Ghadrack

Are you asking if it is acceptible to use your primer basecoat as your final paint? And then if after detailing should you clearcoat?

If you want your kit to be the color of the primer that you are using there is nothing technically wrong with that, and if you get a nice flat coat on it can look quite nice especially with something simple like a flat white. Primer coats generally are more pourous than finish paint, thus they are going to absorb more from things like washes or paint or oils from your hands, so if you are happy with the coat of primer and you like the looks of it then it would probably be a good idea to apply a clearcoat over it.

"Stage-fright (something) the feeling's smashing! This is your time to be a staaaaaaar!"

Yeah, I recorded episodes of robotech on audio cassette when I was a kid holding a tape recorder up to the TV speaker and I could listen to the opening theme and the episodes over and over again, and to this day I still love to hear the music of Robotech, except for those damnable Minmay songs a few of them still make me cringe.

Macross has a very different feel to it. I do enjoy the music of Macross but it took a little getting used to, and I still hear Ulpio Miunichi's compositions in my head when action is about to commence in the Macross series.

Purists, and people who grew up with the original Macross series probably have a little stronger bond to the original soundtrack, but being that I grew up with the bastardized version known as Robotech that music still jumps out and grabs me.

Obviously this site has evolved into a fan communication hub. We can all get together here and gossip about stuff coming out and share the scoop when someone finds out some nifty little tidbit about upcoming toys. Graham may be able to glean advanced information through his personal contacts but he is not allowed to divulge important, competetive information about upcoming products, that is fine. I am quite happy that as he has been doing, once the information gets out, he can verify some facts, quell some rumors and panic by giving a few pertinent facts when he is allowed.

Don't take this place for granted because it is a labor of love, Shawn and Graham have given the rest of the fans here a place to congregate and chat. Enjoy the community, give and take information and be happy. This is a nice escape from the everyday doldrums a place to see people's outstanding projects (Art, Custom Toys and Models...etc.etc.) I have seen far too many great message boards go into the dumper due to pointless negativity, when the love is gone so goes the messageboard.

Thanks for all you guys that run this place do, and thanks to all of the artists, collectors, and fact finders that provide the site with updates and new projects and recasts

Feel the love yo! Ditch the hate!

LOL, apparently over at Robotech.com the fans went berserk about the blue cockpit canopy, they just indicated that the test shot's opaque canopy is not the final version that that the production Alpha will feature a clear canopy and visible pilot/cockpit

Messageboard panic appears to have been averted for the time being!

They can stuff the cyclones. All I want is an Alpha/Legioss and a Beta/Tread.

Some Invid/Inbit would be nice as superposables...

But I wouldn't buy any Cyclones/Ride Armor if they cost a nickel (I know some other mospeada fans will consider that heresy). Never have liked motorcylces though.

Man, I am just the opposite, I always hated the Alpha/Legioss design,, but the Cyclone/Ride Armor on the other hand I thought looked very cool. Now an Alpha/Beta Legioss/Tread linked on the other hand looked really good, I think that is my problem with the Alpha/Legioss, it looks like half a plane to me.

Anyhow, I thought I read somewhere that HG/Toynami are the only ones with rights to produce Mospeada toys, so if their line doesn't do it for me, I will probably be out of luck. Here is to hoping for a linking Beta/Tread

Just a guess here, but I have a feeling that the reason for this smaller scale toys is purely a sales numbers angle.

For the most part Yamato's 1/60 and 1/48 Macross lines are targetted at collectors only. 60 to 180 dollar toys are not aimed at the toy store pre-teen crowd. They are aimed at the slightly older nostalgia/collector base.

This Macross Zero line is being produced on a current theme, a modern cartoon and Yamato needs to use the license to generate s much revenue from the title as they can while still maintaining their reputation as a high quality product company.

My guess here is that the 1/100 scale toy here is being aimed at the toy store crowd, kids who like the show, parents buying presents for children. Toys to be played with. I imagine that the transformation process will be simpler, the price will be lower with the hopes of cashing in immediately on the fairweather fans, the people who are buying stuff because they just saw the show on TV, lower price will mean better sales.

