Ghadrack

I have to say, this is one of the most impressive customization/refurbishings I have ever seen here. You have put an absolutely magnificent amoutn of work into that thing. Keep up the good work, I can see a ton of changes and I can't wait to see the finished product. Awesome job man!

Hey, here's an idea for you nuts Invite Bob Villa over and convert a closet into a scale aircraft carrier hangar, your shelves could be lifts what are they called? Gantry lifts? you can simulate asphalt/Tarmac with roofing shingles, which are cheap as heck, a coat of paint and some details, Viola! If the closet is dedicated to Macross anyhow you could use part of it for a Display / Diorama / Photo set.

Don't do it, Ernest Borgnine Drunk with two little floating waste baskets dangling from visible wire for two hours isn't nearly as cool as I remember it being as a kid. Keep the fond memory and don't watch the movie again, trust me on this.

Time for more fun with paint Tetsuo's first kill:

This might sound dumb because I haven't really taken a close look at a toy or model representation recently, but I was under the impression that they were functioning in fighter mode as a conduit of some sort between the cockpit electronics and the tail assembly and the engines, in battroid mode they were non-functional, of course, that would take anime magic and make them actually nothing more than aerodynamic lookie-loo parts. But, that is from a complete aircraft layman, just from looking at the pictures. Is there a cut-away picture of the YF-19's "Guts" like the VF-1? You may not get the technical explanation that you are looking for, but if you can see a picture of where the tubes connect it may help understand their funtion better. Edit- I thought they "plugged" in to the thrusters in the back but it doesn't look like they do

I don't know why, but many of his films seem to be having trouble getting to DVD in the U.S. Wild at Heart just got released last month, Lost highways still hasn't had a U.S. Release. His stuff is coming out, but it seems extraordinarily slow and without much fanfare. I love his creepy, bizarro, out there flicks.

That is a pretty smooth custom.

Cool, thanks for the Heads-Uup. The Hobby Lobby in my town has a couple of Tamiya motorcycle models I have been itching to pick up, but I didn't want to pay full price, that coupon is perfect!

Ouch, that is not a nice break. I don't have a 1/60 here at the offce to inspect the clearance issues of that particular part, but I think that is a pretty bad place for repair. If memory serves me, from the perspective of the photo you have taken, the underside of the broken bar has a very tight clearance with moving parts underneath, but on the top (Again from the perspective of the photo you have taken you have a small gap. I would personally probably try cutting somth thin metal strips from something like a soup can with a pair of tin snips in a U shape to match the top of the bar, then try using some Cyanoacrylate for metal (Super-Glue) or better yet JB-Weld (Can be found near the Epoxy resin glue in most major hardware stores) JB weld creates a tremendous amount of heat and must be used sparingly and with caution around the rest of the toy. Let that stuff set for at least 2 times the recommeded curing period and leave it exposed to open air preferably above the level of the canopy of the Valk so you don't get glue fogging. The thing that sucks is, regardless of what you do, that thing is never going to be as strong again, and most any repair attempts are going to need to be repeated if you have to push on that piece hard to move it. Before you do ay glueing though carefully inspect the clerance around the bar so you don't glue something in there that is going to preclude transformation unless you are turning it into a fixed position model for a diorama and saying screw the transform thing Good luck

First, thanks for having the heart to post your model, like the others said, lots of people are afraid to. Hand painting isn't a complete no-no, I mean, painting by hand is what humans did for centuries before air comressors and spray guns, but it takes a steady hand and a lot of patience. It also takes a good brush (Not those course bristled, white handled Testors things they sell at most hobby stores) and a paint mixuture that is at the right viscousity. Most of those Testor enamels right out of the bottle are too thick to lay down smooth. It may seem like a waste of time, but what I suggest if you are going to work on hand painting again get some thinner for your paint, invest in a few nice brushes like sable or synthetic hair from an arts and crafts store, practice thinning your paint out enough to where you get good coverage and the paint does not want to gob up on you. Practice on the inside of a model kit, or on some sprue plastic. Just laying some paint down with different amounts of thinner will give you some practice and show you haw the thinner affects the paint. As far as assembly goes, I am not a huge stickler for seams, but one of your legs has a little gap you can see right through the model I like the paint scheme, black Valks are cool, I think if you take it a little slower you will be much happier with the result. Thanks again for posting, and I hope I didn't offend you, definitely keep building, it is fun and you get better with every kit.

Power Puff Gatz! That is cool

It is totally subjective, and essentially, they are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. You know how rare they are, so the price has been astronomical for the few that have been around in circulation. I saw one got for over a thousand dollars, I have heard of broken and damaged ones going for between 300 and 350 dollars. In my opinion, for what they are, it is really lunacy for anyone to pursue one unless they are a wealthy collector looking to have a prized piece, or a person gambling on being able to re-create them and sell reproductions for a profit. Either way, I am resigned to waiting to see if Toynami decides that they want to cash in and make one for their Masterpiece alpha line, if they did that I might actually break down and pick up their alpha toys.

Here I butchered another one of my favoraites, if I were like 8 years old I might be proud:

Personally, were I in your shoes I would want to get the most valk I could get for the money. As Graham said, you have to pick the variant that you like best, for the most part they are identicle otherwise, but try to find one that either comes with Fast packs or find the seperate Super/Strike set you really will be pleased with the level of detail and "Meat" it adds to the toy. I still see the Hikaru VF-1J with Fast Packs, ase well as the Max&Millia sets around fairly commonly the Hikaru 1A is and the Re-Issued Roy is still available in some places, the Strike/Super Pack set however seems to be becoming rare. I am a fan of the S style Head, then the J then the A, so if I had $200 to spend right now on a Valk, I would try to find a Roy VF-1S and a Super/Stirke pack, then i would fall back to the Max VF-1J w/packs, Millia W.Packs, Hikaru VF-1J with packs and finally the Hikaru VF-1A and a set of Super/Strike Packs. If you are going to secondary markets, used or Evil-bay then all bets are off, I absolutely love my Hikaru VF-1S with the Super/Strike set, it is easily my Fav Valk Good luck, you are gonna like the 1/48 when you get it.

