MacrossJunkie

Man, that assembly kit version in that search listing is going for 55,000. I'm so glad I got mine from HLJ back in the day for ¥12,956 (¥17,006 after shipping). I fully regretted getting the toy version which came with nothing and would have only gotten the kit version had I known that would be coming later. The kit was less than half the price of the assembled toy, came with decals, glow in the dark stickers, photo-etch parts, and optional parts. Neither the photo-etch nor optional parts can be obtained anywhere else either, not even the Arcadia premium finish version (as far as I know).

These things seem to be selling pretty well despite the price tag.

That's some good insight from someone with experience. My thought was turning the blue/green backgrounds into an alpha transparency in GIMP so they wouldn't get printed. I had thought about getting that ghost white toner for making decals, but the cost of those toner cartridges are not exactly cheap either and are only available for certain models of HP laser printers. Also, like you said, I was worried about how one would do alignment from having to do multiple passes for small text unless all that was being done was printing white text. On top of that, one would have to keep swapping between the black and white toner cartridges and having to manipulate the image, probably as separate layers so that you have an inverted black and white version so that it prints the black parts with the white toner. I don't know why no other company has made a printer with the same capabilities as the ALPS ones. Is the overall market just too small? I see a lot of uses from modelling for trains, jets, tanks, etc., to making decals or transfers for larger things. There seems to be enough demand where Ghost Toner and other alternatives had to be made in order to fill that demand. It feels we've gone backwards in technology in that regard rather than it being advanced forward.

That would be wishful thinking at this point, haha. I think they might realize that more of them are not reversed on the starboard side and mirror them all That's too bad if so. I like those kill mark decals on that sheet, but I have no interest in getting Kakizaki's VF-1A.

Those extra decals kind of makes me want to get Kakizaki's 1A. I hope they're included with other future releases as well. Glad it still works out in the end. Looks perfect! Are you also going to put the missing skull squadron insignias by the rear of the cockpit as well?

Man, this looks really good. I wish there were 1:60 scale versions. That would make it an instant buy for me, to be placed along with the Arcadia Macross Zero stuff.

Oof... That sucks. But since those decals already had a black background, couldn't you have just placed it over top instead of trying to remove the tampo first? Or are the decals not opaque enough?

Wait, did that sheet come with Kaki's 1A? Also, those are waterslides and not stickers, right?

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of work needed to make these print ready. Cleaning up and making the background a transparency layer would probably be the bare minimum. I think the main thing stopping a lot of people, including me, is the "right equipment" part of it. No one makes affordable dye sublimation printers that print white ever since Alps closed up shop and ones made by other companies that have that capability cost thousands of dollars which is a very high barrier for entry for what we hobbyists would plan on doing with them.

I just redid the canopy. Cleaned off my previous try and sprayed it straight orange and then black over top of it. I think it looks more like in the anime now. What do you guys think? Looks about right? I'm also trying to account for the fact that most of the battles where I can get a clear look at the canopy were at night so things would be darker. Also, argh... stupid tamiya tape pulled off bits of the clear coat when I masked off the area around the canopy. Not sure if I just didn't spray on a thick enough layer or what. Using the Vallejo Mecha gloss varnish instead of Future which I've not used previously and have had no prior experience with. Hopefully it's just that I didn't apply enough. Well, respray and pray...

Oh okay, cool. I have been thinking about making a carrier deck myself for displays, but having to do all those tie down anchor points seems really tedious. lol

That F-14 looks pretty good, especially for something that came straight out of the box looking like that. Did you make that display base yourself or did you get it from somewhere?

I had a bit of time last night to work on my SV-51 a bit more. Did most of the underside except the canards and the shoulders because they are partially obscured by the legs and wouldn't look right if I only did the areas that were currently exposed. I'll wait a few days for the clearcoat to cure and see if it will hopefully withstand transformation. Also tinted the canopy to make it like how it looks in the anime. Initially, I thought just a light tinting should be fine, but now that I look at the reference screenshots I took, the canopy does seem like it should be more saturated and darker. So I think I may just do that... add another layer of orange tinting and then some clear black/smoke. Hopefully that will get it to where I want it.

Could always get this then: Custom VF-4 head on Shapeways I believe this one matches the Hi-Metal version.

That actually sounds like a pretty reasonable sales model. I wouldn't mind that at all.

Cool, thanks. It is still expensive, but better than other prices I've seen. I might as well get it and help support Macross shows/movies, especially since it includes English subs now.

