MacrossJunkie

That was something like $2000-2100 MSRP if I recall and I think made with HDP rather than ABS? The downside to it was I think it couldn't bend the legs at all. I don't recall if it came with decals or if you had to paint it all. Still, I would have loved to have that if I could afford to blow 2k on something like that. Edit: For reference, found one of the old threads on a 1/2000 build.

Yep, it needs assembly, painting and applying decals. Also comes with photo etch parts, glow in the dark stickers, and the aforementioned option parts. The base toy is otherwise the same as the Yamato/Arcadia non-PF release.

As long as you have the destroyed booms from the kit, then yes. Looks like I misremembered a couple things as I haven't touched it in 7-8 (has it been that long? maybe a little less?) years. The guns do nothing to hold it in place and the broken ones don't rotate. They just slide on and sit in place. Here is the relevant assembly diagram. I didn't have P08-7 and P08-5 glued over top and I think they were just kept in place with friction from pegging the guns in, though I'm having trouble removing it now as I think the paint has fused it together with P08-8/6 after those 7-8 years of not being touched. which is where the two screws are that you need to unscrew to take it apart. I'm not going to try to pry it and risk damaging the paint as I don't have anything appropriate to use to do that, but if it's glued, you'll need something to slide down in there and break any glue that might be holding it in place.

The two versions were the same size in terms of overall length. The DYRL version was just more compact. The decks didn't seem to extend as far back as the TV version and there were fewer stations, at least on the command deck. Those PE parts added to it look great and adds a good bit more detail!

This part would apply then Another alternative if you want to avoid having to apply a clear coat, is to just get a very fine tip brush and matte black paint, dip the brush in and wipe most of it off on a paper towel and then brush on to fill the gap between the streak and the vent holes.

Looking good so far! I've been watching a lot of F-14 builds on Youtube and it's been making me want to build one as well. I have some Uschi Van Der Rosten photo etch stencils I'd like to try using on one for the weathering portion to see how well that comes out.

@funkymonkeyjavajunky Through testing, the streaks can be removed with acrylic thinner or isopropyl alcohol... BUT I don't recommend doing that. It will also remove the black filter sprayed over top the entire valk and reveal a bright light powder blue plastic underneath. You will be going down the same deep dark rabbit hole I just jumped into. If you want to just try something simple, jump straight to using the black pigments and just go over the streaks, if nothing else than to fill the gaps, with those and then spray a matte clear coat over top of it to keep it from getting rubbed off. Even simpler and faster since you wouldn't be trying to make more realistic looking streaks, use a GM01 Gundam Marker instead and fill the gaps with that and then lightly matte coat locally (with a brush or airbrush) over the area since the ink is fairly glossy and to prevent it from getting rubbed away or smeared on areas you don't want it to be on.

That's all stuff made up to fit into the Robotech universe and not official Mospeada cannon. Closer to fanfic material and not even canon to Robotech.

I guess it's a matter of opinion at this point and we'll just have to agree to disagree. That looks like the very same model they used in the pics distributed for shops to use like this one: The shape and location of the splotches an the shapes of the jaggies on the lines and weathering are the same, despite the different look in the color which is probably either lighting or some photoshopping or both. In either case, I feel like the areas around the panel lines and the highlights are tighter and more contrasted than what I got or what funkymonkeyjavajunky got which mostly look like round splotches sprayed near the general area of the center of each panel for the most part. There's also a lot more deliberateness to the panel lines as you can see they are thicker with more of a jagged, uneven quality to them, while on the actual toy it looks more like they just touched the brushes to the corners and let the capillary effect to the rest, with the exception of the tail fins and the backpack area. I think the deeper color probably helps the look too. Any one thing might not really be a huge deal, but I feel like the actual toy is missing something that makes the above pic look better than what I actually have in my hands. Although I'm glad the actual toy doesn't have those extra panel lines on the chest area. Now I'm not trying to crap on anyone's purchases of the PF 0D or try to make people regret buying it or anything like that. I'm glad people are happy with it. I guess my point is if what I got looked like the above pic, I'd have been satisfied enough. If it looked like what I have in hand now in the promo pics, I would have not considered dropping $500+ on it, which could have gone toward other things I'd have been happier with. So I have two choices. I can sell it or I can try to work with what I've got and see if I can improve it without ruining the tampo prints in an attempt to first clean it up. That will be a big expensive gamble though. To clean it up, I guess it depends on what sort of paint they used. I'd try some turpenoid first. Then if that doesn't work rubbing alcohol/acrylic thinner, and lastly if that doesn't work, some lacquer thinner. Once off, I'd recommend some black pigment powder from whatever brand you favor (like Citadel, AK, Mig, etc.) or some graphite from a pencil and put some on the holes and smear it in the direction you want it to go with your finger. If you want more control, you can try using a rubber or silicone tip hobby brush, like this.

Man, what the heck? You guys have gotten notifications from BBTS already, but I haven't and there's no change in the status of my pre-order either. I really hope they got enough to cover all the pre-orders.

