Rock

In for the F-Type armor!

Seconded, Throw in a Durandal too! You can finish your EVA 01 while we wait... ;P

The only fighter I love more than my valks!

Hobby Town USA on North Oak carries Tamiya's products...

Plot twist. To save on production time, Mirage and Hayate's character have been combined. Mirage, now taking the spotlight, feels down due to the pressure of living up to her family name. That is until she meets a hopeful young idol Freyja and they together walk the path of pilot and star. Mirage, Freyja, Mikumo triangle certain. lmao ('Least Mirage would have a plot this round.)

Cut the nose back off so I could do some significant sanding. She is getting there. I need to make the top side a bit less flat and curve is a hair down but, it's starting to take shape. The nose is quite a bit longer than planned (like the SV-51) and the lower edge took on more a sweep-look like something drawn by Ikuto Yamashita (of Evangelion/Yukikaze.) Once I get the rest of the kit snapped I'll refine and shorten it if needed. Sadly snapping kits is my least favorite aspect of building them.

Just snagged another Bandai Pro-Shop VF-25F off YJA for cheap. This is my 4th clear one. Eventually these will be used as bases for my deculture decal builds. Now just to snag one more for cheap and I'll have one for each of the SMS memebers and 2 for Alto (Ranke and Sheryl.)

Nom Nom Nom Nom

Cheated on my current project with 1/72 devil over the past holiday. Tired of waiting for Hase to bring it, so I'm working with Bandai's offering. Fixed Fighter. Gluing up the parting lines for the sub-assemblies and then removing the huge gaps is a pain. With some gluing and clamps, most appear to disappear after a few round of straight un-thinned surfacer dabbed on. Most of the work will consist of getting things to fit properly and removing the toy and transformation looking aspects (such as the joints all the fins connect with) for a more model-like appearance. A bit had to see but, I cut the tip off and glued some scrap pla-plate in its place, lengthening the nose and eventually upturning it a bit more like the DX Renewal figure has. I think adding some length should help with the short and stubby look.

Hope for an Armored VF-25F/S (Alto or Ozma) or a YF-29 Durandal/ISAMU next year. I'd say it's a pretty good chance given 2018 is the 10th Anniversary for Frontier.

The extreme is on the left side and ultra on the right correct?

How's the scale accuracy? I'm hoping to order Brera next week for my 1/72 Bandai VF-27γ, which annoyingly just includes 2 generic male pilot that don't even look remotely close to Brera, Ranke or Grace...

Came across some 1/72, 1/60 and 1/48 macross prints. A bit high in price but might be a great alternative to the generic pilots, or if you need characters for a diorama. Curious if anyone had tried them. Would love to grab Alto, and Ranka soon for a sms hanger display. https://www.shapeways.com/marketplace/miniatures/figurines/?tag=macross

Any word if Bandai Pro-Shop will be doing a clear VF-31 like they did with the VF-25?

Not much of an update but I *had* started painting. Sadly panel lines are dropping like flies and I need to find something to retard (slow down) the dry time of my lacquer paints in this 105F days. It doesn't take much to start shooting cobwebss out the airbrush. I'm looking for something generic I can add to my thinners to make is slower, worst case I'll just pick up some Mr. Leveling Thinner from Gunze though. Back to re-re-re scribing the panel lines. Here it was with a blue and black base coat + the first couple rounds of preshading. I would like to have thrown a lot more paint on it via some drop coats to make the shading contrast less stark but, need to rescribe before I can continue.

Just cut and paint a thin strip of masking tape similar to how the car modelers do seatbelts. http://www.ratomodeling.com/articles/belts/

I got nowhere last week as life disaster flew in. But carrying on... Started describing and adding more panel lines. Mostly adding them to the tornado parts to make them match Hase's level of detail. I'm also trying to rescribe everything deeply so that they will make it through preshading, base, highlighting, topcoat, decals, topcoat, weathering topcoat... plan on lots of paint hitting this bird! Using dymo tape and a the backside of a no11 blade. A while back I sold off an amazing set of chisels/scribes and kind of regret it... since then I've really found I can do more than plenty with a good old hobby knife. Though I really want to get some of the tri-saws for the round bits.

A tiny, tiny bit more cleanup, some additional panel lines, (for my sculpted bits) and the top-side is ready for paint! As long as it is in an sealed, air-tight plastic container in a cool enviroment it will last more than a year. I've never had it dry up and usually pitch it after a kit is done. You'll use so little future and acrylic ink it isn't a big hassel.

