Lt. Z0mBe

Small update today on my VF-22 project, but a lot of ground covered. Massive masking performed and removed to get this Misubishi F-2 Inspired scheme: From below From above Color coat is finished and masking is removed, except for the clear parts. There's a little touchup remaining. I'll knock that out tomorrow and then it will get a Future coat to prep for decals. Comments and criticisms welcome, as always. Kenny

I think it looks great! I love the olive drab look. Kenny

Schizo's Y-Wing and klam's VF-22 look great! They're very "crisp" and have a weight to them Kenny

Finally able to post images from home following the ice storm here. Here's my post on the VF-22 project I posted at Starshipmodeler: Finally I can upload images from my lair. A second round of masking and preshading are complete. The first color has been applied too. I;m chaning the color scheme this time to loosely match that of a Japanese Mitsubishi F-2 maritime scheme. Vertical STabilizers From below From above Here you can see one of the female mounting pieces I built for the vertical stabilizers to give them a nice, flush fit to the fuselage after assembly: Brackets They're little plastic styrene or similar plastic from store clothes hangars. They had a good look to them and, at some unknown point long ago, into the greebly bin they went. Again, I wanted a more robust look to the attachment point for the vertical stabilizers to the fuselage as the "real" ones look too flimsy for a production aircraft. You know me, never canon. :-) Finally, here's the tiled and preshaded. I stole the hexagon tile idea from Chris "Ph. D. Strange" after he gave his blessing. More to come. Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

That thing looks sweet! It's so clean. Kenny

Very cool. That cockpit looks sweet. I know nothing about Macross - that's one reason I camer here too - but that thing looks freakin' sweet. It looks like somebody gave a C182 steroids. Kenny

Thanks for those sites. Those are some great prices! Kenny

You answered your own question. There are relatively few manufacturers of some really nice kits a lot of people want. High demand bids the price up. To answer the college student question - been there and done that. A few things I can recommend. First - learn to scratchbuild. I built whatever I wanted - and did it well - from inexpensive materials and kits. I highly recommend the boards at www.starshipmodeler.com. Draw a design on paper and scratchbuild it from cheap sheet styrene and foam. Where to find this? Yard sale signs and exterior foam insulation from the hardware store. Cover it with Aves epoxy putty. Get your little detail bits from inkpen guts, electronics, cheap aircraft models, and old toys. Anything can help you once you get into the sci-fi modeling mindset. As for the kits themselves, model contests can be great sources for bargains on models...or you can get taken to the cleaners. Check the market price for a given model you want before you go via evilBay. Finally, craigslist.org will sometimes have estate sales of model kits. I bought half a dozen kits a while back...for $5.00 because the widow just wanted to get them out of her garage. I picked them up. I hope this helps. Kenny

I bought one while I was recovering from surgery. Holy crap does it look nice - it's a big honkin' piece of styrene with very, very fine engraved panel lines. Decals are sharp. I want to finish it as a heavily loaded, Marine ground attack aircraft weathered to the gills. It will be sweet. Kenny

Looks great, Sean! Been gone a month and you've made a lot of progress. Kenny

My VF-22 hit a bit of a snag the other night. I applied a wash, but my Future coat was either too thin, OR I'd added too much surfactant as it'd etched and stained the Future. I placed the thing in a large zippered bag and stripped it with Castro Super Clean. The down side is the Super Clean softened the Aves mounts I'd made for the vertical stabilizers - I'd expected that - and I'm rebuilding them. Again, I'm going with something that looks more "real" than the kit offerings and this time they'll be seamlessly mountable after final weathering's completed. Thanks to John Lester and Terry for that suggestion originally. Back to the bench we go. Kenny

Wow. That one's really cool. I'd never seen it before. Kenny

Long time between updates. I've been sanding the base down and applying decals. The decals are all applied, say of one I'll apply tomorrow night. It's a big one and I'm tired. The unit markings are fictitious, being an amalgam of a Navy craft with Marine attack squadron markings. Bottom From three o'clock Level From nine o'clock level FRom above I've got washes and weathering to go, not to mention the base is primed and ready. Comments and criticisms welcome, as always. Kenny

