MacrossJunkie

Unfortunately, due to the fact that the toy is PT, they probably had to stick the fans so far up because the hip bar would be connected to a block of plastic/die cast taking up the space just behind the fan. The SV-51's isn't much better (a little bit better, but not by much).

There are little pegs that plug into the top half. It could just be those that were making it difficult. There shouldn't be any glue stopping you from taking it apart. Edit 1: Sorry, I will need to make a correction to one of the pics. (I did mention I was tired right?) Edit 2: Okay, I've updated the 2nd pic. There should be a total of 5 screws to remove to separate the fuselage. A separate 6th screw for the windscreen.

Sorry, I'm tired. The first and second pic is exactly what you need to unscrew to get the LERX's off. Hopefully this pic helps to illustrate how the LERX is connected to the fuselage. The top and bottom half sandwiches the round metal bar. Unscrewing the screws shown above will let you separate the two halves. As for what I used to tint with, I used this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AVKJYQ0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's acrylic and mixes well enough with Future and acrylic paint thinner. It squeezes out of the bottle sort of like a paste so I have to thin it down. Edit: Found this while googling around for clear purple paint: GAIA COLOR LACQUER 047 Seems to be readily available on ebay and I found it on Amazon as well. It might be worth a try since the stuff I'm using now is not as crystal clear as I would like. It has a sort of cloudiness to it.

I just replied to mickyg on how to disassemble, so I'll just copy and paste to here as well. To disassemble to get at the canopy and such, do the following shown in the pics I just took using a small precision screwdriver (second pic will need to be done at awkward angles): There is one screw left that lets you remove the front windscreen, but it doesn't prevent you from separating the top and bottom half of the fuselage. The end result will allow you to do this: The front windscreen is screwed in via the hole right in front of Ozma there and is the one accessed within the landing gear bay in the first pic accessible once the top half of the fuselage has been separated from the bottom half. You can see that the peg goes right through the black piece and then through the green part as well. For the fold crystals, it's pretty obvious. There are two screws under the chest piece. Unscrew those and pull the pieces off. You'll see the tabs underneath where the fold crystals are plugged in. Use the precision screwdriver or something else with a small enough tip to slowly push in on the tabs, alternating between the tabs, until the crystal pops out. Using what I learned when doing my Isamu 29: On re-tinting the canopy, err on being too light. What looks like the colour being too light and faded ends up being just right once it's put back on. Adjust a little bit at a time from there if it needs to be darker. Related to the above, clean off the coloring from the outside of the canopy and apply the tinting to the underside. That lets you easily clean off the tint and redo if you mess up without having to worry about wiping off the black canopy frame. It also protects the tinting from accidental nicks and scratches. Edit: 2nd pic updated. Edit 2 - Electric boogaloo: Added pics for removing the fold crystals

Agreed. And yes, they were free floating and the bars were so thin that even if it were made of die cast for the toy, they would still be very susceptible to breakage. It just wouldn't be practical to duplicate on a toy.

Okay, so I need some opinions here. I retinted the canopy, but I can't decide if this purple is just about right or if it should be darker. Also, do you guys think I should leave the fold crystals blue or recolor them purple as well?

It would be nice if they included some little SD fighters in the pack.

Heh, Looks like the rail cannons got put on backwards on one side. They're all facing the same way. I hope the shoulder plates can be loosened enough for people to correct it on their own should that happen to theirs. The other two samples look correct though.

Sometimes I resort to using a vacuum. The inner of the lightbox fabric seems to just constantly release little white particles. Personally, I don't think any of the add-on parts look good with the Prophecy. At least not with the orange, blue, and white paint scheme.

I am really tempted to buy one. It looks so good and it transforms too! I have to say it's amazingly detailed, comparable to the Yamato SDF-1 even. I could swear they used the Yamato 1/2000 or 1/3000 as reference. The shoulder rail cannons, for example, seem to be based off of Yamato's interpretation which looks different than the line art.

I really wish Arcadia would include waterslide decals instead of stickers or at least along with stickers. Even with trimming the stickers as much as I can manage, you can still see how it's higher than the surface, which never looks quite as good as if it were just printed on or going with decals. Agreed about the Yamarcadia valks having really shallow panel lines. Some of the panel lines on the 19 are so shallow, I can't tell if they are really there or if I'm just seeing things or I know they're supposed to be there but are completely invisible, like certain portions of the lines on the shoulder pauldrons. The Bandai VF-25's also have some shallow lines as well, particularly the back of the leg areas, but nowhere near as bad. I think one thing Bandai really needs to improve on are the exceedingly pathetic excuses for intake fans they do on all of the valks. To call them half assed would be a very generous description. I don't even know why they bother to make the intake covers removable if they aren't even going to put any effort at all in making the fans look anywhere close to decent. They put so much detail even into areas that would rarely be seen at all, and then they hire an 8 yr old to make a mold of the intake fans.

QFT. Black backgrounds are a pain to deal with. I only continue using them because I feel it provides better contrast in my photos. I am too. The lightbox I use seems to produce its own swarm of tiny white dust particles.

More shots of fighter mode with the pod deployed. Does anyone else feel like getting the covers open is a literal pain? A lot of them are hard to open up and they end up digging into the space under the fingernails while getting them opened.

Well crap. Missed it again...

Lighting and angles seem to affect it drastically. That said, the lighter color could have been more pronounced. So although it's there and I can see it in person and in some of the photos, in others it's really hard to see so I took your feedback and made it more visible by respraying with less thinner so it shows up in the photos better.

I did. Look closer. It's harder to see in some shots due to the lightning.

Every panel a different shade.

Here are the rest of the pics I took of my YF-30. Finding the right mixture of paints for the subtle colors differences to paint the patterns on the wings and other areas was a pain.

Thanks, guys! Actually I did most of the work (masking and painting the pattern, oil wash, weathering, and clear coating) in a sort of GERWALK deployment so most of the surfaces would be exposed. I took the head and weapon pod off and did those separately. After that, I took it to battroid mode to finish off the parts that were still hidden. I should hopefully have time to photograph the other modes after I get home from work.

Thanks very much! I have been looking into getting an acrylic sheet for a while, but I'm having trouble finding what I need locally. I guess I could order it online, but it would probably somehow get to me all scratched and cracked with my luck. In other news, I just finished my first weathered valk since January this year. I took a long break and with so much stuff constantly coming in, I felt I needed to start making a dent in my backlog. I feel so rusty after so long. Here are the first pics of my YF-30. I'll be taking more tomorrow, particularly of the other modes.

So while I was taking mine apart to repaint the canopy purple, I noticed that the gray on the LERX is a completely different color than the rest of the valk and looks so out of place. I don't know why I didn't notice that before. Is it supposed to be like that or is it just Bandai applying completely unnecessary paint?

I love hangar dioramas, especially ones with lighting. That looks really good. Wish I had the space to set one up myself. I'd end up staring at it for hours.

Saburo, first of all, I love your pics. Secondly, I really want a surface like the one you use in your pics. The black velvety backdrop I use is such a major hassle and collects so much dust which takes a lot of effort to remove and wrinkles easily so I've been looking for an alternative for a while. Where did you get yours? I assume it's a black acrylic sheet or something?

Looking really good. Do you have any ballpark idea on what the price will be?

I like that you bothered to add additional decals to it. This is so ridiculous that it's awesome! That weathering looks great! I definitely want to see more shots of the stuff you have in your collection.