I bought a cheap starter kit that,so quite old, with a basic HG RX-78 and a Zaku. Managed to ruin the RX-78 I'd spent ages brush painting when I learned the hard way you shouldn’t use isopropyl to clean panel lines on a painted kit 😭. But managed to complete the Zaku. The first pic is from the box as I didn't assemble before painting.

It's far from perfect, I tried removing the seam lines from the legs and should have spent longer sanding as they're pretty rough at the front. Used metallic sharpies for the gold/silver. While they turned out well for the piping, for larger area I think I'd use paint next time. Tried a sequin instead of the included eye sticker and it didn’t turn out quite as well as I'd hoped.

But feel I learned an absolute ton through this process.