Bandai Razor Crest

[BorgR3mc0]

This is the Revell rebox of the tiny Bandai Razor Crest. Build went fast, it is wel engineered, good fit, small attachment point. Everything snapped together in 15 minutes. I want to paint it with Alclad and then weather it. 

question: the decals look a bit weird. Are they decals? Are they stickers? Does anyone have any experience with them? Tips & tricks?

[Stikpusher]

Remco, those look to be peel and stick decals, not water slide decals. That type is pretty common with the small scale Bandai Star Wars kits. They are actually pretty thin and surprisingly bendable.

[speedgraflex]

Remco,

Those are Bandai’s proprietary vinyl stickers and I have used these on other SW kits; usually there are water slide options as well; I guess this kit is the exception.

You need to carefully bend the sheet to release the corner of the decal you intend to use—

You need to gently pull the decal away from its backing using tweezers—

Then and this is hardest—you need to position exactly every time—because once it’s down it’s likely staying down.

[Medicman71]

Yeah those are stickers for sure. You can use them you'll just have to do a clear coat over them to get rid of the ridges.

[BorgR3mc0]

I tested with some cut off pieces of the edges of the stickers and see if I could work with that. That resulted in a definite “no” so now I am using the stickers as a guide to cut masks.

[speedgraflex]

Yes, I think it’s better to make masks! The depth of each vinyl piece is an issue with the scale effect.

[BorgR3mc0]

I used a colour that matches the stickers. I have been studying images of the razor crest and the colours bounce between brown and yellow. The dolour used is Humbrol 29 thinned with laquer thinner.
I am working on masks, more on that later.

[speedgraflex]

Beautiful work, Remco! Truly.

[BorgR3mc0]

The masking is finished. The lines on the left side are quite sharp, so I used tape for those.
On the right, the lines are more soft-edged, so I masked the outer borders with tape and then stippled liquid mask inside. After removing the tape, the stippled pattern remains but with a clean, sharp outer edge.

[Stuart]

Superb work Remco, that's looking excellent. A good choice masking rather than using the stickers.