Shady days (Week 6)

Between last week and today, I got a lot done actually. I managed to get a few painting sessions in despite a full weekend. I decided to go with a Johnny Ridden color instead of the test orange and stripes, mostly due to how much I wanted to accomplish on a "first" paintjob back into the hobby. Between a first time attempt at preshading and masking simple stripes, I figured getting a consistent look would be pretty hard for a beginner. I remembered the advice for preshading/shading with yellow was to go with an orange. Shading on black would then be the next problem. I'd have to go in with a darker black, and then highlight with a lighter black. The work process would've been something along these lines: shade with orange, paint with yellow, mask, shade with darker black, color with lighter black. This is if I disregard the rest of the part that doesn't have the caution stripes. Though, I would probably just paint that whatever color I wanted in between the yellow and black shading. It was a lot more work and time than I had to dedicate to this, so that's why I decided to change plans last minute.

Now that I had decided on an easier game plan, it was time to get to work. Shading proved to be a very difficult technique, despite it being easy to comprehend on paper (most things are). I had a hard time with the paint control, and a lot of spots ended up way darker than I had intended. So, like a lot of people, I was pretty discouraged and disappointed that all my hard work prior to this would just result in a dark blob. After finishing about half the parts (I wanted to focus on just the left half first), I called it quits. I was too upset at the "end" result and frustrated at the whole situation. I was unsure if the paint was thin enough, or if I was using too high or low of a psi, or maybe those were all fine, and I was just really bad at it. At one point, I considered just painting over it and keeping a simple 2-color, no fancy-schmancy techniques. 

Fast forward to the next morning and I decided, let's just go ahead and lay down some color and see what it looks like. If it looks as bad as it did originally, time to lay on that red! And if it comes out half decent, I'd be pretty surprised! The photo above was the result of some very generous red paint. It turns out, with enough of the main color, it can really push back the extra shading. At one point, I was actually too aggressive with the red, and the shading almost disappeared (spoiler alert: I was just overly cautious on that). Now, at this point, I was feeling pretty good about myself, and the fact that I didn't completely butcher the kit. So, I went ahead and got the primed pieces on clips and ready for shading. 

End result after painting the entire kit. 

This was when I took a minute to reflect on the shading, and on a whim, I deconstructed the airbrush, and (obviously) realized that the needle was fine, but the nozzle was slightly clogged for some reason. Once I took a cotton swab with thinner to it, the spray went fine, and the paint control was not nearly as problematic (now it was strictly user error, which there was a lot of). With the experience of the first half, this was a much more pleasant experience, and propelled me to finish the paintjob later that night. I still didn't really have a solution to the black shading, and I was okay with not having one, all things considered. I was on a roll, and I did not want to stop. 

But of course, all good things must come to an end. The top coat mixture I had was not very cooperative. I followed a mixing ratio for Tamiya Flat Base and Pledge Floor Care that was supposed to result in a matte/semi-gloss result, but all I got was a very dusty coating. This was the same mix I used with the Grimgerde I tested on a while back, but I thought it was just because it was on a dark blue. I haven't exactly found a solution, but my hunch was that there was too much Flat Base despite what was recommended to work. Simple solution: just add more Pledge; that should make it more gloss and less dust. 

Both really proud of how this came out, and simultaneously disappointed by how it came out.

This solution kinda worked. The pieces weren't nearly as dusty, but at the same time, they were still dustier than when I used Rustoleum (those were not happy times), and it was still fairly glossy/reflective. My only guess would be that I added too much Pledge and over-corrected. I'll add a bit more Flat Base when I go back after some light weathering/dry brushing to see if that's the real solution. 

At the end of the weekend though, I was happy with how things turned out. There was a lot of learning and a lot of growth, both as a builder and a person. But more on that another time. For now, I'm just going to revel in the "completed" project.

Handpainting yellow over red is a nightmare... I also didn't realize I grabbed the silver and not gunmetal for the frame...

All in all, the shading turned out a lot more heavy handed than I thought from the individual pieces...