First clear cast turned out alright, it turned out a bit rubbery though, may be the mix being such low in quantity though. Also hacked up the back of the legs and blended together my own armor design variant. This way it doesnt look so 'toonish' as the straight tornado parts did. In primer, now to painfull rescribe everything...

Too me it seems more like a quick recap on the last episode before they switch it up.

Basic colors on Alto marked in, another round of detail painting, grey accents and a wash and he should be ready. Managed to get the canopy tinted. Hopefully it doesn't look too purple as I don't want it too look like a toy when all done. Did a tutorial on how I tined it too. https://rokkustudio.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/how-to-tint-clear-parts/ Using Acladd II Magnesium for the base and Tamiya Smoke around the edges of the canopy for shading. I then used a bit of Testors enamel (dull alluminum) and drybrushed the edges bringing out the details. Gaia Notes Neutral Grey III and Dark Gunship Grey were used for accents. All that is left is a light black enamel wash to fill in some of the engraved detail and I'll have the cockpit taken care of.

Hope to get some more work in over the holiday break, also picked up the Jasmine Model's PE and decal set for the bandai VF-25F kits. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to use on the hase kit but, I hope to detail up the intakes ,cockpit and feet a bit with them. Already doing a quick look it doesn't look like I'll need a lot of it as the hase kit isn't as lacking in details as it's bandai counterpart. I'm sure whatever I don't use can be used on some other kit though A bit hard to see but I used some Aves epoxy to fill in the area where the feet go so it isn't an ugly hollow hole. I'm hoping the aves properlly cure as I've had the tubs of the stuff for almost 10years now!!! Best bang for buck, but I never liked the final surface as much as other epoxy putties such as Tamiya quick type. If it cures, I can sand smother and then detail with some plaptate and scribing so it isn't a blank surface. Also have had a hell of a time on the intakes. I've resulted to just glueing them solid as I cannot for the life of me to get them to fit correctly without ugly gaps. It seems the outside halves are underpressure. A lot of trimming and a coat of plastic cement was used to get them to fit this well and putty will still be required.

Decided to make a wip since I'm updating more often than I had expected to do so. Deciding to do the project... Starting the project I got the base of the hase kit assembled in sections. It has been a long time since I'm had to glue a seam line or deal with super shallow panel lines. Resin and gunpla have me much spoiled. It didn't take any time to throw out the landing gears and begin glueing the bay doors shut. I used some Aves epoxy, stuffed the holes and glued the hatches shut. The epoxy behind it strengthens the doors and supports them to pevent them from falling into the opening during positioning. Following Jefuemon I decided to grab the Super VF-25F parts to make the conversion easier. Sadly, I've found some things that bother me and as a result I probably could have gotten away with the regular VF-25F from Hase. No stranger to kitbashing (gunpla addition anyone) I already had a good Idea on what to think and where to remove material to get parts to fit nicely. I had no intention of sanding this the slow way so, I busted out the dremel and sanding barrels and destroyed my new kits While studing the parts I realized Jefuemon's finished build uitilized more of the Super part than I wanted. He had them painted to match the Tornado scheme and it looked fantastic as is but, the designs were different and this bothered me... so more work it is. This meant I needed to start fitting the Bandai leg armor onto the Hase Superpack legs... to the grinder again! No ammount of grinding along would bridge the gaps so some Tamiya quick type poxy was used and basic shaping began. Fitting the Tornado pack mean the upper portion of th leg (the fighter's intake) also needed to utilize the base VF-25... where the super pack leg has additional armor. Luckly the super pack leg includes both version so you can hack them up and splice them together to make the correct design. Sadly again, the fitment is way off to the Super pack's legs being in a different position than the fully flat position thebase VF-25's legs had. I filled the gap with a bit of pla-plate and once again Tamiya epoxy to the rescue to take the rest of the shape. I also used a Micron pen to prematurely plan a bit of panel lining for fun. Before apply the epoxy I rubbed the back part of the leg in some cherry lip balm/chapstick, this prevent the epoxy from sticking to it. The result being I can remove the lower part of the leg. I plan to leave it like this until mid-painitng, which I will paint those areas, attach and remove the seamline in the epoxy and then paint the front portion of the leg. This way I shouldn't have too much of a masking nightmare. I originally planned on having the entire legs removable until after painting but, the gaps around the intake were driving me crazy so... plan B! After trimming the wing I needed to expend the backside so that in the swept position it would fill up the hole gap in the bandai tornado parts due to the difference in shape and sizing between the two kits. I glued on some plastic plate which I'll shape later. Result is the swept wings filling the entire gap. Now it's starting to look like something!

I dun did things!