Beginner

[sabertiger101]

I'm a true beginner and I just ordered my first thee zoid sets and I need to know the process of how to customize them with a paint job. The three zoids are: Saber tiger, Liger zero, and Beserk fury all HMMs.

[zodd]

Well you've jumped in head first, in the deep end, without your floaties. Good luck.

[theflamecrow]

Nov 8, 2012 23:55:06 GMT -5 zodd said:

Well you've jumped in head first, in the deep end, without your floaties. Good luck.

^

Get clippers for the parts (www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IBOOWQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER)

An x-acto knife to cut off any leftover bits from the above being used.

And painting? Yeah no. Buy some cheaper kits to learn painting please. You'll thank me later. (I hand paint, so I might not be all that useful for help here depending on your needs.)

Also check out Zoids Poison, also a great forum there.

[Illandrasen]

theflamecrow is so right. Rummage around for some kits or buy some scrap zoid or gundam parts off ebay. Basically anything you can use for practice. I assume you will be hand painting so check out this otakurevolution.com/content/laymans-gunpla-guide-hand-painting-tutorial and scan ZoidPoison. If you happen to have an airbrush I can let you know everything i've learned and tricks I use. Good luck! Practice before you touch the HMM's with paint =) Ask anything!!!

[wolves]

Go out and buy a cheaper kit. But nice buys! And welcome!

You'll need clippers like flamecrow pointed out, a set of files to shave down the sprue-nubs, and you can get spray paint or little acrylic bottles for hand-painting. There are other methods such as airbrushing but I'm not personally ready for that stage yet and world worth of paints out there.

You might want to use primer, but I normally don't. I spray Modge Podge on top after I'm done in either matte or gloss finish unless my paint is metallic. For spray paints, I'm a Testor's fan but I've used cheap walmart $1 cans too with success. Depending on the zoid, I go between hand-painting with craft acrylics like Apple Barrel and spraying.

Oh and panel lining. It helps make the zoid look more like a machine than a toy. I use a tiny bottle of black enamel from Testors, mixed with Testor's enamel thinner in a little pot. You can google the ratio. Tiny brush end is dipped, then extremely gently touched into the corners enough to let the ink run through the line. If the paint doesn't go all the way, I start where it stopped. Cotton swabs lightly dabbed in thinner will clean excess. BUT DON'T FORGET to seal your paint job before ink-washing or you might kill the paint job.

That's all I've got! Good luck and enjoy!

[ShadoWolfozo]

As said, paint a cheap kit first. You bought three of the most expensive zoids out there, I'm sure you can afford a couple cheap kits to practice on.
Old TOMY zoids are what your looking for - the motorized ones.

HMM's are not just difficult to paint but also difficult to build with over... what 100, 200, 300, and higher parts depending on the set.

There are masters of painting zoids in the community, but practice makes perfect and you don't want to screw up on a $120 zoid.

Good luck mate

EDIT: I didn't see wolves post when I posted XD but wolves has pretty much given you the rundown on exactly what to do. So follow the advice given to you and good luck.

[Illandrasen]

I don't know what kind of look you are wanting sabertiger so I will show a small semi-low detailed look at what I normally do when painting. Note that these results are achieved using an airbrush after hours and hours of practice on kits though similar results may be achievable by expert hand painters.

Here are 2 pieces of the HMM Liger Zero that I have not yet airbrushed so I panel lined them really quick with the method wolves provided above so you could see how that looks.





What I often do instead of panel lining is known as preshading. This is commonly used in the military modelling community as well as gunpla and gives the model a very realistic feel. Basically you prime your model piece and then you go back over all the panel lines hard corners and any other place you might think dirt or soot might get into in real life with black paint. After this step is completed you will have a piece that looks similar to this.



Notice that you do not have to be clean at this stage. I am not sure if this can be done by hand but that would be something you can try on one of your practice kits.

The next step is going to be painting in the desired color that you want. It is important to take your time with this step and paint in thin coats other with you will come out with something that looks blotchy like this special delight, my first practice hand painted kit...laughs are appropriate... imgur.com/ljVJc

Now once you have mastered painting with patience you will be able to get something more respectable like this


This is part of the HMM Liger Zero full painted.

And some before and after pics.




Please feel free to ask any questions and take baby steps. If you try and take everything on at once you will get overwhelmed!

Good luck and most importantly have fun!!!

[wolves]

^ Ooh nice!

[theflamecrow]

And if you need a hand painted example, this is one of the few I've managed to finish. x.x (I slack too much lol)

All hand painted, panel lines done in Gundam Marker etc.

I know it's not Zoids, but I don't have any painted Zoids I've done.

Edit: Here's the shield thingie since you can't see it up there.