Custom Painted Tatula Reel with Gundam Decals and UV Resin Coating

I had painted my Tatula in the same color as my Roadster, but since it has a silver base that's hard for paint to adhere to, along with a clear topcoat, the paint was chipping off from quite a bit of damage, so I repainted it.

Along the way, I decided to add some plastic model decals from a 100-yen shop and Amro's mark from Victory Gundam that I had on hand.

It all started when I found a touch-up paint pen for my Roadster and used it to touch up a few scratches. I couldn't resist and ended up wanting to paint the whole thing with it, so the base of this paint job is actually brush-painted touch-up paint. Even with brush painting, you can get it looking this clean.

The process involved brush-painting with the touch-up pen, applying Gundam decals, pouring UV resin over the surface to cure it, and then polishing it with sandpaper and compound. I used a brush to spread the UV resin so that it would coat evenly using surface tension as much as possible. I used a low-viscosity (runny) type. It cures quickly, allows for multiple coats, and can be finished with sandpaper and compound at the end, so you can redo it as many times as you like, making it a stress-free process.

Curing with a 100-yen shop UV light.

There were a few interesting characters among the 100-yen shop stickers, so I combined them to write "Sanbyaku-zan" (300 Cuts), which means "I'm going to catch 300 fish with this reel!" On the side with Amro's mark, I originally had a painted spider mark imitating the Tatula logo, and I left a bit of that remaining as well.

On the handle side, I used more 100-yen stickers. I thought these were the kind you activate with warm water, but they were just thin regular stickers, so I just peeled and stuck them on. I applied them all over like the wings of a Unicorn Gundam. As for the text, like "TWS," "HL," and "7.3," I fixed them by re-applying letters from an old label maker. On this side, the paint near the shoulder area keeps warping for some reason. After polishing it smooth with sandpaper and compound, it warped again about a month later. I must have lost my mind midway and sprayed some clear coat on it, so maybe those chemical components weren't compatible.

What do you think? Pretty cool, right? This was probably taken before the final polish.

Field testing went without a hitch, and it looks great. Being UV resin, it should hold up well against damage too.