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The Making of 1/7 Kazami Mizuho White Bikini |
The following are the in progress shots and methods that I took to get 1/7 Kazami Mizuho White Bikini garage kit completed. Note that this is my fourth garage kit and did lots of screw up here. Only use this as a reference at your own risk.
Preparation
Construction started by counting the parts. Excess is cut out and each piece is sanded.
All resin parts are soaked in water with dish washing liquid and brush with an electric tooth brush. I really hate paint peeling and I believe if an electric toothbrush could be effective in removing plaque on teeth then it should wash the resin better than a normal tooth brush.
Pin holes are found. It is patch with Mr. Disolved Putty but it is not doing a good job. Well, have to fall back to the old tricks in filling pin holes.
Putty Work
Large gaps are found on the shoulder. Tamiya Expoxy Putty is applied to her hand and
shoulder.
This is an example of bad hair. The casting is not too clean. I have to cut off, puttied and then sand those badly cast parts again.
Putty done on her hair and left to dry overnight. It is sanded the next day before the other side is puttied.
Both side of her hair is done. The test fitting looks ok here.
Priming and Pin Holes
The parts are wash again and brushed with an electric toothbrush.
The parts are then primed with Mr.Resin Primer Surfacer and pinholes are covered with Tamiya Putty mixed with nail polish remover.
Painting Flesh
3 flesh colors are mixed with a redder tone. I will not show painting photos here. Basically, it
is painted with flesh then shadow and then highlight. The final result is too dark to my taste and I
choose highlight instead of flesh for the top coat to make the skin brighter.
Finally, a thin coat of clear is applied. The clear coat is not too thick and it make the skin from flat to semi-gloss rather than gloss. During final assembly in my past 3 kits, I have glue taint problems. This coat of clear is a precautionary measure where when that happens, I will simply sand off the glue with a 1500 grit sandpaper with minimal damage to my paint job.
Bikini
Body is mask for painting. Gloss White is use because I want a shinny bikini here. In
order to spice it up, I get myself a bottle of Blue Pearl and painted it onto the white
bikini. This way I think I am making the bikini a bit more elegant without losing much on
the original color scheme.
Blue Pearl is hard to paint. It required to be spray on thick and in multiple layer to bring out the pearl effect.
The pearl color is not obvious on photograph but it is pleasing to the naked eyes.
Painting the Eyes
My handbrush skill is not that good. I am trying to airbrush the eyes here. It is
attempted by masking the white area as much as possible.
Painting eyes is the most complicated paint job required on an anime kit. I have to use white, black, normal flesh, shadow flesh, blue, sky blue and pinkish red here.
Eyeshadow is a mix of pinkish red and shadow flesh. I dip the brush to flesh and then pink. The mixed color is brush on and blended to a pinkish color for the eyeshadow. The lip is done also this way but I am using a bit more red to blend it.
Max Technique
Her hair is suppose to be the attention grabber. Since she has a long hair and lifted up by both
of her hand in that manner, I believe the shading must be obvious as light falls very
differently onto each part of her hair. I applied Max Technique, a pre-shading technique
normally used in gunpla.
First, a mixture of deep red (red mix with drops of black resulting in a color looks like dried blood) is applied as base coat. A very light color, pinkish red (red mix with lots of white), is applied as the highlight. As for the top coat, I am using clear red. Clear red is glossy in nature so I mix in some flat base to give it a matt finish.
Handling Problems
Paint peel! Sigh. Why it has to happen on obvious places. This time, I hand painted
resin primer back to the effected area. I am using thicker resin primer and wait for it to
dry and then sand it with a 1500 grit sandpaper then apply the second layer and then sand.
When the primer dried, flesh is applied onto it and then blend with highlight and or shadow where appropariate. Wait for it to dry and then sand. I repeated the process for the n times until the peeled off area leveled with the existing paint.
For the white bikini, I lightly sand the area and then applied white onto it. I repeated the process until it is less noticeable.
Final Assembly
Now all the parts are ready for final assembly.
It is the best I could do at this phase.
It seems like the putty eats into the paint and leaving a very bad marks. Well, I repeated the paint and sand process to patch this area.
Finallly, I airbrush a layer of shadow here to make it less obvious.
Her hair leave a large gap. This is filled using Mr.Dissolved putty. It is simply poured in and leave it dry overnight. The putty dry smooth so no sanding is done here. The effected area is the prepared for airbrushing using cling foil for masking. Deep Red, Pinkish Red and then finally coated with Clear Red.
Making The Base
This base is constructed by drilling a hole in it. A brass rod is inserted and it is
secured from the bottom using a piece of Tamiya Epoxy Putty. I am using a quick dry epoxy
putty (comes in the green box instead of the normal blue). The normal epoxy putty is too
soft when dried and will not hold the pin. The quick dry epoxy dried rock hard in 6 hours
and should hold the pin in place.
As for the sand texture for the base, I am using Tamiya putty here. This is another technique learned from Gunpla for making textured surface. The putty is squeze onto the base and the melted with nail polish remover. The putty paste is then spread evenly onto the surface. An unwanted hard brush is use to repeatedly poke on the surface to give it a rough texture.
The base is prepared for painting in less than 30 minutes.
The base is then sprayed with flesh and then white and then flesh highlight. I should have more yellow for sand but I am just too lazy to mix the color. I believe this should do for the base although it looks a bit more muddy rather than sandy here.
The completed garage kit can be found at 1/7 Kazami Mizuho White Bikini.
Document Date : 19.12.2005
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