The 1/60 Perfect Grade Char’s Zaku II is a kit I’ve had my eye on for quite a while. I’m not sure why I picked the Char’s colour scheme over the stock green of the grunt suit, perhaps because I have a green Zaku II already and I’ve also really enjoyed painting with the bolder colours.

I’m not cheating on this kit. It’s one I want to look really nice, so I’m taking my time and going through full de-nubbing (with the sharp scalpel) and sanding before painting.Here’s how the basic colours are looking. I’ve mixed up two jars of paint (used old Tamiya clear red jars) with the salmon / scarlet Char colour scheme, both a light and a dark version for shading. The base colour for both was Createx white, with a few drops of FW Acrylics black, and then lots of Createx pearl red and even more FW Acrylics scarlet. I also added some small drops of FW Acrylics blue to get the precise colour balance I was after. It’s actually quite hard to see where your paint has gone because the shades are a good match to the colour of the plastic pieces. For the detail panels I’m masking then using a mix of FW scarlet and some Finish. This will make the panels a redder shade of the base colour and shiny. I think that will be a nice combination. These are the jars I’ve pre-mixed. There should be enough to complete the kit. I’m thinning them slightly with Tamiya acrylic thinner. This is the FW scarlet. It’s really easy to use airbrush paint with it’s nice built in pipette dropper. I really like these paints for shading and mixing. While waiting on the masked paint to dry, I put some base colour on more of the larger armour pieces.Unfortunately, I’m having bother with my masking and it’s pulling off the underlying paint. I used this masking really successfully with the Meteor unit, so I’m not entirely certain why it’s not working today. I guess I’m going to be repairing the damage or repainting before I continue.

Update:

I’ve ordered some better masking tape to come with my next paint order. I’ve also managed to carefully repair the paint damage with the airbrush used ever-so-carefully, reducing the pressure to allow me to precisely target the paint where needed. I also used a very light coat of Finish over the pieces (it goes rather satin, not gloss on a light coat) to protect what I’d done.