I did acknowledge on my previous posting on my thoughts on this matter that we can't expect a high standard from factory workers who have to churn through these en masse, but my issue with the weathering is that Arcadia had set a different level of expectation for the toy than what they actually provided. I would have been happy if it had come out like what they showed in pics of the toy. They themselves set that level of expectation and we as the customer can only go by that when making the purchase. In any industry, setting the right expectations is important to avoid making people unhappy. They didn't do that. They showed one thing and gave another (kind of like the original release of the 0D with its colors now that I think about it, and I was not happy then either. I guess I just don't learn.). It would have been different if what they showed was at the expected level of what we'd actually get. Then we, as the potential buyers, could act accordingly and not feel deceived. Just like I had done with the SV-51, I had spent some time studying the 0D in the series and taking screenshots for reference for when I do finally get around to weathering it and while they do have those areas where the oil/grime has pooled up or collected, like below, my opinion is that instead of that, where it's placed strategically in areas that make sense like where panel lines intersect/junction, they were just instructed to not clean up any of the touch points at all, so any and all the numerous touch points were just left on the toy. In the end, and I've said this in the "What's next from Arcadia?" thread, it would be nice if they offered a premium finish version with and without weathering. That way, people who want all the tampos and like to keep their collections consistent (like most of their collection isn't weathered) can have that option as well as provide those of us that do customize a clean slate. While the people who do want the weathering can have that choice as well. It would be the best of both worlds. I wouldn't have cared if they offered a non-weathered version but was still the same price. I like the fixed color, all the tampo markings, and much better joints and would have gladly bought one of those and been happier with the purchase.

I made the same complaint some pages ago. I was not at all satisfied with the weathering compared to what they showed in pics. They left the brush touch points on without bothering to clean it off, the streaks on the airbrake and such don't look like streaks at all and the overall weathering just doesn't look very good. I wish they would have just left out the weathering as I'd prefer no weathering than half-assed weathering and would have been happy with the improvements to the toy, the corrected color, and the tampo printing. I'm still trying to decide if I should clean it all off and weather it myself or leave it stock and do the original release version instead. My main concern here is accidentally ruining the tampo and painted areas while trying to get the factory weathering off.

The Condor only had the soldier mode and that was it. It had no ability to transform.

Yeah, Jensen Huang pretty much said as much in the reveal. With the gap in between the two cards, they have plenty of room to throw in a 3080 ti or super with more memory than the paltry 10 GB the 3080 comes with along with more cuda cores or something. There's already rumours/leaks of a 3070 ti with 16 GB of onboard memory. If they make a 3080 ti or super they would probably price it at maybe somewhere between $900-1100.

Ugh, so they still haven't shaped up in their GPU driver division, huh? I just had one thing after another of basic features that would just not work going from driver version to driver version the last time I had a Radeon card. Either that or frequent driver crashes or both. I'm tempted to get the 3080, but I'm still going to wait to see how Big Navi measures up to the 3080. If it's a threat to it, nVidia might come out with a 3080ti since there's a huge gap in pricing between the the 3080 ($700) and 3090 ($1500), which seems like it's on purpose. My display is g-sync as well.

It has worked decently well on my VF-25S. Also on the ball joint for the legs on the VF-0D.

Thanks guys! It definitely hasn't been easy. Especially something as large and unwieldy as the 51. It's a challenge just trying to find places to hold while working on it!

Over the past couple days, I found some more time to work on my SV-51. Applied decals but they looked so bright, especially the whites. So I tried toning them down some by brushing a dark filter over top and I think it looks more blended afterwards. After that, I started adding some paint wear/scuffs like Ivanov's SV-51 had in the anime. At the same time, I weathered the combination fuel tank/missile launchers, boosters and gunpod. Used the stippling technique with several layers of different colors to make the booster's paint look patchy and uneven. The gunpod barrel was painted a metallic color to match how it looked in the show. Still need to do the hands and feet. Then put some finishing touches and the final satin or matte clear coat. Also doing a VF-1S as can be seen in the background of one of the pics. Tried my hand at salt weathering with this one... and I hate it and I will never do it again, but I've already committed so I had to make the best of it. Here's how it is currently. Waiting on additional decals to arrive. I think it looks okay in person, but the salt weathering is too subtle to show all that well on camera. .

The goggles will have 5 different tampos printed all over it for no other reason than Bandai can do it, but have no locking mechanism to keep it in place aside from a slight bit of friction.

Scattered in pieces all over space. Since they were all about practical effects back then, they blew it up to get the best results. :P

No no, that person is saying if you go over 5G's (the skull is over the 5G) of sustained acceleration, you'll die.

And then we have HLJ whose website takes 15 minutes (a bit of hyperbole, yes I know) to load on the best of times when it's not getting beat on, especially when getting search results (in which case, it actually isn't hyperbole). Whatever was done to their website is awful and I wish they'd get someone to optimize/fix it.

^ Sometimes you see the page flip from not yet available to sold out in the span of a refresh.

Muahaha!

Nice. If we're going the cheap and easy alternative routes, one could just grab a #2 pencil and color the visor graphite gray with it and get a shiny, almost metallic gray look to it. Use a decent eraser to remove it. TADA!