They make Sprue cutters for cutting parts from sprues, there are a couple companies that make really nice ones, like Fiskars, but the question is do you really want to eliminate that extra step. Lots of people intentionally leave a littel extra mold/sprue material on the model and carefully remove the excess with an Exacto or skill knife to be sure that they don't damage the part with the less delicate sprue cutter. So to answer your question, yes the do make cutters specifically for removing parts and some of them are very good at the job, but by cutting that close on the part with any scissor-like tool you risk cutting into the part a little bit and perhaps damaging your part.

Right on Mike! I think that if you present subtitles as something special, rather than a nuisance then they might be more readily accepted. When I was a kid and the only way to see many anime was fansubbed I really thought about anything subtitles was cool. I like hearing the original language, I like being able to read what they are saying and pick up a workd here and there, I just generally adore the subtitled format. I know thatmany people don't and that is fine. Personally, I would shoot for Macross subtitled and save Robotech as a fall back option if you can't get the little fella to be interested if he has to read.

Hahaha, aside from the Akira explosion, the end of the Berserk Anime is the most memorable (If not infuriating) moment in Anime history for me, "What? That is the end? WTF?" Had I spent more than ten minutes I might have made it look a little better than something a six year old would draw But then again, maybe not

I am not too concerned with the exact scale, I just want a good quality, well detailed representation of the destroids, a few enemy mecha and the SDF. I think I would prefer 1/48 scale for the destroids for size and coolness, but 1/60 would be just fine with me. Plastic or metal content don't make ahuge difference if the things are detailed and relatively sturdy. I was not intimidated by the size or expected cost of the 1/60 monster, if anything it made it more attractive to me to be ungodly big. Personally, I want a Yamato SDF toy that is around the same size, if not a tiny bit bigger than the 1/60 Monster Prototype. I want sick amounts of detail on the thing.

Let's see if this works: Hehehe

Don't get me wrong, I think anyone with the skill and tenacity to make their own model kits is an impressive individual in my book, I was just mentioning that as a thought on potential sales. If making a VF-1 is your goal do it to it man, if you make something special I think it is pretty safe to say you will find an audience here A lot fo resource materials are getting harder to find. If you go to the front page of the site and check out the books section that Shawn and Graham have set up you ca find information on many of the different books that are out there. In the sales and dealer section of the message boards there are a few members like Seichi and Blackaces that deal in rare macross books, if you can't find it locally those guys can be a tremendous help in tracking down rare out of print books. Kevin at Valkyrie-exchange.com had the Macross Design Works book for sale on his site, there may be some good refence pictures there. Good luck with your project, which ever one you decide on, I am interested to see what you do there are a lot of talented people around here, I feel pretty lucky getting to see their spectacular work for free on this site.

True enough, but both Yamato and Bandai have had licensing agreements with Big West, and most certainly could obtain further licenses if they had the motivation too. Regardless, I was just curious to know if anyone had any info or rumor on the planned Yamato SDF-1. The Bandai SoC SDF-1 was just wishful thinking How frigging sweet would a foot and a half long metal SDF-1 SoC be, owning one would almost be a pre-requisite to calling yourself a Macross fan

I still say if one of the talented sculptors here wanted to do the "R" heads posted on the front page of this thread I would gladly buy at least one of each version in 1/48 scale. They would be too good to pass up for unique custom projects. THey may not be an "Original" macrossworld design, but they sure would make for some special valks.

Better to dredge up an old thread than start a new one for an old topic right? So, I assume that there has been no announcement as far as a Yamato SDF Toy. Has anyone heard anything one way or the other? A year or two ago, there had been some sort of semi-formal announcement or perhaps it was a dinner discussion Graham had with a connection, but I thought the word was that Yamato was actively recruiting a sculptor / Sculptors to make a scale SDF toy. Have any of you information guru's seen any talk of this on insider japanese discussion boards? Is the project still a possibility or is it dead in the water? I really, really, really want a nice quality, highly detailed SDF toy for my collection, and god love em, but the old Bandai versions just aren't quite the level of detail I want. Hell to be honest, if Bandai would make a sharp SDF toy in the Soul of Chogokin line, something along the lines of the battleship Yamato, or the Harlok vessel, I would jump out of my skin to buy one. I hope somebody out there makes something for us. the old Bandai's just don't look right next to the details in the Hasegawa kits and te Yamato 1/48's in my opinion...

Just a quick thought on sales and revenue streams... If you make a resin kit of a VF-1 unless it is something extremely rare or original you might have trouble unloading them due to oversaturation. However, as there is a pretty large group of model builders and toy collectors here that have been salivating at the idea of 1/72, 1/60, 1/55 and 1/48 scale destroids and enemy mecha, it might be something to think about.

Thanks for the review, update and pictures Ken. I was worried that the VB-6 project had driven you mad Keep up the good work man, I wish I lived nearby so I could come donate some time to the project, it is obvious that you have put a massive amount of effort into it so far! I picked up a toy version from Kevin at Valk Exchange as well mainly for my Yammy toy collection, but I still eagerly await the challenge of the kit. Thanks again for taking on the project man.