How To Make Your Own Gunpla Painting Sticks

Painting your Gunpla can be one of the most rewarding parts of the assembly process. Nothing transforms the look of your finished Gunpla like a custom paint job! To do that, you’ll need to rely on a tried and true tool: alligator clip painting sticks. Let Gunpla 101 contributor Nick show you how to make your own at home that are more durable than anything you can buy.

Getting started painting your Gunpla doesn’t seem too difficult. Take your model, a can of spray paint and go to town, right? You can do that if you want to have a paint glob of an immobile mobile suit covered in fingerprints. I doubt that’s your aim, nor is it mine! I’ll show you my method for making two sizes of part clips, stronger than what you can buy pre-assembled.

To start, we’ll need something to keep our hands out of the line of fire, so to speak. Bamboo skewers will work quite well for our purposes and they come in a wide range of sizes. You can choose 12 inch skewers, or go as short as 8 inch or even 6 inch skewers. Just remember that the longer the skewer, the less control you’ll have while you’re painting. Four millimeter diameter skewers will work for larger parts and we can use some 2 millimeter skewers for smaller parts. We’ll make both here.

Let the ~~force~~ glue flow through you.

And how do we keep our parts attached? Chewing gum? Electrical tape? Nah, alligator clips to the rescue! Because Bezos doesn’t have nearly enough money, the best/cheapest place for the two types of clips will be Amazon again. You can specify what size diameter you need, and we’re going to get alligator clips in 4mm and 2mm sizes to fit these. While I’m on the subject, look at the 2mm alligator clips I’ve pictured here: these have flat jaws. This will allow you to get a good grip on really small parts, like you’ll find on 1/144 sized Gunpla kits. And by slightly curving the jaws you can even get a decent grip on round parts.

A gentle curve will help grip small rounded parts.

Now to connect our skewers and clips. This will be easy for our 4mm clips: since the clips and the skewers have matching diameters, it’s as easy as using some thin hobby glue and letting it dry. For our 2mm skewers, we need to work a little harder. I’ve broken out the hot glue for these, and it helps to use some parchment paper so they don’t stick to your work surface. I want to make sure these are solid as can be, so I’m going to use adhesive-backed heat shrink tubing to shore up our connections.

Applying adhesive-backed heat shrink tubing.

You could use a lighter but fire and bamboo don’t mix.

All these stakes aren’t going to do a thing unless we have something to stick ‘em into. Since we’re in a DIY mood, check out our Gunpla 101 resource on ways to make a bunch of different stake-stands.

But if you’re short on time or materials, you can do what I do and use cardboard cat scratchers. These are available in multiple sizes and standard cardboard will fit our 4mm stakes really well, but the 2mm stakes will be a little floppy. It’s no fun having your hard work ruined by parts touching each other. A different sized scratcher is needed, and the smaller holes will fit well with our 2mm stakes.

Now we have everything we need to get some decent painting done. Whether you’re using spray cans or airbrushes, you’ll be well-equipped to take your Gunpla to the next level!

Nick has been building and customizing Gunpla for 5 years, learning and failing and learning some more. He braves the Alabama heat with his spouse and two reptilian kids. When not building Gunpla he fights for the working class and consumes enough caffeine to take down a small bison. Follow along on Instagram and Bluesky.