The last scale model I painted was a 1977 1/48 MIG 21 PF by Revell about five years ago. I used Testors silver, gloss red, and flat black to paint it the Soviet Areobatic Team colors. I became quite discouraged with painting after the gloss red clumped up with stupidly uneven coats, ruining what was, up until that point, one of my best works (it was horrendous). Welcome to WIP 2014GGC Phase 002: Decals & Paint where I challenge the provided color accent sticker decals and re-explore the world of scale model paints! On to the photos!

For Phase 001: Straight Build, click here



Up until now I have been working on Master Grade kits, which use minimal stickers for color accents. Though i love the Nemo without any stickers, I knew there was a missing color accent without the stickers. However, I felt the stickers made the kit look really cheap, especially being spoiled with Master Grade’s color variety and part complexity. I decided not to use the sticker decals shown below and paint the accents.

The first set of stickers I chose not to use cover the ends of the arms in a gray color. I started by masking the rest of the arm, using my box cutter to flatten the tape to the lip of the arm piece.

Unfortunately, the masking tape I use is quite thick and some of the paint bled through the corners. I cleaned it up by lightly scraping the edges with my knife.

The result was passable in my eyes, though still not perfect.

A little extra color to the kit and it stands out quite nicely. I’m happy I chose to paint rather than use the stickers.

Since I had the flat black paint out, I decided to paint some of the inner panels, mainly the skirt armor. The paint job is pretty crude, but the intended result was achieved. The darker inner skirt adds a subtle depth to the kit.



The Next set of stickers I refused to use was the orange-red accents on the shoulders and calves. I used a gloss yellow instead of the reddish color of the sticker. For the front and rear shoulder pieces, I used a Gundam Marker to achieve the black base, and used a fine tipped brush to paint the yellow edge. Because I did not use masking tape, I wiped and sanded the excess paint.



I used a similar method for the leg pieces, though the lower end was too shallow to wipe of the excess paint easily, so masked the lower section.



I shoulder’s side is much larger, but because the to-be-painted section was a crevice, masking with the taped I had was near impossible, so I free hand painted it. The results were not to my liking, so I may go back and attempt to mask the piece and try again.



The smaller accent pieces on the shoulder and legs turned out fine, though I am going to need to clean up the parts of my paint covered fingerprints before adding a topcoat.



Everything seemed to be going relatively smoothly, I thought everything was going to be a cake walk. That is until I started painting the lower leg thrusters.

I tried painting the pieces three times, but I could not get a clean even coat. I became pretty frustrated with the pieces and my lack of skill and decided take a break from the Nemo, but with the lack of other short project HG kits, I started itching to continue work on the Nemo. So I asked a couple of friends on how I should tackle the situation.

I ended up getting quite a bit of advice from monkeycanvas, gunplaworks, and some others. The piece of advice that helped me the most on this piece was priming. Up until now, I was throwing paint straight on the plastic. So I picked up some Krylon ColorMaster multipurpose gray primer and quickly masked and sprayed the pieces.

Not only was the coat even, the paint actually stayed on with thinner coat. Definitely a large improvement from the first attempts at painting the leg thrusters.



With the suit’s paint job done, it is time to flaunt it with a pose.

TOBEI! NEMO!



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Tensions rise as the finishing touches are made to the MSA-003 Nemo. Accessories will be fashioned, emblem decals will be placed, and a top coat will be applied. Will the kit finally be finished, or will there be another frustrating detour awaiting in the path to completeion. Next time on WIP 2014GGC: Phase 003: System All Green!