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Agreed. Alclads are great. I feel like it's not SO much about the gloss black undercoat, so much as the "gloss" part. Alclads like to go on glossy surfaces. Real thin.. multiple coats. Also get the "alclad airbrush cleaner" It's really helpful when breaking down your brush for cleaning. As for thinner, these are pre mixed and fly out of your ab very smoothly. Shake well. "Magnesium" and " Pale burn metal" are a couple of my fav colors too. As well as steel, aluminium's, chrome, etc.. Scalehobbyist has a good selection. Online purchase. Hope this helps. Cheers.

Sweet, thanks. Feel free to chime in everybody. I know some guys at Starship so I'll try them, and I have heard the same. That it's a " new package " for 2008, but the same formula. Ps. check your post about the macross toy. I have the armor your looking for if you need it.

Hey Master Ace, since you're being so helpful, maybe you or somebody else might be able to tell me if there's ANY difference between using Future Floor Wax http://www.castlewholesalers.com/FUTURE-Fl...ish-27-Oz-.html and Pledge with Futureshine ?? http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.j...oductId=1340324 I've heard they are the exact same thing but I don't want to ruin my paint. The Pledge stuff is easy for me to get where I live in L.A right now, but I'm from BC and we don't have future there, so I'm trying to figure out the names that work, and I was going to pick up some new stuff tomorrow. Again, not to derail the thread or anything, but thanks for your help Ace or anybody. Also keep the Gamma Ivanov tutorials flyin' my way if you know of any. Thanks, and I can't wait to see Cheng's finished VF25. Thanks for the step by steps too Cheng, they are great!!! The weathered VF 0S is sick man, soooo awesome. by the way, my website is www.animoceans.com and I'll upload all my models pics when the site is done if anybody is interested.. Cheers guys

Ok, So really I shouldn't bother answering anything to this guys posts as it Appears you are quite the modeler Cheng. Nice work. I just checked out all your previous stuff on the advice of Master Ace. How cold is the T dot ? Must be chilly. I'm from BC. Great stuff again man, I'll be looking up a lot from you. Cheers.

Because he's wicked awesome and I'm telling him stuff he already knows I assume ? DO you have a quick link, ? I'm new to this forum. Thanks Ace.

" shiroikaze " " Thanks alot. This thread and many other threads have lots of great information to get a model to look its best. Even though I have been building model kits for some time, I'm actually new to the painting and detailing aspect of it (I have a practice model thankfully). Pretty much I'm going through all related threads in the forums to gather as much knowledge as I can. " Check out http://www.heavyarmourstudio.com/ there's a tutorials section at the top. and this guy is a sick modeler/painter and has a lot of tutorials. http://www.fichtenfoo.com/02GiantRobots/02c.htm Cheers

Hey Cheng. Actually the green stuff putty idea was bad advice. My bad. It was late and I was thinking incorrectly. Also you would have to build a non transformable model to do that. The kit is looking good by the way,. I do however have a miraculous fix for the scratches on windows, I just tried this and it worked awesome. I used " Future acryllic floor wax " . It has a number of different names though. You can check out the names here depending on where you are in the world. http://basic1.easily.co.uk/05800C/03D03B/klear.htm Also, if you look at Hobby Japan #11 2008 and know or can get kanji ? ( spelling ? ) translated, there are some incredible builds of the frontier series mechs and variable fighters. Really seemed to do a good job of hiding the big gaps that are inherent with transforming models. Cheers dude. Also , I just picked up a " 1/72 SV-51 Gamma Ivanov " that doesn't transform, ( which I am so happy about, ) so if you have any ideas or links where there are some step by steps or work ups anybody did of this model, please let me know. Thanks and Cheers again.

Hey Wm. Good to see you building this kit. I'm a huge fan of the design of this fighter. I think I'm buying this kit. I have some suggestions that might help. You seem like an awesome modeler so I'm sure you would try this kind of stuff, but I know I often need suggestions so.. I totally agree with your outlook on modeling and we model similarly. Trouble is, most Bandai transformable models seem to just fit and justify the gaps better in robot mode. I build a lot of Gundams. I build resin and plastic kits a lot. Particularly Bandai and G System. http://www.g-system-shop.com/index.php I always put the whole thing together just barely and it usually tells me the problems then I take it apart and paint and fix it piece by piece. ( sigh ) ( with these type models it just seems to work better for me but to each their own ) The Zeta 006 Version 2.0 from Bandai caused me a lot of the same problems as your having with this model. ( gaps and such, and almost smashing it trying to work some tiny joint piece ) In the end, it ended up in robot mode only in a diorama. Here's the tip. I also build maquettes and am sort of addicted to all modeling. I did a lot of " Forge World " and Warhammer modeling and found that they use much different materials. Specifically, they use a putty called " green stuff " In place of the Tamiya epoxy I normally use. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/...le=paints-tools Normally I use the same materials as You. Tamiya Acryllics, Tamiya epoxy, maybe other stuff, but mostly that and my Badger and Iwata airbrushes,. The Green stuff putty dries like tamiya epoxy at about 65 % dry. When it's completely dry you can still cut it with a knife. It's soft but hard enough to paint on. I've used this in the gaps before to get a smooth " Fighter like " appearance and it fills the cracks and adds stability to " twisty " joints that are internal. You can kind of push it in the gaps with your fingers and mold it to your liking and it never kicks off and dies before you can get it set the way you want. It will be tough on this model to get it perfect, but you could fill in the gaps and sort of get them to look like intentional panel lines instead of gaps if that makes sense ? It's worked for me before but I haven't tried this kit yet. Also there's a Games Workshop " Purity Seal " That goes on gloss clear but quite thick and fairly scratch resistant for the cockpit scratch concern. ( it also makes a nice friction fit ) Just apply it in thin stages as it goes on weird if you're careless, and I would suggest painting the black "rollcage" ish lines on the cockpit before adding it. . Then I usually add a light Tamiya Acryllic " Smoke " . Or just build up a tamiya clear works too sometimes. hope this helps dude and nice work. I just got on this forum but I'll keep in touch if you will too. P.S could you give me some more scale references on this kit in fighter mode? I hate it when everybody says how huge a kit is and it's like 30cm. Although that would probably be pretty cool on this kit. Thanks dude. Hope I could help, I definitely feel your pain as a modeler . Cheers!