Mule

I'm crying here. That stuff is amazing. Yamato needs to hire some of these guys.

I know many of you think I'm exaggerating, but from the research I've done into this, kitchen vent fans are just not meant to vent flamable/combustable solvents and propellents. Cooking grease just isn't as flamable as the stuff used in paints and areosol cans. If you look at the pictures of the Tamiya and Mr. Hobby hoods on this page, both of them have blowers with external motors. I'm not saying kitchen hoods are guarenteed to blow up or that external motors are 100% safe, but it just makes sense to keep the electrical device out of the stream of the flamable/combustable vapors.

And last is a picture of the top and the filter removed:

Here's a picture of the motor around back:

Here are a few pictures of my booth: The dimentions are 16" deep, 16" tall and 25" wide. The filter in the back is just a standard furnace filter with the blower motor behind that. The walls are made of 1/4" particle board. The top has a plexiglass window to let light in and a florecent light sits on top of that. As Anasazi37 said, the light makes a huge difference. The 3 switches are for the light, the blower motor, and the outlet attatched to the back which usually runs the airbrush compressor. Front on with 1/100 Glaug for size reference:

One thing about the kitchen range hoods: the motors are inside the duct. All motors spark continuously and your fumes will be going right over that. The sparks will be mostly contained in the motor housing, but I really don't think those motors are explosion proof. Just a risk you should consider. I built my own hood using the calculation and instructions from this site. The thing is, I spent about $150 to $200, about 2 weeks, and a bunch of my dad's tools to do it. The blower motor alone was about $120. The effort I put into it almost justified a $300 dollar store bought hood. Cost aside, I really recomend you get or make one. Don't skimp on the price or you'll end up with one that won't vent at all. I beleive Less Than Super Ostrich has a nice little store bought hood. Check out his VF-4 build ups to see pictures of it. Edit: Motors that run on wall voltage will frequently spark. Low power motors will not spark as much or not at all.

William, A technicality: Shouldn't the sweep marks go beyond what you have since the wings fully retract when transformed? All, It is easy to get discouraged when looking at work as good as this, but it also gives you a target to shoot for. I find these threads to be infinitely inspiring and a great source for new techniques. Once you see what is possible, you can just let you imagination run amok. Also keep in mind that William has years of experience, and a lot of this is just a trial and error learning process. Go buy a throw-away kit or two and try a whole slew of techniques on them, and who knows, maybe you could teach William and the rest of us something new.

Not knocking your work, I just wanted to point out that there should be some kind of line there. I'm runing into the same issue with a Hasegawa F-18E. Some of the joints are along panel lines, but have gaps that in scale would be several inches wide. They get filled in and rescribed. Unfortunately, my scribing abilities are so-so at best. In some cases, I think I could get better results with a chainsaw.

I just picked up a Hase F-18E and it does not have a pilot. Just thought I'd let you know if you were thinking of getting one. This kind of sucks since both of the ways I was planning on displaying this model require a pilot behind the stick. So, uhh... anyone know where I could get a pilot figure for a 1/72 F-18E?

No, no, no, as DH said no fixed wing jet aircraft currently flying in the american arsenal ejects their shell casings. After doing some looking I see that I was quite mistaken. Maybe I should do the research BEFORE speaking

You can also clearly see the seam in fighter mode.

Not to make your life harder or anything Jinnai, but isn't that nose seam supposed to be there? That is where the nose folds back in battroid mode.

I think A-10s just eject the spent casings. Infact I remember seing an interview with a soldier or a Marine about being showered with A-10 casings during a fight.

Do any of these Hasegawa F-18s come with pilots or do they go the route of the VF-1?

From Graham in this thread. You can do anything in CG, why limit yourself to real-world constraints? I think they used CG in Mac Zero so they could get more detailed images than would be possible with hand animation, not to get perfect transformation. Back on topic though, what ever gorgon decides, I can't wait to see the finished product. His VF-4 looks great.

My suggestion: if your not making this thing transform, and I assume you're not, just make the plane look 'right'. The VF-11 (and every other VF for that matter) is fudged in the animation to make each mode look good. Just do the same with your CG version. Be as accurate as possible without sacrificing the lines of the plane. I beleive this type of distortion is even done to the CG models in Mac Zero since Yamato had to replace the nose of the toy to maintain accuracy in fighter and battroid modes.

Email Yamato Seriously, thats a really tall order. If you find anyone, let us know.

Close call between the Monster and the Tamahawk. The Tamahawk won by coin toss

Great weathering job to177. I'm hoping I can get mine to somewhat resemble that.

I'm working on one. I'll have pics up when I'm done. I can really only spend time on it when the fiance is out of town for work.

I guess he didn't read the thread we had a few months ago saying that it would be almost impossible to do this Great work.

Considering the small scale of this toy, I'd say they did a pretty good job. I think the scale may be to blame for the big hips though. They need enough plastic there to avoid hip problems like the original VF-11B. I'm still hoping for a 1/72 or 1/60. For those that think this toy is ugly, think of 2 things: 1) it is an ugly plane to begin with 2) it beats the Hell out of the original YF-19 and YF-21 toys. Pretty amazing since this toy is probably smaller than those two were. If you think you can do better, please do so. We'd love to see it.

I agree. It really looks like a first generation variable fighter. Like it just barely made it past the concept stage, but there is still a lot to figure out. I think it adds a certain element of realism to the story.

So what happens to that huge fuel/thruster pod when it transforms? I guess it goes to the same nebulous place that Optimus Prime's trailer does

Looks like this thing will require a gallon of MicroSet