SAW Buildup: Painting has commenced

Posted on 29 Apr 2012 by in Superheavy Assault Walker, Work in Progress

Some small progress this weekend: painting has begun!

First up, last weekend while playing around with the chassis I dropped it, smashing one of the vents that sits behind the top hatch. Although the vents were just Kotobukiya detailing bits, I didn’t have any spare. But I did have the original SAW chassis mould! So I mixed up a little bit of resin and cast just that area, giving me a spare vent:

Easy!

Before I could prime the parts I had to have a method of holding them while the paint is being applied. Since I had some threaded rod left over from the base I decided to use it and some wooden dowel to temporarily screw to the chassis assembly and legs assembly. These screwed into the chassis-pelvis joint areas so the holes would be hidden once assembled. The dowel for the chassis was then screwed to a piece of plywood for a base. The railguns, gattling cannons and sensor turret were all mounted on kebab skewers for painting.

My primer of choice is Tamiya Surface Primer (in the spray can). It’s grey and in my experience gives superior adhesion (at least to styrene, which I admit is irrelevant here). Yes, it’s more expensive than the cheap acrylic rattle cans people buy from Bunnings to prime with, but for good models you’ve spent a lot of money on why risk it? Pro tip: buy the 180ml can; it’s only a couple of dollars more than the 100ml can and gives you 80% more!

Here’s how things looked post priming:

Just like on a scratchbuild, the priming stage shows up all of the little flaws leftover from cleaning up the casts and gap filling. So I’ve done a quick run around with some Tamiya Putty. Those spots will need some quick sanding later, then some touch up with the primer and priming will be complete.

Since this is my first time airbrushing a model I’ve been hassling my mate Jas for a lot of painting advice. He’s an awesome painter and if I can get this to turn out half a nicely as his Elysian Sentinels I’ll be happy!
After a lengthy phone call with him the other night I think I’ve got the process sussed. The next stage will be to airbrush everything black as the first step in pre-shading. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do this one night this week…

That’s all for now!

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