YunYunFan Garage Kit Guide

🦄 A little bit of positivity for everyone :D

YunYunFan's Garage Kit Guide

So you want to start painting garage kits and you have no idea what to do or how hard it'll be. This will just be a simple guide to get you started.

Where to get Garage Kits

Original Kits Wonfes Yahoo Auctions JP

Re-casts GK-M https://www.shop2000.com.tw/GK-M they're the best recast site. Pretty good customer service, very fast at recasting kits, and you'd have to prepay pre-orders

e2046 https://www.e2046.com/figure.php they're pretty mediocre. slow to recast kits, may be a recast of a recast. If you buy one kit from them and shipped, you don't have to prepay pre-orders.

aliexpress it's pretty much gambling. I did get a kit once and it's ok.

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 in leafbux:

sanding tools (~$60), putty (~$20), pinning (~$20), glues (~$20), airbrush (~$120), compressor (~$80), brushes (~$30), misc (~$50), Paints (~$150), paint booth (~$100), respirator (~$30), safety goggles ($5).

total : ~$700

Sanding tools

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

Files (round + flat ) get the best ones you can get like Grobet since you'd be using this tool a lot.

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

Tweezers get one good one. I use a brass tweezer.

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

Epoxy Putty

used to fill in gaps and even sculpt new pieces.

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 at least two sizes, a big fat 1.5mm rod and a smaller one at around 0.8mm. Use pliers or your nippers to cut them.

drill bits 0.1 mm larger than whatever rods you use.

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

Glues/putty

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, but i prefer UHU glue.

Airbrush

absolutely necessary. it's a lot easier than brushing by hand. Get at least mid range $100 dollar airbrush such as GSI creos or Iwata. And also get the cleaning kit (in order to take apart the airbrush nozzle etc). Some people go crazy with a separate airbrush for enamel and lacquer, and 0.3mm and 0.5 needle for small detail and large coverage. But a 0.3mm airbrush is all you need, if you clean it well.

Compressor get the cheapest one possible, possibly with a tank. you're not going to use more than 30 psi.

Brushes

since you're using an airbrush for most of the big stuff, use brushes for the small stuff. get at least two of size 0 brush, the cheap disposable synthetic ones for general use.

Eye Painting brush.

GodHand get kamifude fine point, medium or long. I prefer long to get easier lines, and short for fine details. God hand have nice handles

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

G-06br Finish Master Ultra Fine R get at least 2 of them

Miscellaneous

Tamiya Paint Stirrer absolutely necessary

Painting clips get as many as necessary (around 30)

masking tape (10mm + 6mm)

Rodico putty (for masking)

1.5 ml eppendorf tubes

10 ml beakers

spray pot

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, and doesn't clog. Cost wise they're about the same so why choose the inferior product? but whether you want to choose lacquer or acrylic you need enamels, which i'll explain in the painting section.

Paint brands

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

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. emphasis on the white color. Although it's not a "PRIMER", it's pretty much the same thing since it stick to just about everything and leaves the surface somewhat rough. Absolutely necessary and get at least 2-3 bottles.

Thinners: Mr. Levelling Thinner 400. Get at least two bottles, you use this for everything including other brands of lacquer paint.

A can of cheaper lacquer thinner from the big box store for cleaning shit up.

Lighter fuel - Ronsonol or zippo for thinning enamel paints

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)

Clear Finishes:

GX100 (get 3 bottles min) GX114 matte (get 3 bottles min)

this is all the paints you need for 99% of all your colors since you'll be mixing them. Why am I telling you to get a lot of bottles? since Mr. Hobby only restocks every 2-3 months and you might not get them.

Skin paints:

Tamiya Flesh (avoid) Lascivus 6/10 (pretty mid, but easy to use, one bottle lasts 2-3 kits.).

Clear skin Paints: 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)

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

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)

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

Metallic paints:

matte metallic - mr.hobby or gaianotes

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

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

safety goggles

Painting booth vented outdoors

disposable gloves(optional but cheap and nice to have)

Sanding

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

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 should be cut a lot. If you do it's not the end of the world, but would be a pain to fix however.

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 99% 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.

That's pretty much it. simple.

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 the rodico masking putty or liquid masking, 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.

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. To mold the putty, apply lots of water to the other piece and the putty after you put it on one piece, and the fit them together and take it apart slowly. the water should prevent it from sticking with the other piece.