UN SPACY Paint Brigade

[Rabidweezil]

This is going to seem like a far off topic, but with all the custom Valkyrie paintjobs we’ve seen throughout the various series, books and other media, I can’t help but wonder, in the Macross Universe, who does all the painting?

Every time some hero pilot blows off his custom fast-packs into space, or some special squadron loses a Battroid arm, or dings a leg, some poor b*stard has to mix up the paint, break out the paint gun and get to work.

And where does all this paint come from? Do the bases and carrier-type ships have special sections set aside for paint storage?

Paint tech: “I’m going to go grab the Millia red 342 from storage so I can give her Valk a touch-up!”

I know, dumb topic, but that doesn’t make me any less curious as to how it might work.

[Seto Kaiba]

This is going to seem like a far off topic, but with all the custom Valkyrie paintjobs we’ve seen throughout the various series, books and other media, I can’t help but wonder, in the Macross Universe, who does all the painting?

Er... if I had to guess, I'd say the maintenance crew is probably responsible for painting the heraldry and markings of the units whose Valkyries they're responsible for. Most of the VFs in Macross seem to have pretty standardized markings, and custom paintjobs seem to be something only "elite" units like Skull Squadron do.

If I had to guess, I'd say custom paint is probably either something restricted to the elite (as a "perk") or something the pilots have to do themselves. I can't imagine they'd be able to put in a work order for the kind of explicit decoration we've seen in books like the Macross Model Hobby Handbook and on Canaria's VB-6 and Maruyama's VF-171EX in Macross Frontier... unless the NUNS has the most lenient sexual harassment policy in the history of the galaxy.

[talonlm]

For today's US Navy, the commander's assigned aircraft has the tail fins painted with the squadron's patch and trimmed in the squadron colors. The USAF has just about killed any type of individualization for their aircraft (though nose art is a hard thing for them to stomp out). Normally, for any paint, the aircraft's dedicated crew chief handles touch up paint when needed. I would imagine the maintainers on the carriers and bases in the Macross universe would do the same.

[David Hingtgen]

Custom colors would be the hardest thing. The Jolly Rogers often had to barter to get the extra-dark grey they needed for their low-vis tailfins, as that color was only supplied in small quantities for painting the modex numbers and nothing else. The dark grey tailfins were "allowed but not condoned"----they'd have to get the needed paint from other squadrons. Luckily, they have no need for red, while the Black Knights and Diamondbacks need a lot....

[RyuRoots]

I'm not sure about the "elite" pilot thing as an exclusive since Kakizaki had a unique livery right out of the academy in SDFM.

[Zinjo]

SDFM was pretty fast and loose with the paint schemes and in subsequent shows, Kawamori toned the custom paint schemes down considerably. Starting in DYRL and continuing onward.

In M7, only two military units really had custom schemes and they were uniform to the units themselves (Diamond and Emerald Forces).

Mac Zero was able to have customized schemes to identify the different prototype units. The VF-0A had a different scheme to the "S", "B" and "D" types. The AUN had custom SV-51 colors for their aces, but the CF fighters were all Macross brown.

Frontier's NUNS fighters were very uniform in scheme and only a paramilitary organization like the SMS could get away with customzed paint schemes for the pilots like we saw in SDFM.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Zinjo

[anime52k8]

here's a thought; maybe since it's the future they don't use paint anymore, and the planes are just skinned in composite panels that are pre-colored all the way through so even if they get scuffed up, it doesn't show.