Unnecessary and Incorrect Practices Certain People Keep Doing

If you don’t know me yet, or how I write, here’s a bit of forewarning: I am sarcastic, direct to the point, and I do not sugar-coat what I say on top of the context of how I said it. Snowflakes despise me, mainly because of the truth behind the facts I lay down when I write, truth that certain people cannot accept, because they believe things can be said more nicely just because. But, there are a lot of people who get it, so instead of telling me to be nicer, won’t it be better for you to stop being so sensitive that every little thing offends you?

Yes, I often write things that offend the voluntarily overly sensitive and willfully ignorant, as the case may be, so, if you are offended, I'm pretty sure you'll scream GUMPRA IZ FLEEDOM!

Ah yes. You got you first Gunpla. You got tools along with it to build it. You look online for tips and warning signs, and find a few useful ones. You adapt those to your building practices, till they become routine. But, have you stopped to ask, are you doing the right thing? Well, let see.

Washing runners - Maybe it's a good idea nowadays because of the virus, but considering the fact that Bandai sanitizes its products before packaging it, and you can make doubly sure it is sanitized at your end by spraying or wiping the plastic with alcohol, this time-honored practice of washing runners before assembly is unnecessary, especially since you'll be handling the kit once you open it, often with grimy, oily, greasy hands, especially when you build and snack at the same time. 

The non-existent manufacturing oils certain people claim they're washing off is now replaced with actual, existing oil from sweaty hands. (Side note: parts being washed is a carry-over practice by those who build resin kits, because resin kits have that nasty mold-release wax that paint won’t adhere to).

Your hands are not sweaty, you say? You don't have pasmers? Think again. Your palms secrete minute amounts of oily sweat all the time.

Labadami, labango...

 

Painting parts while still on runners - Okay. Convenience. This is the primary reason of most people who do this time-wasting endeavor, without realizing that this doubles the amount of overall work one has to do. Convenience should not be mistaken for efficiency, since this method is rather inefficient.

This may be okay on undergated parts, (and I still won’t recommend that for obvious reasons which apparently isn’t obvious to some), but, unless you plan to do a museum-style framed display, like the one shown below, painting while on runners is a whole lot of waste of time.

For one, once you cut those painted parts, you’ll have to cut those parts from the runners, then remove those nubs. You’ll be damaging the paint, guaranteed, while you painfully try remove just the nubs, after which you will have to retouch the paint, which will make the job look uneven. The result: a nub-infested painted fiesta of a build.*

What’s more, aside from getting an uneven coverage of paint, you’ll end up getting paint on those joints and connector pegs, sections that should never be painted. Some people do this method to save up on paint (especially expensive hobby paint cans), but actually end up wasting paint, because of the initial uneven coverage on some parts, and quite often overspray on others. You’ll also need to retouch those sections after nub removal, so, you’ll be painting that section again, and you've wasted a lot more paint in the process.

Then you’ll ask, why is it hard to assemble after painting? Well, if you cared to do a lot more research instead of following what seemed to you as a reasonable thing to do because others are doing it, there’s a reason why people mask those connective sections after they’ve removed it from the runner before they paint. Snap-building and dry-fitting before painting is also more efficient, as it allows you to troubleshoot the parts that connect permanently, as well as check for articulation issues that can affect the kit overall, allowing for minimal to no chance of paint being scratched during assembly and posing. 

Not a Picasso, but, close enough.

Skipping Sanding and Priming - When you decide to paint, commit. Sanding and priming are necessary, important steps for a good, clean paint job. Not only is skipping these two important steps disastrous, it’s also disastrous (yes, I know what I did). Saying it is not important and can be skipped is the excuse lazy people commonly use, and, not having enough time, though forgivable at times because of circumstances, is still an excuse. As the Merovingian, one of my favorite characters in  , once said "if we don't ever take time, how can we ever have time?" What’s worse is, there are people who skip this part and paint on runners as well, and they end up with a horribly-painted build.

Find time to sand. Sanding evens out the surface of the plastic, which may seem smooth to you and your bad eyesight, but, those uneven surfaces, all those bumps, pits, scratches and swirls will all rear and reveal their ugly little heads* when you paint over them. Sanding also promotes discipline, allowing you to focus and concentrate.

