Well, I want to share with you guys how I do build my kits… We all have our own preferred ways to build a GUNDAM, here is mine. Maybe you could share to us how you build yours. Painting is another story, but opinions about that is mostly welcomed.
I will showcase here my work area, what tools I use and how I take pictures of my Gundams.
Work Area
I always use extra lights… it helps me (and my eyes, not that I need glasses) to see what I am doing. It is a good practice too because you work on small stuff. I have 2 of them as you can see.
I just sit on a small chair enough to level with the small table.
The white cartolina serves as a background for taking WIP pictures and for photoshoots. (WIP = Work In Progress)
Tools Storage
I keep everything in one place or two. I always make sure to return everything here after finishing a kit. It is kind of a mess in the picture, but trust me, I know where to look at haha.
Spare parts and unused parts for display are stored in organizers and a tool box.
Inside one of my Tool Box
Taking Pictures
The white background you saw before serves another purpose. When I bring down one piece, I will then have a white ground and white wall to take pictures of the Gundam kits. Its a little approach I did to save space and to easily clean up my stuff.
This is a sample picture from the setup on top 🙂 Taken using only an Iphone 4 (would need to invest on a DSLR again someday)
You see how helpful the light were? Without that, my cellphone picture would suck…
Tools I Use
Though I have many tools, I only need a few when snap-fitting a kit.
1. side cutters
2. hobby knives
3. tweezers
4. part separator (shout it like on voltes V, paaart! separatoooor! tenententenen ten ten!)
Well that is all for my “how I build gundams” post
Hope you learned something or perhaps you can share some to us.
Gundam Philippines 
Just seen your work area…It’s better than my work area hahahaha!!! I have a room where I put all my toy boxes (keep toy boxes to keep them on high price when they get old) and other stuffs, more like a storage room. But in the future my wife is planning to have it clean and organize things as my older son will be owning the room. Actually its my old room when I’m still a little boy. Thanks for giving me the idea on how to take pictures using white cartolina. Hey! I’ve noticed too that you’ve been with Tamiya too? me too..me and my friends used to owned a big track, we made it ourselves and every Sunday we invite tamiya/Auldey owners to race. We collected fees for prices. hehehe!! Fun memories!! BTW where did you get Amuro? and how much? I dont have a gashapon like that…better hunt one for the next Toycon. Because my RX78 1/100 kits dont have free pilot like the Gundam Wing kits. I also handpaint figures. You better wake up Dark Gundam…he’s sleeping inside your cabinet lol!!
LikeLike
I like my work area clean and uncluttered as you can see…. haha may pag ka OC ako eh. ako naman all my boxes are on the top of the cabinets, or the cupboard.. LOL… i hope you could use the cartolina technique as well, it really helps..
yep, I am a tamiya 4wd fan too… and we used to own a track and people rent it like 15 pesos for the whole day. It was about 3 sets of tracks…
the pilots, you can find them on sulit.com.ph or at greenhills…
dark gundam, oh well, he is waiting for god gundam… and I am still looking for god gundam… quite hard to find….
LikeLike
and SD shining gundam too 😀
LikeLike
I have one bootleg, the mold of the plastic is good like Bandai, you cannot tell the difference especially when it was painted. I bought it when I was first introduced with Gundam kits. I think year 2000 (^_^)
LikeLike
tried some bootlegs before… it has its pros and cons… but lately they are pricey, wiser to buy bandai instead….
LikeLike
Your right if a bootleg is almost the price of Bandai kit, better buy the original, because some knock off kits has a low quality plastic, when you spray them with paint the plastic will get wrinkled.
LikeLike
Where did you get that part separator tool? As for the tweezers, is that the same one used for medical purposes?
I’m slowly building my arsenal of tools for gunpla. The only thing that I can’t decide right now is whether to invest in an airbrush kit or not.
LikeLike
the tweezers came from the bandai basic set (tweezer, file, side cutter and part separator… But any kind of tweezers (example at watsons) will do…
investing in an airbrush will be a nice decision… you will save a lot from paints in the future…plus you get to do amazing stuff….
LikeLike
anu klaseng ilaw ung ginamit mo dyn kuya?? and ung mga paint? my guide ka din po sa step by step ng pag ppaint ng gundam kit??
LikeLike
sir ung ilaw eh ung nabibili lang sa ace hardware….
sadly wala akong airbrush painting tutorial.. pero pwede nyo tignan itong spray painting techniques https://gundamph.com/2011/07/12/spray-can-painting-techniques-to-customize-your-gundam-kits/
LikeLike
So for people that don’t live near this “Alexan”, I’m pretty sure those side cutters are listed as Eurotool Extra Small Side Cutters on Amazon.
LikeLike
yes, I guess you are right. Any side cutter will do… though the fine edge ones are more expensive…
LikeLike
sir naleoning ung “bandai basic set” ay available po ba dito sa mga store sa phil? or kung hindi nmn ano po ung mga alternative na pamalit sa kanila??
LikeLike