Here is another picture of a dry fit in our construction process for Rei on her motorcycle. Hopefully, she will look a lot better when she is finished.

The helmet is supposed to sit on the gas tank, in front of Rei. But I don't want it permanently attached to the motorcycle. So, I will use invisible magnetic force to lock the helmet to the tank.

You can see how I have drilled a little hole and embedded a small 1/4 inch magnet in the gas tank. The plan is to embed another magnet in the base of the helmet. The helmet will then be pulled onto the tank, and it can be removed if necessary.

Note to self ... One magnet in the tank and helmet is not sufficient! The helmet will sit all cockeyed on the tank because the surface is not flat. So, two magnets are needed - one on each side of the bottom of the helmet. This means I need another magnet in the tank. These will lock the helmet down on each side so it sits properly.

I am getting ready to prepare for painting. All the pieces have been sanded and sprues removed and all obvious defects repaired. This has probably take me a week or two, spending a few hours each evening and more on the weekends.

Remember, the time spent at this stage in preparation is critical. Fix everything you can before you paint, because it is much harder to repair the work once it is painted.

Now, I have primed the pieces. Primer is the first coat of paint that you put on and it will show all the flaws that you missed the first time. Expect this. Primer is your friend. When you see seam lines and pinhole magically show up go back and repair everything you can find.

I use Mr. Surfacer 500 as a paintable filler and sand to 400 grit smoothness.

Remember, the time spent in preparation is critical.

You can always put a second coat of primer over your repair work.

Here is Rei after she is primed and repaired. She came in two pieces and her left leg was joined in mid-thigh. This had to be glued and the seam filled and sanded.

I should have take a picture of the leg when I had it under construction but I forgot. However, later on in the construction sequence I managed to drop this piece on the floor. As you might expect, there was a small crack that showed up on the joint, exactly as discussed below. So I took a picture after I had the joint ground out for repair. See here.

With joints like this, remember that it is not sufficient to simply glue the pieces together and sand the seam flush until it is smooth. The joint actually needs to be widened and filled. If you leave a flush joint I will guarantee you that at some point in time a thin hairline crack will show up. Take your Dremel tool or something similar and gouge out the joint. Then fill it and sand it until it is smooth. The wider joint gives the piece stability to vibration and shock, so hairline cracks will be less likely to appear.

This is Rei after she is has been base coated in my medium flesh paint. I've put a slight pink tint around the nipple with my airbrush (you have practiced painting little dots with your airbrush, yes?), but this is probably wasted effort. The racing suit front piece essentially covers this. Nonetheless, it is better to do things right.

I will highlight the body with my light flesh tone. I will hold the airbrush by the neck and spray down on the tops of the breasts while catching the upper part of the hip. This highlight will be a light spray that provides the necessary shading and texture to the body. It will also blend the pink nipple into the skin so that it becomes a better shade and not so stark.

You can see that I am doing a similar shading with the face. I wanted a slight rosy cheek so I sprayed a little colour on Rei's face. On this, I sprayed from underneath the cheek and into the eye, on each side.

This is the same face after I have shaded with my light colour flesh tone. This shading was done from the top similar to Rei's body. The airbrush is used as if it were the light source and the shading for this model assumes the primary light source is from above the model.

You can see how this has covered the glaring pink at the top of the cheek and on the nose, but still left the necessary tone colour underneath. The eyes will get covered with white when they are painted.

Here is our fuel tank. I promised to show you some colour, yes? Remember, this fuel tank has two magnets embedded in it to hold the helmet down.

It's time to think about colour schemes. I am doing both Rei and Asuka, and in Asuka's case she is only 14 years old. Her motorcycle color scheme is red, and I know that she is supposed to be a bit of a rebel, but rather than build a tough, macho bike I thought to tone it down and make it far more girlish. Pink, perhaps.

So, for Rei, who has a blue motif I will want a soft blue. Possibly moving to a pastel violet. So I decided to use my soft pearlescent paints. These are ink paints from Daler-Rowney that are expensive, but very good. I figure that if I am spending a good sum of money on a resin model there is no point in using inexpensive craft paints to save a dollar or two.

See what I mean? I hope this cowling turns out satisfactorily. It will certainly look different once the decals are on.

Putting the darker violet on the bottom of the cowling is consistent with the light source for this model coming from above.

These pieces need to be clear coated. Decals should be applied to a smooth surface. The pearlescent paints I used have a slightly rough texture, possibly because I sprayed them instead of using a brush.