Sinanju Black Special?

Edit @ 1/1/2011: Sorry for the misleading title! It was meant to be a joke – I’m painting the Sinanju black because of the next few layers of paint. I mentioned that I would be keeping the build simple and it will stay that way. Nothing special – just a red Sinanju. 😛

Didn’t expect the Sinanju so have so much surface area. It’s guzzling truckloads of paint I have to keep getting more. I think the money spent on paint matches the price tier of the model. Probably wouldn’t have noticed this if the shop owner I was buying paint from didn’t remind me that Gundam models have a lot of surface area.

After taking just over 3 cans of primer, all the parts were finally primed.

Here’s a look at the supplies I got during one of my resupplying trips. I actually scratched my figma Luka after taking photos of it last week. I learnt a lesson never to play with toys after painting. Primer dust was floating everywhere in my room and you could probably see it on the dark clothing of figma Luka in the photos. At the end I used my shirt to rub the dust off, but for some reason my shirt suddenly left scratches on her skirt. Needless to say I was freaked out. The next day I went on a resupply trip and got myself some Tamiya sandpaper and coarse polishing compound. I never took photos of the fix because I didn’t have confidence in what I was doing; I was desperate.

Be warned that this procedure is potentially disastrous as there is a risk of sanding too much paint and revealing raw plastic. The affected area was wet sanded using 1000 grit paper, then 1200, 1500 and 2000 from the newly bought pack until the scratches could not be distinguished from the other sanding scratches left behind. After the 2000 paper the area was mostly free of obvious scratches and had a matte texture compared to the surrounding gloss. Tamiya Polishing Compound Coarse was then used with a soft cloth to restore the gloss. It’s like freaking magic.

Thank goodness it worked well so I have no pictures to show.

On to the subject proper, here are some of the Sinanju’s armor pieces being painted black. I’m trying out Gaia Notes’ Gaia Color series for this kit and for black, I still prefer using Mr. Color. For some reason I can get a better gloss surface using Mr. Color compared to Gaia Color.

The inner frame is painted with Gaia Color Gun Metal. Not too bad-looking, but I would have preferred a color without the brown tinge.

It’s all black. I can’t see a thing. 2 bottles of black wasn’t enough to cover everything and I had to make yet another resupply trip. There’s still much more painting to be done.

Since 2011 is in a few hours’ time, Happy New Year!