As I mentioned in the last post, I started this figure only a little after I started the last. This figure had her skin parts painted at the same time as Yoko. But at the very least, I was able to apply some of the new lessons learned from Yoko. Firstly, I finally bought some putty. Honestly, long ago I knew there had to be a way for hobbyists to fix these flaws the figures occasionally had, but I never really looked into it. And then one day in the middle of doing Yoko, I just decided to check out Youtube to get some advice on shading. While there, I saw this lady using putty to fix the flaws in her figure, and immediately bought some putty from Amazon so I could do the same. It was at this time that I also saw a video of someone doing a degreaser bath on their figure's parts, and decided that I'd do that as well, starting from that moment on. Because of that, all the part of this Sheryl that hadn't already been painted or primed, were the first to benefit from being cleaned. Sheryl was also the first figure where *most* of her parts were primed. Oh, and I also finally bought some fine sandpaper 'sponges' which have made sanding a whole lot easier - so while Sheryl didn't really benefit from that, the next figure will. But those were all things learned during the last figure.
For this figure, the first thing I did differently was use a drill. Previously, the idea of harming the parts was taboo to me. But on Youtube I watched someone completely saw, chop, and hammer her figure apart (in order to customize it) - honestly the video made me feel like I was a teen and watching my first porn again, it was just so naughtily disturbing. But it made me realize that these things were just pieces of plastic which could be molded and modified to suit my needs. So in the joints, I started drilling holes; immediately for the purpose of allowing my alligator jaw pins to grab ahold of them without getting in the way of the paint, but in the future it will allow the glue more places to hold. One of the problems with Yoko was that her left leg started to come loose during the final glueing; this I hope will now be avoided in the future thanks to these holes. Some people use metal to help hold pieces together, but I find that hot glue does the trick quite well - the only problem being that hot glue is a bit thick, and if you use a thin layer, it doesn't work as well. So the only solution is to texture the surfaces of the two pieces so that you can use more glue but not create a gap in the figure.
Lesson 29: If you use hot glue to bind pieces together, when you can, make the surface of the pieces irregular, to give the glue more places to bind.
I also had a bit of a problem using the Tamiya primer spray. Previously, I was impressed with it’s fine pigments and even spray, thinking it would solve all my problems. But while air brushing the hair on Sheryl, I was getting a lot of beading up of the paint. Recall, that this piece was prepared properly: cleaned using a degreasing solvent and a toothbrush, plus primed with two layers of Tamiya primer. Things should have been perfect. I solved the problem by lightly sanding as much as I could of the hair: using a 3200 sandpaper pad for a few seconds on the primed area fixed it, and the paint settled without issue. But I don’t want to f*@#$ sand every nook and cranny of every figure piece after I’ve already washed it and primed it. The Tamiya primer was TOO fine, creating too smooth a surface, and paint just wouldn’t stick. This is a COMPLETE fail on Tamiya’s part.
Lesson 30: I take back lesson 25. Tamiya makes mistakes too, and it’s spray on primer is one of them. Use something else. I’m not sure what, at this point. I hear good things about Mr. Surfacer, so I might be using it soon (if only it didn’t take three weeks to ship here from Japan).
But this revelation, that the beading-up wasn’t a result of releasing oils on the figure parts but instead the fault of the primer I was using, will make getting the willpower to continue with all the effort of cleaning the things (which was the reason I thought they were beading), very difficult. I’ll likely clean them still, but just with a soak and a light cleaning.
I’ve done a pretty good job with the masking so far - using the Tamiya tape has had it’s ups and downs. The yellow tape doesn’t rip off the pain underneath it, ever, as long as the layer under it has a finish on it. But, the yellow tape has had it’s moments where it didn’t mask well and I had to repaint under it anyway. The white 2mm Tamiya tape, I don’t much like. It’s very plastic, and doesn’t bend well around corners. As you can imagine, most figures have more than a few corners and bends. As long as you give it a flat surface and don’t take any turns with it, it works well. So, it’s just someone I’ll use when the occasion calls for it, but generally I’ll be using the yellow masking tape still.
But no matter how careful I am, some of the airbrush paint still comes off from the tape. I could just use massive amounts of the yellow tape, but since that’s impractical, I still find myself using the Blue 3M tape. Which still rips off paint. So in those areas, I repainted with the EXACT SAME paint I used for the airbrush, and initially it looked like a match. BUT soon after I applied a finish, the color darkened dramatically, and now it’s so obvious, I might as well have just left the bare spot.
For this figure, I didn't really like the large ribbon that she has on her back. So I made it removable. So you can see how she looks with and without it.
The ribbon also had lots of gaps in it. It didn't fit terribly well. It might have fit better if I changed the position some, but I didn't have any guide on how to make them fit, so I went with the best I could do.
I installed a steak into the ribbon, and drilled a hole into Sheryl's bum. Sheryl already had two small holes, so I just re-used one of them and made it bigger. Filling in the remaining small hole was troublesome - the whole was too large to just paint over, and too small to shove something in it. So I still shoved a mm^3 piece of wood in it from the steak, and painted over it. Doesn't look terribly nice, but it's good enough that one can ignore it if they want.
The small steak in the picture above is the 'placeholder' which fills the hole below, when not in use.
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