Zaku F2 EFSF - My first airbrush project

So the deadline for the r/Gunpla group build is already more than a week gone, but that never stopped me in college (hiyooo). I had a lot of set backs - my cat developed a limp and was diagnosed with a rare, slipping kneecap that you usually only see in small dogs and he now needs surgery. That has eaten up a lot of my time (and all of my money) so the progress has been slow. That said, I finally finished painting every piece of this kit and snapped it together. The feeling of putting on the last piece or two and getting a good look at it was incredibly satisfying. I am used to the plastic sheen of my MGs that are still unpainted, to see the matte colors with all the pre-shading is awesome. Models really are meant to be painted, the kit no longer looks like a toy.

This was my first time painting a Gunpla kit so I was less concerned with getting every little detail perfect and more concerned with understanding the fundamentals. There are places I'm not fully satisfied with which I will describe, but overall I think I learned more than I ever imagined on this first build. I feel very confident now in my abilities to mix paint, clean my airbrush, and apply it properly. I learned to control my compressor to get a finer spray, I learned not to overtighten the cap because then the nozzle gets stuck, and I learned that you should always paint your model with very good lighting!

The bits of him that are black are straight 'Midnight Blue' on top of black. It was kind of ridiculous painting the top coat of 'blue' because it was so dark I literally could not distinguish it. When I paint the MG of this kit, I'll definitely add a small amount of blue and maybe a touch of white in. I do like the contrast that the black creates but I really liked the blue I saw in example photos.

For the gray parts, I shot 'Engine Gray' on top of black and am now a huge fan of the color. It's a brown-leaning gray and this is very good because the entire model leans brown - even the white paint has a touch of 'Sail Color,' a medium beige. It creates what visual artists call color harmony because it has a similar shade to the rest of the model. It looks a little jarring in these photos because it's a bit glossy, but the matte topcoat should make it sit back beautifully when I'm done.

I am by far most pleased with the outcome of the thrusters on the back, they're almost 100% pristine and I really like the look of that Nazi red in there, the slight tint of orange again adds some color harmony to the model and makes the red less jarring. I wish I'd have photographed it, but my technique was to take a small ball of mounting putty - the same I use to stick stuff on skewers - and gently pressed it in and evened it out so that the lip of the thruster was still showing. After I was done, I pried it out with a skewer (you can still see tiny remnants in the left thruster) and was blown away. It's the easiest masking technique ever, I highly recommend it.

The smoky effect created by pre-shading is unbeatable, I elected to make my kit very subtle but even with as little undercoat showing as there is, the effect is still very apparent. Another reason the 'Midnight Blue' paint disappointed me is because its value (darkness) was almost identical to the black, making no significant light-to-dark gradient. The bicep of the arm on the right of this photo shows some proper pre-shading, I like it with the brown underneath because it almost simulates dust or sand that has collected on the suit. Maybe I could push this with some pastel weathering.

I am oddly pleased by the hands. They're not very special but they're just so clean and sharp. Maybe it's just because it's a recognizably human form, but I had a wonderful time painting them. At every step it was exciting, they're so detailed, even down to the little holes in the palm of the hand that nobody ever sees.

I am very proud of the legs, I think they have the ideal amount of shading. When I learned to paint in college I found that the hardest part is knowing when to stop. You can easily muck up good work by putting too much paint on a canvas, and in the exact same way, you can ruin all your hard pre-shading work by putting too much paint on.Think of it this way - you can always put more paint on the kit, but you can't take off what you've already put on. Work slow, use a very, very low pressure, and stop maybe a hair before you think you've painted enough. Investigate your work in good lighting and go back to finish it as you see fit, just make damn sure you don't put too much paint on there.

Here's a couple photos of work I didn't include last time:

Gray bits drying.

Masked off the mono eye, cut it out with a hobby knife...

...sprayed it...

...and bam! It's not perfect but again, I wasn't trifling with little details. The idea was largely successful, looks great on the final kit, and luckily will not need to be replicated on the MG.

So I've still got panel lines and decals to do. I bought the waterslide decals from Bandai for this kit so they should look very sharp. Stay tuned!