kazu

Whatever you do, don’t use a lacquer thinner for the job! It will eat trough the future clear and effect your paint job. You could also use a turpentine to thin the oil paint.
You could also thin down an enamel paint with lighter fluid, enamel thinner, white spirit or benzine and clean up with the same agents. I find enamels best for doing a wash.…[Read more]

Separating the panels can be done in two ways. One is with a hobby/photo edged saw and carefully cut the piece following the panel line. The other way is using a panel line scribing tool. I recommend the one from Tamiya. Just keep scribing in the panel line until the parts are separated.
The hard thing to do is to keep the panel lines open. You…[Read more]

I’ve looked up some pictures of the “Hong Kong” Ver.Ka. Unicorn and it looks like a very light “gold” plating.
I would try a dot of silver and a tiny drop of clear yellow, not the normal mix of yellow and orange.
Before i knew of this mix, I used normal clear yellow on top of silver and it turned out really light instead of a, if you will, deeper…[Read more]

It looks similar to the gold on the Hyaku Shiki, maybe you could try to flat coat some regular Tamiya Gold leaf or Gold gundam Marker on a spare piece or empty runner from the 852, then see how the close the golds look.

The MG 1/100 FA-78-2 is an online exclusive, so unfortunately HLJ won’t sell it….
I did some digging and found that bandaionline isn’t a good nor safe online shop.
They claim to be in business since 2013, but the site is only registered since January 2015.
It is also confirmed that a few persons placed a preorder, where billed accordingly and…[Read more]

I can second Iceburn’s recommendation for Mandarake as well. I’ve bought from them (mostly exclusives) for a long time and never had any problem so far. It could be a bit pricey though. And not all listed items on their site is really still available. Sometimes it’s already sold out, so they have to double check first. The latest I’ve got from…[Read more]

I also use clear coat as primer for my kits and hand paint details. I usually go for matte because I want to take away the plastic shine from my finished kit. I think the slightly textured finish brought about by matte coat also gives better adhesion for my acrylics (Vallejo model and/or game color) But that’s just my personal preference and observation.

If I may ask, why not use a normal dedicated primer? They are deigned for that specific job.
But if I had to choose, I’d go for the gloss one. A matte leaves a “gritty” finish which may come trough in your paint job. On the other hand, a gloss clear will leave the same effect as clear plastic, the surface gets really smooth, so I see no really…[Read more]

You really should use actual primer. Clear coat is intended to protect paint, and will not adhere to the bare plastic as well as primer. the only time you will normally be painting on top of clear coat, is when doing panel lines, washes, highlighting, etc. after which you’ll clear coat over that.

However, if you are set on not using primer,…[Read more]

In my case, I don’t have enough time to use an actual surface primer and color the whole kit. (I don’t have an airbrush either even if I had the time, so I can only hand brush the colors in.) So I use the clear matte to protect the decals and I use it as “primer” before I paint small details. Since I deal primarily with MGs, the color is almost…[Read more]

I’m currently using the Tamiya Basic File Set (Fine Double Cut). I find these come in handy for really big nubs or when sharpening a blade. The only down side is I have to use sand paper after using them. Even tough Tamiya states them to be “Fine Double Cut” they still are rather coarse
In other words, they remove nubs really quick, but expect to…[Read more]

Despite being a smaller MG, the AB2 wouldn’t be able to hold its weight very well. It would work, just not very safely.

If it helps, I tried to mount the MG Victory Gundam (a bit smaller than the F91) on an AB2 but the base itself came apart too easily. While the arm was plenty strong, I would’ve needs to add more bases to the existing 2 in order to have it stable.

Actually 8 HG and 1 RG.

As I don’t have the model itself and not exactly sure what the reg ver. is, I’ve looked at the instruction manual for the MG Exia Repair and my guess is that maybe the innerframe part of the cockpit hatch isn’t “clicked” in all the way. In the manual it states that you should get a sound when it clicks into place.
Another thing that I can see from…[Read more]

I know that Samuel can print “custom” decals for you. So, if you have an opportunity to scan the sticker sheet you can send that file to Samuel and he can print it for you