It's really an Elint bird. But, the point's still valid. I figure it's due to it being cheaper to retrofit existing designs than design an all-new one from the ground up. But, I'm not exactly a Macross expert - I just like the pretty aerospace fighters. Kenny

Love the VE-1, Sean. It will look sweet all low-vizzed out in greys. Kenny

Here's the masks removed after the final color was added. THe two "turqouisy" colors were too similar once applied. To combat this I thinned some Tamiya blue waaaay down with 90-percent Isopropyl and a drop of Future and gave a mist coat to the entire model prior to removing the camouflage masking. I was really tickled with how this bizaare scheme came out Top Bottom More masking underway now for the stabilizer attachment points, the secondary exhaust nozzles, cannon ports, and the micro-missile lauch doors: Top Bottom New masks have been burnished down, with their edges lightly sealed with Future. Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

Well done! All I can say is thank god Hitler or Stalin didn't have those things. Kenny

Finshed the fuselage color coats today. Here's the top and bottom with their second colors on. The second colors are masked off and the masks are burnished down and sealed: Top Bottom Third color applied of the first two colors' worth of maskings: Top Bottom I'll let everything cure for a day or two while I work on the base or something. The preshading didn't give quite the relief I was hoping for in all the areas, meaning I'll probably use some extra pastel ninja attacks when the time comes. Comments and criticisms welcome, as always. Kenny

The first color is on, cured, and has been masked in preparation for the succeeding coats. I'm going with a random, hard-edged geomoettric pattern reminiscent of Flankers and Viggens. Top Bottom Color number two has been added, with masking to be done tomorrow. Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

Thanks, Sean. PRaise from the master, indeed. Another tiny update for today. I've preshaded the thing. I'm experimenting a bit, after some wise counsel, and going with some light preshading in addition to the standard dark preshading. There's a few mistakes in the dark areas, but I don't care. I'll fix them as I go. That's the beauty of airbrushing. Undercarriage doors. Underside From above I'm working on the base right now. Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

Little update for today. I have everything masked and primed. In these pictures, the trouble areas have been marked with a pencil for correction. That's what I am doing right now. Above Below I wanted to make the stabilizer-to-fuselage joints look more realistic. I added some .015" styrene details around the mounting pegs: Beefier, yet Macrossy-looking joint Bit of a dark panel line here. I think I'll partially fill with white glue to get a scale effect along the stiffener Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

Thanks for the kind words MT and cowie. With the size of that uber cool Daedalus, the tinkerbell's probably in scale with it. Good sign the daughter's developing the eye for detail. Kenny

Here's my post on my Hasegawa VF-22: I went ahead and added the vertical stabilizers. Basically, I pinned them in three places and they're pretty tough now. I tested to make sure I could reach every place for weathering and decals BEFORE locking them down. I also added a couple of antenna blisters to the starboard stabilizer. Why? Because this one's not a demonstrator and I figure it's a few marks into service. I figure it'll end up being the "VF-22F" or something. It's a little blurry. Six o'clock high showing the slightly thicker mounts for the pins. You can see the antenna blisters too. Eight o'clock high and much clearer As I type this, clear parts are being added too. I'm going to go ahead and mount them and mask them prior to priming, as they're all going to need some fairing in and rescribing. I opted for this over the colored epoxy method because the styrene is so soft, I'm afraid I'll never get things to blend properly. Clear parts bays painted and ready for lenses. More juicy updates to follow. Comments and criticisms welcomed, as always. Kenny

I'm not a toy collector but that's one of the coolest things I've seen a company do in a while. Kenny

I say learn to build. If you can fabricate anything, you already have artistic ability. Buy a lot of kits and supplies. Build the kits. Do so in a mediocre fashion BUT learn a lot. Build the next lot a bit better and so on. Before you know it, you are building contest winners, literally and figuratively. Make this kit one of the ones you buy initially, but set it aside until you feel you're ready for it. Of course, as a long time builder, I am a bit biased. Kenny