[ShiShiLeo]

The YUDO figures for the currently airing Sentai season Mashin Sentai Kiramagers have finally arrived and this is how I've painted them. This is a guide for painting YUDO and SODO figures (which are very similar)


KIRAMEI SPARKLING!

For these figures I used:

Gundam Marker EX Silver
Gundam Marker EX White
Gundam Marker GM38 "Black"

YUDO and SODO figures use cheaper plastic with a gloss coating that makes paint sometimes hard to stick to it. Gundam Markers will work, but it may take some extra coats. Regular acrylic paint will not work at all. If you use acrylic paint, be prepared to mask and prime.

For the first step, I lay out all the figures and examine them.


I compare them to online images and other high end figures (If its a SODO, look for the Figuarts equivalent). The Kiramagers have a lot of silver stickers which have designs on them so I can't outright replace them with paint. As a compromise, I plan to paint the edges of where the silver will stickers will go. The stickers only cover a surface and in many places, they don't cover the entire object. In the image below, the bangles and cuffs are molded as thick pieces. These is where I will be painting the most.



Once I have a plan, I look for any excess flash I can cut off and/or sand.

I am particularly looking for places that stickers will go to make sure they go on smoothly.

The next step is to disassemble the figures to make painting easier.


I use a fine brush to paint all the black areas. These are just the shoes, the belt buckle, and the Kiramei changers.

Even though the changers will eventually be covered in stickers. I'm painting there in case the color pokes through in between the sticker parts. (The changers are molded to the primary color of each ranger).

After I'm finished with black paint, I wait about 10 minutes to let it dry and move on to paint the silver parts.

You can see I've dissembled them further to get a better angle.

I am only painting the edges. The stickers still do a great job at providing a uniform look to match the armlets which have insignia I can't reproduce.

Because I'm not using the black part of the belt stickers, I actually cut up the stickers because I still want the tiny detail on the buckle piece.


I use holders to help me paint parts that are hard to hold. These are the shoulder pads and the whole thing is painted silver.

For big parts like these shoulder pads, I used the marker directly on them; no brush at all.

You can see here I added silver paint around the neck like on the actual suits.

This is easy because the neckline has a molded ridge. I'm not freehand drawing a silver line, instead I let the marker do the work and barely make contact with the plastic area. Think of it like inking an embossed stamp. Next take a break and let the paint dry.

With the white marker, I paint the necks and the tiny part below the helmet's jaw. As you can see, white is very difficult to paint on a color as vibrant as red. It takes quite a few coats. If it wasn't such a small area, I wouldn't even try painting it. Painting white is always a bummer.

The painting on finer details like this white doesn't have to be perfect- you can even see Bandai's own paint job is a little sloppy when you're up this close.

Once everything is painted, I apply all the stickers like you normally would (using tweezers!) then I reassemble each figure one at a time.


Not pictured here, but at this point, I will take my hobby knife and clean up the paint job. This just means lightly scrapping off anywhere paint got out of hand. For bigger mistakes, you can clean off paint with rubbing alcohol or a specific "Gundam Marker Eraser". Scrapping away the paint is how you get those clean lines where a mold line isn't there to guide you.

Here's the end result:



The Kiramager YUDO figures are much improved from the LuPat ones. The painting is all in the details, but even without the paint, I still think they'd look great. The posability is superior to SODO, likely due to the slightly larger scale. The wrist joints have really good articulation as they are on an extended ball that you can pull in and out.

I hope this guide was helpful! These figures are actually fun to paint because they are so small you can do it by hand with a brush. As things get bigger, you can start to see brush strokes and I begin to opt for my airbrush. A little paint goes a long way and I always recommend it!

Please feel free to ask any questions.