Another. Scanned at 1200 dpi. Click to download full size version. Waterslide decals replica for Arcadia 1/60 D. D. Ivanov SV-51γ (A5 paper size)

MS Flight Simulator looks really nice, but I think I'll wait until I get an RTX 3080 Ti or a Big Navi 2 card. Probably the latter as I hear the 3000 series of RTX cards are going to have some serious power draw and resulting heat issues. Currently I only have a GTX 1080 in my computer which I pulled over from an older build while waiting for new gen cards to come out.

They don't have a lot of options Macross-wise since Bandai has all the new shows on lockdown and who knows if they still have Macross 7 licenses or not? Otherwise they've just got SDFM, DYRL, FB2012, Zero, and Plus (maybe? not sure since Bandai is doing Macross Plus stuff in 1/60 scale now). Maybe VF-X2 as well? Honestly, they should go and do a TV SDF-1 and have the connecting points for the Prometheus and Daedalus be compatible with the ARMDs as well. The SDF-1 sold pretty well didn't it?

What are you talking about? They don't look like peng- ... oh That's too bad. I still want a second one. Even better if it was PF, but even a non PF is fine with me, but I don't want to pay premium prices on top of what their MSRP already was.

Here are some decals I received recently as well as decals from a couple Hasegawa kits I have. These were all scanned at 1200 dpi resolution. Click the thumbnail to get the full size pic. Hasegawa 1/72 VF-0 Battroid Hasegawa 1/72 VF-22S Waterslide decals replica for Arcadia 1/60 VF-0S (A4 paper size) Waterslide decals replica (mostly, has some extra decals and doesn't have the bunny emblems) for Arcadia 1/60 Shin VF-0A (A4 paper size) 3rd Party waterslide decals for Yamato/Arcadia 1/60 VF-1 (Note: all the NO STEPs are actually "NO STLP") (A4 paper size)

Especially since the Bandai one looks awful in both battroid and fighter mode. Hideous and gaudy extraneous tampo prints as if just to flex and show they can put on all those tampo prints because it's no issue for them while Arcadia needs to charge 30-40% more to do the same, Short stubby doors and weird looking arms in battroid. Fat fighter mode and a far too short fuselage area.

I just noticed you have the same decal sheet that I got which just arrived in the mail a few days ago. I'm kind of pissed with this sheet. Nevermind that the pilot names are all "PILOT HUCHLIO" or "PILOT HUCHLIODF1", all the NO STEPS are actually "NO STLP", which I couldn't tell from the seller's pictures because of their small size... I assume that's the same with yours and it's not some sort of misprint on mine?

Decided to get back into weathering, but this time trying out some new products to give me something new to do and learn/practice some new techniques. Bought some stuff from Mig Jimenez like Oilbrushers, shaders, and a few pigments. The oilbrushers are especially nice because they're already premixed and there's no mess like with oil paints from a tube where you have to squeeze some out onto a palette or container and mix and then have to do the clean up afterwards. Just unscrew the cap and use the applicator attached to the cap and pop it back in when done. Started with my Arcadia Ivanov SV-51 as my guinea pig. I panel lined with a stone grey wash first and then used an metallic aluminum oilbrusher paint thinned with some turpenoid and applied that in the panel lines, heavier in some areas than others like in the show. Then I used a medium gray oilbrusher and dotted it around on the wings and legs and such and then stippled it with a small stencil brush and some turpenoid to see how it would look. Then I took my black oilbrusher and dotted that around and did the same. Took some experimentation, but this is what I ended up with. Figured that didn't look too bad so I went ahead and did the rest of the top side including the head, fuselage and nose, but not the tail fins. The effect looked pretty strong so I figured the next step would be to clear coat it and see how it looked. It was still pretty strong with the medium gray color turning the surface gray so I then took a black shader and started spraying with random movements to add more to the mottled look and then toned it all down by spraying general sections to bring it back closer to black. The gloss coat adding to the reflectivity in addition to the crappy phone camera kind of hides most of the detail, but you can get a general idea of how it went. I'll need to do the rear stabilizers and the underside and then transform it and finish with the rest of the currently hidden areas. It's just hard to handle since it's so big and has a number of floppy parts. After that, I'll add in decals once they arrive and do some post shading and streaking and then do my final clear coat. I'm thinking matte, but I'll start with satin and see how it looks first.

Grats! So you don't need to find someone to trade with then.