outline. then check for unintended paint on other parts of the model, and then spray gx100.

for big sections of the eye, spray the enamel. it's easier to get an even coat with spraying than using a brush. Make sure to let the gx100 dry at least 4 hours before using masking tape. mask loosely where the paint would go with tape and spray. It doesn't have to be perfect since you clean the excess with the wiping clean stick.

AND repeat this process until the eye is done. GX100--> enamel --> check stray paint--> GX100 --> enamel and so on.

if you are using acrylic, use acrylic clear but avoid using vallejo since that clear dries soft.

Below is an example of how I did it:

here I'm spraying enamel for the eye shadow, note how I didn't bother masking properly and got paint in the middle of the eye.

here is what eye shadow looks like when you're done using the cleanstick to clean the parts you didn't mask

Repeat same process masking + spray for base eye color. i clean sticked the bottom bit of the blue since it's part of the design

I didn't like the color so repainted it darker blue (not shown). Then, it was time to add white highlight at the bottom of the iris. For this, I sprayed white enamel, and took me 8+ attempts since I couldn't align the airbrush properly and sprayed the wrong spot. I had to aim below where I wanted to get the gradient effect. After the white is airbrushed, I used the cleanstick to remove the top part of the white , making a nice clean line that lines up with the eye shadow.

finally I drew the pupil with a brush and the white/brown outlines for the eyelash. Depending on the model you can draw the final outline with brown/black before spraying the colors and/or skin. I mistakenly sprayed the mouth before the skin, but that's not that big of a deal. I also sprayed it with too dark of a color, which I later fixed.

Now that your eye is done. mask the eye with the rodico putty or liquid masking. use tweezers to adjust the putty into the final position. or just use liquid putty if you have luck with that.

Paint the skin with the airbrush if you're doing the clear skin method. And then enamel the blush with clear red, spray the mouth and brush the eyebrow.

Finally re-mask the eye and spray everything with gx114.

if you find that you fucked up something, you can spray with gx100 again and recolor the things that you need with enamel, as is the case with the color of the mouth.

Color mixing

you can mix all colors that you want from 3 primary colors: cyan magenta and yellow. plus any white and black. You can also do it from blue red yellow, but you can't get good purple from it. this saves you a ton of money.

So how do you know which color to mix? easy. use GIMP photo editing software. it's free. use the eye dropper tool and then double click on the color, and the CYMK tab. it shows you the ratio of CYMK you need to mix to get your desired color + white/black.

for this example, this is the hair color. use magenta: yellow in roughly a 28: 43 (magenta: yellow), with a little bit of black. or 1 to 1.5 magenta to yellow, which gives you a really dark orange, then add a pindrop of black and use a lot of white to get it to the right color.

be very careful when adding black, a little goes a long way. But for my abby kit, i find the reference picture too orange, so I went with blonde by adding more white to orange.

Mix at least twice the amount you need and save the paint in the 1.5ml Eppendorf tubes. label the tube with a sharpie.

Here are some basic colors:

Blue - pretty much cyan, they use the same pigment for blue anyways.

Purple - 2:1 magenta + blue

Red - 1:1 magenta + yellow

Pink - red + white

Blonde - orange + white

Orange - red + yellow

Brown - red + black, or orange + black

Green - yellow + blue/cyan

buy paints you use a lot of like red and brown if you're lazy.

Assembly

And that's it, now that you're finished, make a base for it, either buy the acrylic base from e2046, which is your best and cheapest option, or be like me and make it out of wood. Glue any small pieces you need with superglue, and hold any temporary pieces together with museum putty (like her bikini). I have since repainted her mouth a lighter color and her hair more orange. Just know that you can always fix/repaint things if necessary. I hope you find this guide useful. Also make sure to clean your airbrush after every session and use safety googles while doing so.