Beveling

I recently discovered a bunch of old Japanese videos on YouTube called Plamo Tsukurou - and boy do these guys know their stuff! Each episode shows a plamo master working on a kit from snap build to finish - highlighting their techniques in scratch building, battle damage, painting, weathering and so on. They feature builds from all scale modelling genres.

Too bad the videos aren't subtitled, but you do learn a thing or two just by watching them go at it. I've been applying one of the tricks I learned on the TG2, which I will refer to as beveling.

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Here's an illustration of what beveling is. You take a part with 2 sides (A & B) and a curved or straight corner, and modify the corner to make a small 3rd side (C).

To achieve this, I just scrape the knife along the corner of the part at an angle with very light strokes, over and over until I get the effect I want.

This technique can add depth to an otherwise flat surface, or to improve parts where the details are softer and the edges tend to look curved due to poor molds (a common problem with bootlegs)

More quick tips coming soon!