Sanding is its own rewards

Priming, on the other hand, provides the protection the plastic needs, from the elements, and the paint you are about to lay over. Priming also helps spot trouble areas your bad eyesight can’t see, even with ample lighting. Lastly, the main purpose of priming is to give paint an even substrate to latch on to. Very few people know or acknowledge this, but, different-colored plastics and plastic types have slightly different paint-adhering properties, couple that fact that different types of paint adhere differently, and the paint problems increase exponentially. Well, not really exponentially, but significantly. Don't be angry at me because I said skipping these important steps is laziness on your part (because it is), be angry at yourself because you are lazy.

It's Prime Time

Exposing kits/runners under the Sun - What does one do after the futile activity of washing the runners? Why, let it dry under the Sun, of course, especially when one is in a hurry. Certain people also dry painted parts under the Sun, thinking it will hasten the drying time.

Well, guess what? Most paints dry quickly, even some hobby-grade types, they are formulated that way so you lazy-ass modelers can paint more kits in a day, so you can waste more paint in the process. Now if you didn’t get that as sarcasm, no worries.

But, here’s the clincher: Exposing kits under the Sun, whatever your reason, will damage the plastic. Exposed long enough, the plastic will expand, unevenly, since they are molded parts after all, with uneven shapes and form. Why would that be an issue, you ask? Well, see, since molded parts have inherent shapes and form, exposing them in the Sun heats one side more than the others. That heated side will expand, while the other side remain cool for a few minutes, but, will eventually expand as well as it starts to heat up. Exposed long enough, it will result in warping.

So, if you did this useless activity, and later found the connective parts won’t line up, or won’t fit, well, now you can blame Bandai for releasing a bad product.

One more thing, and this is the less obvious: as soon as the plastic starts to heat, it also starts to degrade microscopically. The effect is not immediate, but, the damage has been done. Your kit’s plastic is now more susceptible to yellowing and becoming brittle, or will become brittle faster than if you just left it alone. If you leave it on display, exposed further to the elements, then you’ll find that the joints become loose rather quickly, or, parts begin to break with the lightest handling, or worse, the kit starts to crumble.

Now, because of the lockdown and quarantine, there are also people who expose the boxes with kits in it under the Sun, thinking it’ll disinfect the box.

Well, Well, it doesn’t. It’s rather obvious these people got their information from someone in Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, instead of getting it from reliable sources, like the WHO? DaWHO is the WHO? Well, for the information-challenged, WHO stands for World Health Organization. It’s where you, the hapless, intrepid modeler, should first get information about COVID19 and other health-related concerns. It’s the most reliable resource for anyone. I repeat, it’s the most reliable resource for anyone.

It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes...

 

Posting nub-ridden painted works - *Lastly, this one made the list because we have standards. We uplift people with those standards and in turn uplift those standards. We know it’s your kit, it’s your work, but, calling a nub-infested, poorly-painted kit (with an airbrush for that matter) your style, does not uplift the standards that have been set by those before us. In fact, it’s an insult to those people, and those people behind us, the newbies who do not know any better, because they’re newbies, who think your style is the new standard.

Note: Though this isn’t necessarily a bad, useless thing, topcoating bare plastic is something I have stopped doing after doing it once, and personally generally don’t recommend. For one, it can potentially damage the plastic, since different topcoats have different formulation. As a newbie, I topcoated a built 1/100 Red Frame and a built MG F91 with a Krylon top coat (I forgot which one specifically), and they started to crumble and break not too long after, in the sections where plastic meet from opposite gates during molding. That’s another thing, if you have to topcoat a kit, don’t topcoat a built kit. Same rule applies as with painting: paint individual parts.

Based on other modelers, there are some hobby-grade topcoats that are safe, like Mr Hobby. Tamiya topcoats are also probably a safe bet.

Another thing is, that new kit factory-gloss you see is the kit’s built-in protection. Provided you don’t expose it to the elements, unpainted, un-topcoated kits will fare well enough, and you’ll see that it will only yellow on small sections that have been cut (and on microcracks and scratches). That’s proof that the built-in coating is doing its job. More so, I rarely cut nubs clean nowadays, opting to leave very small nubs, removing it only when I decide to modify or paint. But, I don’t display or even post those nub-infested kits and pretend they’re finished works. You can do your own research, or testing, if you simply want to topcoat regardless.

Also, if you wash parts after building, and disassembling, prior to painting, or, if you’ve left a kit on display for years gathering dust, that is reasonable.

Alternative Weathering technique is alternative...