Sankei - "Paper" Kits

[maihama eki]

New kit with Doraemon.  I think you could leave the Doraemon bits off and use just the house.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10713441

 

 

[disturbman]

I have been building structures when I have a bit of free time.

I was surprised to notice the huge height difference between one of the "modern" house kits (house D) and some of the wooden, traditional building (something similar to this one). The first floor of the modern house looks completely out of proportion in comparison, almost half a floor taller.

 

Is this prototypical or is there a scale/measurement issue?

[Kanpai Keith]

Being 6’3” on my visit to Japan last year I did notice the ceiling height on older buildings was low, 🤕.

 

On more modern buildings there appears to be a more western standard.  So yeah I’d say there could be at least 1’ different.

[cteno4]

My experience as well, especially doorways, older places I sometimes had to duck at the doorway, so I could see how modern stuff would look taller, but not by 3’, maybe a foot.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

Right. It makes mixing up the eras a bit difficult, the difference in size is a bit jarring. I'm not a big fan of the older houses. A bit is nice but it's not the era I want to model.

I would love more contemporary but kind of anonymous buildings.

Things like this:

[maihama eki]

The MP04-94 "Bike C" set.  https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10282807  These little kits are a fun way to occupy some spare time or wind down at the end of the day.

 

These look great assembled directly, but a little painting really makes them outstanding. They won't stand-up on their own, so I made a little cardstock stand for photos.

 

 

[gavino200]

Really nice. Did you smooth the edges a little too? 

[cteno4]

Excellent! I’m going to have to try painting some of these myself! I was a bit worried about tiny fibers maybe causing issues, but that great sankei heavy resin chipboard seems to cut so cleanly and keep a good edge when painted! Did you just use regular acrylic paint?

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

I didn't do anything to the edges before painting. Any straight edges come off the laser pretty smooth. You see a little bit of notchiness on curves, but not too bad. I don't think you could sand the edges - I think they would fray too much. You might be able to smooth out a notchy edge with a very sharp xacto knife, but it would be easy to cut off too much. A coat of brushed acrylic covers seams and smooths out notchiness pretty well if it looks bad.

 

I used almost every type of paint in the book on these, and I would say that all worked as well. Spray lacquer (the white fairings and some of the separate chrome pieces like the handlebars and racks), brushed enamel (some of the chrome), and brushed acrylic (tires, engines, seats). One thing I did learn is that the Sankei chipboard doesn't really like clear flat lacquer. I sprayed the red scooter when it was finished and the red areas that were not painted before had white splotches all over them. I've seen clear flat acrylic react bad like that with some other materials. I may have used too heavy of a coat. Anyway, I had to go back and paint over the red with brushed acrylic. 

 

 

 

 

[inobu]

1 hour ago, maihama eki said:

The MP04-94 "Bike C" set.  https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10282807  These little kits are a fun way to occupy some spare time or wind down at the end of the day.

 

These look great assembled directly, but a little painting really makes them outstanding. They won't stand-up on their own, so I made a little cardstock stand for photos.

 

 

lol that's nice.  Hey try staples for the center stand.

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

Great info, thanks! Odd with the clear lacquer, wonder if it was that particular paint it was going over. I remember back when a kid doing toy soldier painting the production used a few different brands of paints and some were the go to for most times we needed certain colors, but we would get notices on certain runs of uniforms to not use the usual as they didn’t like interacting and would crackle or other issues on some particular base color.

 

going to have to do a few scooters while watching tv! I love sankei kits.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Really impressive work!  Those bikes look great.

 

At the moment, I am definitely ambivalent about the Sankei kits.  I have been working on a small snow scene diorama and was planning to use a shortened version of the Sankei station MP-03-81.  Even cut down, the station platform had 26 parts, 25 of which I assembled successfully.  Unfortunately, part 26 was my Caporetto and, with too much pressure, I managed to collapse the entire platform.  On to plan B ....    My diorama will now have a somewhat different scene.

 

Sankei kits can produce great results but I think they need a certain amount of patience to get good results.  Still working on the patience thing ....

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[maihama eki]

A recent video on a Youtube channel that I often watch on construction of a couple z-scale Sankei kits. Not sure if there is anything new here for me, but maybe others will find something. It is only 14 minutes long and much of it is a time-lapse video of them building the 2 kits. They like the Sankei cardstock too.

 

 

[Tony Galiani]

I actually got another Sankei kit (almost) done this past weekend.  The roof needs to be completed - I was going to wait until I could get some Green Max roofing material but decided - after I took the picture - that I could use the paper Sankei roof for now and add a more detailed roof at a later date.  I cannot achieve Jeff's zen state in making these kits - but I am happy I made it this far without messing it up!

I may add a few additional details depending on how I end up using it - I have several projects in mind and, if I can ever get enough focus to move ahead, I will detail the building a bit more and possibly add an awning.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[cteno4]

Nice work tony!
 

