Hyrdo-dipping/Painting.

[Hellbound Crow]

Don't know if this has been asked before, but by sheer curiousity, has anyone ever tried hyrdo-dipping a zoid using the sheets? Or at least tried doing the hydro-painting, wear ya spray paint into a bucket of water and dip the parts?

[Illandrasen]

Ok, so I have tried this with mixed results. The main issue that I have had when trying this is the solvent used to prep the substrate also damages the plastic of the parts, so a direct application onto the plastic is not advised unless you are going to heavy weathering in the end anyways.

I tried again after painting and clear coating with better results. The problem at this point was getting the design I wanted to apply uniformly as hydro dipping is certainly an art, one of which I am not particularly skilled at when it comes to small parts.

Which brings me to the biggest issue, scale. Unless you're doing big patches of camo or something the results are going to vary greatly based on the shape of the target piece. If you are printing your own design, you will need a specific type of printer, Pigment Injet Printers, which are not cheap. Luckily, I had access to one at work and just worked out paying for the ink used. I got all of my stuff from www.prostreetgraphix.com/

Mind you all of this was done on scrap pieces so that I did not damage good parts on testing.

In the end, I scrapped the idea for my personal projects since the quality of the result was not the quality that I desired.

[Maethius]

Hydro dipping is really for larger items, isn't it? I mean I know it can work, but to warrant the result you would either need to be precise as hell or have a decently large kit for the transfer (Deathsaurer, Mad Thunder, etc.)

[Hellbound Crow]

That I figured, but wasn't sure. Thanks guys! :-) still might try the painting. I have seen videos of the spray paint in the water. It looked interesting. If I would try it, I would somehow glue a a piece of wooden dowl to the back of the parts and dip them. Who knows.