I would bet dollars to doughtnuts that they will also release a high end line, larger scale, more detailed and more expensive. These will be aimed at the more rabid fans and the slightly older crowd with more disposable income. I would not worry yet, I sincerely doubt that 1/100 scale is the only thing they are gonna do for Mac 0.

I said it already but i am totally enamored with the Thunder Hummer, it is like a GBP on steroids. Stud Machine!!!!!!!

I am not knocking any of them because they all look great but that Thunder Hummer is just the most insanely cool Valk variant I have ever seen. I would give about anything for them to release a kit, or for Yamato to release a toy version. Ultra-Mega-Cool variant.

Yamato Monster Wonderfest sculpt at booth

Old link, but unless they totally scrapped this guy and went back to the drawing board this should give you some idea of the scale. In the lower right hand picture, second from the bottom you can see it alone and there is a man's shoulder to the left of it. If you look closely at the top center and middle center pictures you can see the rear of the monster sitting next to the VE-1, that should give you some idea of the scale compared to a 1/60 plane, it is going to be big. Maybe saying coffee-table sized is exagerating a little, but not much

I only had a couple of the parts that were loose from their "sprue", very few though. Looks like the seller there might have begun to prep his kit before he decided to sell it...

Overall, I think the packaging in your kit was superb, everything bagged nicely and foam to keep the parts from rattling around in shipment.

Sounds to me as though it may have been a dealer option from Yamato, if they were having packaging complaints from dealers about the velcro tabs damaging the packaging in humid areas, they may have let the retailers option to get the boxes with or without velcro.

The other possibility, and probably the more likely, is that they may have run low on Velcro circles and just sent out a couple batches without it while they waited for a shipment since it is a very minor part of the packaging.

Either way, it is a pretty small difference. For what it is worth, so far all of mine have come with velcro:

VF-1S Roy

VF-1A Max

VF-1S Low Vis

VF-1S Hikaru

VF-1J W/Fast Packs

When I look at those pictures closely it appears to me that the lighting probably has skewed the colors pretty far off, look at the booster and the head lasers, they look gold. I would imagine that under normal light or in your hands they look darker. All I know is that I am giddy I can't wait to get mine!

This is gonna be another great year for Macross fans, At the very least we have the Armored 1J, Q Rau, 1/48 M&M's and I would be shocked unless they have ditched it altogether, if we don't see the Monster later on this year. Good stuff

Keep up the good work Yamato!

One other point, who is to say what type of wounds he actually sustained? Maybe I haven't seen it in a while, but from recollection they show the damage to the valkyrie, they show something in the seat which we later come to realize is supposed to be blood, but there is no telling if he just got some shrapnel blown through the cockpit. After having to penetrate not only the armor of the valkyrie, but the interior cockpit wall, then the reinforced ejector seat I think it is more likely that he just got shrapnel wounds in the back.

Given his stubborn nature I didn't have any problem suspending any disbelief to think that he could have toughed it out long enough to make it back to see Claudia one last time. I am an old sap, but I thought it was a pretty emotional sequence and it served to show the audience the kind of affection that those two characters shared "behind the scenes" so to speak.

I have:

1/48 : 5, 2 sets of FP's and the 1J with FP

That's it.

I plan to pick in the 1/60 Q Rau and Armored 1J for posing, and I am strongly leaning towards picking up the 1/60 Elintseeker & Ostich before they disappear.

The M&M 1/48's are on my shopping list without question.

I really like both the 1/60 and the 1/48 scale toys but I just don't have room for all of them. Gotta pick and choose....

Most of them were originally sold at MSRP of around $27.99 in stores or whatever discount you could find if memory serves me correctly. Obviously that price varied by market and retailer, but in my area they were between 26 and 28 dollars excluding sale prices.

Just got mine today Kit looks great, on close inspection the parts are all fantastic I am really really pleased with the kit Now I just need a rainy week to put it together Thanks a ton Valkyrie!

I am not sure what the female figure with the "Sold Out" stamped across it is, I was sifting through the little nooks and crannies of the Yamato site trying to see if there were any leaks on these new things we have to look forward to according to Graham :) , anyhow, I didn't recognize it.

