The Old School Otaku Lounge

Yesterday I started construction on my Sakura Taisen plastic model. The Koubu-kai mecha model comes with a figure of Sakura, which I began painting yesterday and have nearly completed. What is fantastic about this figure is that the model comes with decals for her eyes! I'm happy about that.

Here is the first video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvY9X4S7nIY

greg wrote:What is fantastic about this figure is that the model comes with decals for her eyes! I'm happy about that.

That's pretty bloody awesome. I remember my efforts with smaller figures. I bought a Maschinen Krieger kit when I was about 10 or 11 and by attempt at doing the eyes made the figure look demented. I later tried just using black and having no whites on a 1/20 figure from a Tamiya F1 set. Just made the figure look like the living dead... Looks like a lot has changed since I gave up the hobby. I‘d love to get back into it again. I just need some space where I can put a table to work on stuff.

Video 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be82UT8Auf0

Video 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LggZfs1yzSg

Video 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqN_UrAwCE

This time, I'm working on the actual mecha.

Here's video 5 I uploaded earlier this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOa6hf3i1Zg

Nobody's picked up on the Camper Van Beethoven lyrics reference yet in the video comments.

Tonight I did some masking and airbrushing to avoid using decals when I don't need to. There are decals for the steel gray parts, but instead I used Mr. Color 61: Burnt Iron. They turned out super nicely, so you'll see that in video 6 (whenever that gets uploaded).

I'm pondering whether to leave this robot with a glossy finish or more of a semigloss. Did cars back in the '20s and '30s have clear coats and such, or were they just waxed?

greg wrote:Here's video 5 I uploaded earlier this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOa6hf3i1Zg

Nobody's picked up on the Camper Van Beethoven lyrics reference yet in the video comments.

Tonight I did some masking and airbrushing to avoid using decals when I don't need to. There are decals for the steel gray parts, but instead I used Mr. Color 61: Burnt Iron. They turned out super nicely, so you'll see that in video 6 (whenever that gets uploaded).

I'm pondering whether to leave this robot with a glossy finish or more of a semigloss. Did cars back in the '20s and '30s have clear coats and such, or were they just waxed?

That's looking great, and just to answer your question, cars in the 20's and 30's were actually just hand painted with a type of paint that was more like a wood varnish, believe it or not (so no clear coat or any outer coat to speak of). Spray guns didn't even get implemented until the 40's, for the most part, I think maybe some of the ultra high end cars (your Cadillac, Packard, etc.) were painted with the first spray guns in the late 30's, but that is about it.

Thanks for the info! I honestly had no idea. I cannot remember exactly when Sakura Taisen is supposed to take place. I think it's about the 1930s or so. I'll just go for a semi-gloss finish.

Here's video 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt2GyqNpXUg

I've ditched a few decals in favor of just airbrushing. Mr. Hobby Color 61 Burnt Iron gives a far better look than a decal can provide, especially over bumpy surfaces.

Video 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVJTRrIntsw
This involves a lot of hand painting and idle chit-chat. Next will be decals!

Video 8:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk5M0Q7E7DU

Video 9:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoqbNLI9bHU