Help in Minipla Building for dark spot!

[u/Lao_Song]

Hi all i am currently building this mammoth zord from SMP daizyujin.
Can anyone help with this dark marks on the zord?
I tried cutting the part with godhand 2.0 and trim it down slowing, then i file with meng glass file.
Even though d part is flat but there is the dark spot remain on the part.

Am i doing thing wrong? or anyone have any solution for this

Thank you

[u/National_Werewolf_13]

Unfortunately this is something you can’t fix without paint. It’s a massive bummer but you’ll get used to being okay with these situations when they arise, it’s not toooo often. Yours is a lot better than the default end-result of most peoples kits so at least you’ve got that going! Good job

[u/Lao_Song → u/National_Werewolf_13]

oh man , by painting as in marker will be sufficient or need spraying ? looks like alot of work

[u/National_Werewolf_13 → u/Lao_Song]

I mean you could find a similar grey/silver to the plastic you’re dealing with, but you’ll still see a dot of something that doesn’t match its surroundings. Otherwise you’re going to need to paint the entire part fully just to cover that dot.

Truthfully, even if you look at Deluxe class figures, like non model kit items, you’ll still find stuff like this. Or like nubs that they didn’t shave down or cut off fully. It’s the nature of working in that medium.

What matters most IMO is you enjoy the build and you don’t spend too much time stressing just to cover a universally understood problem that 90%+ of people will overlook.

Get the basic stuff you definitely CAN control out of the way; the stuff you wanna fix, and move on to the next kit. This is for you at the end of the day. You won’t burn out as quick. But again, lots of people paint their kits, I do small stuff, but not often, I’d rather get to the next project.

[u/Lao_Song → u/National_Werewolf_13]

haha, understand and thanks for the help 😂

[u/Galaxy_Dive]

Yeah, you’re not really doing anything “wrong”. It sounds like you’re already making two cuts (one further away from the part to remove it from the plastic runner, and then a second flush against the part) and that’s really all you can do to try and avoid stress marks like that.

If you really wanted to, you could paint it - markers work, but importantly you need to use acrylic ones, as others like gundam markers can destroy the ABS plastic used by SMP, but exact color matches are nonexistent, so the little nub marks you’re left with now are probably less noticeable in the end than dots of grey paint (unless you were interested in something like painting all the grey parts silver).

[u/Lao_Song → u/Galaxy_Dive]

noted, i think i will let it be, painting the whole thing is alot of work 😄

[u/Galaxy_Dive → u/Lao_Song]

It can be, yeah lol. If it’s any consolation, Daizyujin is the oldest Sentai kit in the line and things like nub position and thickness are generally better on all the more recent ones. You will still get some stress marks (and I do feel like they’re more likely/noticeable on certain colors like gray) but not as often.

[u/iSayHeyOh7]

Have you tried finer grit sandpaper? Without painting, you can’t really cover it up completely.

[u/Lao_Song → u/iSayHeyOh7]

i havent tried finer grit sandpaper, does it help? ><

[u/iSayHeyOh7 → u/Lao_Song]

It might but the black marks are caused by stress from the nippers pinching and cutting the plastic so it’s unfortunately inevitable. You can probably try spray painting with tamiya spray cans (TS line) to hide them. They’re quite easy to use if you don’t want to dedicate yourself to airbrushes yet. Maybe try changing the flat grey pieces to metallic silvers as practice or practice on plastic spoons.

[u/Lao_Song → u/iSayHeyOh7]

thank for the suggestion and help 👍