It takes time grasshopper! The first couple were more works but I love this kind of interlocking design, a lot like woodworking. They then get more easy to build. 

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

I think I may be over-thinking the construction process ....

They do make such great models.  Oh well.

Having typed that, I am going to go and work on another kit this evening.

Ciao,

Tony

[cteno4]

Well you are right it does need some thinking and keep looping that as you build it as it’s not as simple of construction most kits are. But I rather enjoy those loops and imagining the parts going together in the whole process. Also the whole system of tabs and rabit joints just has a satisfying feel as they go together. Tomytec gives you some of this but it’s sort of short and crude. The sankei are more aesthetically pleasing as the joints pop into place and the building forms. Also a bit of the free form scratch building feeling gluing up wall layers and window bits. Maybe it takes me back to those hundreds of plastic models built when I was a kid. Sankei just has that simple elegance in assembly.

 

the Tao of model building…

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Finished my current kit.  I decided to us the paper roofing material in order to get it completed.  And I can always add another roof overlay if I decide on that later on.  The flat roof looks okay if you are not too close.  As always, it took me longer than expected but I am pleased with the result.  I have another similar, though slightly larger, Sankei kit lined up, then a couple of Green Max kits as a change of pace.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

[Tony Galiani]

One thing I forgot to mention is that I had read on this Forum - though I cannot remember who to give proper credit - to use colored pencils to color the edges of the cut paper roof material.  I did that using a gray pencil as close to the roof color as possible and I think it worked out well.  In the past, I had tried markers but they sometimes bled on to the paper and did not produce good results.  The white edges of the paper roof were really noticeable so glad I remembered that suggestion before I glued the roof in place.

Ciao,

Tony Galiani

 

[cteno4]

Tony,

 

using colored pencils and pens on the edge of white cardstock edges is an old trick of cardstock modelers. I have a set of colored pencils, a set of those cheap kids, like 120, colored felt pens, and a pack of gray illustration felt tipped pens for doing this. Kids set of pens provide a wide range of colors cheap. I usually run the edge along the side of the felt tip as less ink flows there and don’t get lots of bleeding. The grayscale illustration markers don’t seem to bleed much. I have tried my alcohol markers but they tended to bleed a lot and not good.

 

I've though of trying harder pastels as well, but I’ve misplaced my set of pastels.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[cteno4]

So toni you planted a bug in my head. My very old colored pencil set always has frustrated me as it was only like 60 colors and the colored leads were pretty hard and not so easy to color edges gently. So on Black Friday I went shopping and found a 260 color set with soft soft leads for $15! Now I have enough colors and pencils for a lifetime!

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Happy to help!

Tony

[gavino200]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

So toni you planted a bug in my head. My very old colored pencil set always has frustrated me as it was only like 60 colors and the colored leads were pretty hard and not so easy to color edges gently. So on Black Friday I went shopping and found a 260 color set with soft soft leads for $15! Now I have enough colors and pencils for a lifetime!

 

jeff

 

Nice! Where did you get them? Do the pencils fit snugly in the trays? Or are they likely to spill out all over the place?

[JR 500系]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

So toni you planted a bug in my head. My very old colored pencil set always has frustrated me as it was only like 60 colors and the colored leads were pretty hard and not so easy to color edges gently. So on Black Friday I went shopping and found a 260 color set with soft soft leads for $15! Now I have enough colors and pencils for a lifetime!

 

jeff

 

 

Haha it reminded me of my childhood.... Using these pencils as warhead missiles and launching them all over the place! Have fun!  😆

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, gavino200 said:

Nice! Where did you get them? Do the pencils fit snugly in the trays? Or are they likely to spill out all over the place?

It was amazon, they are back up to $35 price just a lucky lookie on Black Friday! They are not super high quality art penicls, but for the edges and a bit of detail fill in on things they are fine. The trays are very flimsy plastic that pencils fit snuggly into and then a plastic box the stacked trays slide into. You read my mind as I was knoodling on a better system as the trays are pretty flimsy and pulling them all out on a bigger table Area to find your color—not optimal. But for $15 for 260! I could make a simple drawer system with some 1/8” ply drawers that the trays sit on and then these just slide into a box with grooves for each ply drawer. Other thought was just just cut off a half inch of each tray and then make a cardboard box for the the stacked trays to sit in vertically so you just have the top half inch of all the tips sticking out And just pull the point you want out. But it’s an roi calculation as I use the pencils like once or twice a month maybe on average…

 

other options for storage more than The bloody pencils!

 

https://smile.amazon.com/260-Colored-Pencils-Pencil-Case/dp/B093GKNBRD/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=260+colored+pencils&qid=1638258840&s=office-products&sr=1-7

 

cheers

 

jeff