MG XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero Custom WIP 2! Major bump on the road with decals. zzzz..

It's been a really busy week for me and tako... the new year feeling starts to fade and workload slowly starts to pile up again.. so we din really had time to blog.. nonetheless, its been more than a week since the last post.. so i better make a quick update on my builds.. hallo everyone, ren here. =)

ren working with MG Wing Zero Custom decals from samueldecals....

Received my decals not too long ago.. and i started working on it.. it was my first decal from samueldecal.com, so i din know wad i was getting myself into.. everything was trial and error for me.. you can say that this post is a short review/experience i have with this decals.. As its my first time using such decals, i have encountered a few problems..

The actual decal that you apply is VERY VERY VERY thin, thinner-than-hair thin. Unlike bandai's water decal, these decals REALLY jus needed 1-3 secs of dipping in water and it WILL come off the paper backing. Any longer and it'll slide off the backing and float above the water. With bandai's decal, i could leave it in the water for as long as i wan and it'll still stick to the paper backing until i used a cotton swap to push it off. Becos it is this thin, everything is to be handled with care, to prevent it from folding over itself and not to overuse mark-softener.. it will shrink and disappear and you'll stab urself. Luckily, had a few close call but mine didn't. 

Prints on the decals are also very different from bandai's.. this is really a homemade set of decals, where you print directly on a decal sheet, meaning there's nth to prevent the print/decal from coming off if you scratched the surface. And there isn't any boundary edge like bandai's decals, where you can see the 'bubbled up edged' which ALSO acts as a very thin layer of protection to prevent the decal prints from coming off. A good example i would give is, this decal sheet is exactly like a 'Scratch & Win!' score card. a slight scratch would remove the silvery layer.

Any slight mishandling, like an uneven end of a ruler that slides across the surface while cutting the decals out WILL scratch the decals and you'll cry 3 days & night. And i did scratched a few, you can see from the pic on top, an obvious one is on the left, thick black banner, the left corner of it.

i cursed.

Without the boundary edge, wad you cut out will be the size/shape of the decals, usually rectangular. but becos it is SOOOOO thin, i believe after a coat of topcoating, edges be well concealed.

One last note, there's no extra copies of the decals provided. once you screwed one decal, you screwed one and there's no backup plan. you can only order another sheet to make up the loss. thankfully its not really expensive. there's also limited colours that they can print, like major colours: red, blue, green, yellow, black & white. there's no grey i think. since most of the dark coloured decals from WZC are grey, but it came in black. so i'm not gonna use them.

In summary, some things to take note.. due to 'thiness', and printed on decals without protection..

- 1-3secs of water dipping. 1sec is really enough, water will spread and wet the backing and it'll come off easily.
- a very tiny drop of mark softer is enough to 'melt' the decal.
- be EXTRA careful when handling the decal surface, to avoid decals being scratched off. smtimes, pressing hard using a cotton swap CAN scratch the decals too.

So here are some of the updated photos and scratched decals. so pissed after one after another decal gets scratched..... ONOREEEEE...

Gunmetal exposed internal frames with gold and silver pieces.. classic gunpla colours.

'where's my button!' -Heero Yuy

Left side of the chest piece, result of too much mark softener. wrinkled corners.

Right side of the chest piece, scratched after i applied too much friction with my fingers trying to push in the chest piece. scratched with my SKIN! amazing.

Part of the red warning circle scratched off, i tried to cover with some red acrylic paint.

Right side oval scratched without me realising.. and a few more spots....

Had enough of all the errors and mistakes.. i've decided to remove those spoilt decals and order another sheet of decals from samuel's and ask if there's anything they can do to prevent the prints from coming off so easily.. this means that WZC is gonna be put on hold AGAIN until the next decal sheet arrives in a week's time. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading everyone... hope you can learn smthing for this post of mine! Off to pick up another half done project! =)


(^^)"　　　　　レンです！　　　　　じゃね！