When I tried right clicking the image to get a name of the .gif file, hopefully a clue about what it was it indicated that that pic was created or posted today, so maybe that 1/60 Monster picture isn't old news after all.

I found this picture under the "Special Content" section of the Yamato site, Yamato Wonderfest 2003 pictures

In the center row, on the far right hand side I see what appears to be a 1/60th scale Monster sculpt, unpainted. To the left of the monster you can see a man's shoulder that would give some idea of the scale compared to a human. In front of the Monster is a placard that says Macross Zero though. Is it an early scupt of the 1/60?

Anyone know what this is or seen a better picture of it elsewhere?

I bet this has already been discussed but I didn't see anything obvious when i did my search through the boards..

I tend to agree with the other guys here, At this stage in the game the only real differences are aesthetic. Pick the one that you like the best and you won't be disappointed. The 1-A and the 1-S have very little difference, many like the 1-S because it is like an enhanced "Jetfire", many prefer the 1-A because it isn't

The 1-J has some differences, swappable hands, a very different looking paint job, but the quality of the toys is uniform, they feel good in your hand and look great on a shelf.

Wow, that is pretty spectacular, I thought this thread was gonna be a joke on someone when it first started but that is really cool.

I love cheesy horror flicks and I have seen several of the previous Leprechaun movies and I have to say that when I saw the advertisements for this one, I thought to myself that it was going to be more of the same. Shoes..Shoes.....

Anyhow, I will definitely scope it out. Congratulations on the acheivement, getting a movie written and prodcued is a major accomplishment and a big step. Congratulations!!!

It would most likely get a similar release to Yukikaze, five episodes over two disks. Nobody does one episode per disk releases in R1.

LOL, Ever hear of Blue Submarine Number 6? They released each episide, one at a time for over 20 dollars per episode, then, later on they released the collections. It has been done before, and it will undoubtedly happen again, never put it past the scumbags to try to rake the money out of the fans.

That being said, if they do release this stateside I will buy the set, but I am not going to wait 2 years to see the thing, bootleggers are a sad fact of life, if people want something and are willing to pay for it, and the production companies don't fill that need, someone will whether they be internet pirates or bootleggers selling hard copies it all comes down to people obtaining unlicensed product through improper channels. Trying to place some moral high value on stealing for free over paying for stolen goods is sorta like the old saying about arguing on the internet..... you know the one.

Yeah I don't see any flex-points on that VF-0 on the stand and it appears to be on the standard Hasegawa show base, that looks like a really nice model kit to me.

A trusty E-tailer of import games that I have used dozens and dozens of times with positive results is www.tronixweb.com I have been importing games through them for the last six years, they are about the only place I use.

Stunning......

I am speechless, I might need to break down and pick up and extra 1-S to make one of these,

Wow........

Nice kit, and good job putting it together and getting it painted

I used to have the same problem with paint granulation, it can also be caused by humidity exceeding the recommended limits on the brand of paint. (humidity in the 90+% range all summer here Yuck ) In the past when I have had this happen on a nice kit, and something you might consider if you have a rainy day or two and feel like farting around with touching up your valk, would be to find some really fine sandpaper, like 400-600 grit ( The stuff that looks like construction paper the grit is so fine) and lightly sanding the parts of the kit that got granulated paint flecks. This will scuff your paint job all to heck, but it turns into a great basecoat as it is the same color as you intend the model to be. Then dilute/thin out a bottle of the paint that you will use to recover the affected areas.

It is a ton of work but if you got nothing better to do some day it might be a fun project.

Your pictures look great I really like the way you set the valk up on the stand

Oh, and if you don't have access to an airbrush, as I didn't for the longest time, I found that the best way to get smooth coats of paint is to invest in a couple art brushes with very fine bristles and to paint in multiple thinned out coats. The thinner the paint (At least for me) and the more careful I am are the less chance there is of having bristle-lines and stroke patterns show up in the fnished product.

And I don't mean that as criticism, your kit looks really cool, just a technique you might like to play with sometime.