Yes, you read the title of this post correctly! I’m aiming to make a Neon Zeong in all neon colours!

This is my rough idea of where I’m going, just photoshopped over a picture of the SD kit. Main colour is a neon yellow, and I’ll use neon green for accents. That’s the plan so lets look at progress…. Starting with the base, I’ve used Alclad gloss black primer and then Uschi chrome powder. I’ve added Tamiya smoke to the recessed panels to enhance the depth. Around the thrusters I’ve used Tamiya clear green for detail. I’m considering adding some more colour to this piece, and trying to figure how best to make the base of the fuel tanks green. Painted as above, and again, I may add in some colour. Here I very carefully hand painted in the edges with the Tamiya clear green. The Tamiya clear colours go very well over the Uschi powder. The main emblem on the Sinanju came out especially nice. Once the green was painted, I added drops of Tamiya smoke around it which darkened the background nicely without it going to pure black, and because it was thinned it flowed nicely into place without leaving visible brush marks.  You can see the green a bit more clearly on these shots. Most of the rest of the pieces are getting grey undercoat to remove the red colour, and then I’ll be using white undercoat to make the top neon colours as bright as I can get them.  These parts are getting similar treatment to how I did the main logo, but at this stage they’ve just been powdered without any polishing. Because the rest of the piece will be neon, I’ll have to mask when the green on the sleeves is complete.I got the metal upgrade parts from HobbyMate. I’ve been drilling holes in preparation. I’m not sure if I’m going to use the power pipes for the neck yet, but I think I’ve got all the holes drilled for the rest of the pieces. So I decided to follow my concept and paint these parts green. The Tamiya clear green went on very smoothly by hand and dried nicely.But although the Uschi powder is good for me if I don’t touch it, I can’t help but touch pieces so I gloss top coated them with Future. Which keeps the metallic effect and shine……but they can get a bit darker if the light isn’t just right.  With the light better, the look great again. You can add more powder on top of the gloss coat too, which I did, and that brightens them up again, and of course with the top coat in the mix, it will never rub off too much again. I still love this piece. It did go missing on the way from my desk to the airbrush station. I found it stuck to my paint shelf! I decided to hack this piece to replace the plastic power pipes with the metal pieces from the kit. My trusty pin-vice drilled the holes, and a small drop of plastic cement holds the spring in place at the front.  I tried white undercoat on top of the grey. It didn’t work. Both undercoats are Alclad and the white dissolved the grey leading to a mix on the piece that let the red shine through. So I’ve gone back to just using the grey knowing I’m going to have to layer up the neon paint anyway. Here’s my first layer of the neon green. Did I tell you the paint is fluorescent? Yes – it will glow lovely under UV light! And here’s a layer of the yellow neon. I did a test and the green will go over the top of it ok, so for pieces I’ll be masking I’ll do the yellow first. I reckon I’m probably going to need 2 or 3 coats to make this paint work, but the colours are spot on!

Update

The yellow neon paint did not go on well. It wasn’t smooth after all the layers I had to do and it kept getting dirty, again not helped by all the layers I needed.

So I’m in the process of stripping the pieces and I’ve got one piece I’m re-doing as a new test. This time on top of the grey primer there’s two layers of nice white paint, and then I’ll try for the neon yellow again, but this time thinned just like I thin the white with a bit of Future Finish and a touch of Tamiya thinner.

Update 2

I’m away for the week so I’m leaving the pieces stripping. They’re mostly clean, but even still getting the last of the paint off was very tricky and I wasn’t happy with the surface finish especially for what will be glossy. So my new plan is to get a new BB Neo Zeong kit to make the Neon Zeong and take these pieces in a different direction… More on that later!

 Here’s some pieces after some stripping.And more pieces in the jar. The stripping gets the acrylic Createx paint off very quickly, but is ever so slow on the Alclad primer, usually needing brush work to remove it. That’s not too bad where there’s an easy accessible surface, but on the insides of pieces, it can be messy and time consuming.  Here’s a stripped and re-primed part with Alclad grey primer and a layer of Createx white on top.Now with the neon yellow a single layer of paint works well on the colour, but if you look at the surface it’s just not nice. Now I could spend ages sanding it smooth, spending more time on the stripping and brushing….. Or I could just buy a new kit for the Neon, which is exactly what I’ve done.

My idea for these pieces is to go metallic damaged with green accents and lots of rust (the orange rust will go nice with the green). I’m away for the week, so I’ll be thinking but if you have any ideas, leave them in the comments.