Replicant Mechanic

Thanks for the ideas guys. I think I have some Nato black in my paint stash. I will pull it out and see what I can do with it. Thats not a bad idea about the highlights big F. I may just give it a try. So far this has proven to be a decent kit aside from the seam work on the under wing stores, which has been completely aggravating.

What color is Ivanov's SV-51? The model insructions call for grey black and the finished model on the box is certainly blackish grey but this seems just to dark. The box cover art shows more of a purple color and rewatching my Zero dvds I see it flick from lighter to darker shades of grey sometimes with a purpleish tone. I am hoping to finsh the VF-11 I am working on this weekend so I have a little time before I have to settle on a paint shade so does anyone have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions about what would look right? I don't really want to go with an almost black paint job but at the same time I don't want anything that is to far off from what it is supposed to look like.

I have a 1/72nd VF-11 Super Battroid made by Hobby Base Retppu that I am building right now. I can confidently recommend this kit if you can find one. I payed 120$ on ebay for mine. Superior casting quality and good quality resin in this kit. As with any resin kit there is some clean up to be done but it had minimum flash (mostly just pour stubbs) and almost no surface detail defects. I have needed minimum putty thus far. The instructions are very basic and only show the kit from a front veiw so you have to figure out the backside on your own but it is pretty intuitive. Also some of the poly caps are one piece that have to be cut down to two or three pieces. This is a little annoying but doable with a sharp hobby knife. I am assembling the major components now and when I start painting I will try to put up some pics for you.

1/144th Gundams don't really scale to 1/72nd Valkyries. If you are just using them for greeblies you might get some parts that will work. Another choice might be to grab up some 72nd scale aircraft for kitbashing and HLJ has Wave and Kotobukiya product lines which have tons of sets of thursters, verniers, sensors etc.

Tools that will come in handy: A good pair of nippers to remove parts from their trees. An exacto knife for more uses than can be listed. A good set of micro files, sandpaper and sanding sticks. Home depot sells foam sanding pads in various grits that are a must have. You can bend them to any shape so they won't leave flat spots when you sand a curved surface and they are easier to handle than regular sandpaper. Model glue for plastics and CA glue for resin kits. Testor now makes glue that comes in a bottle(?) with a metal applicator tip that eliminates the age old problems you get from tube glues. Mr. surfacer or Tamiya putty. I use Tamyia, it's good stuff. For primer I would say go with Tamyia. Tamiya also makes some good clear coats. You can use Future floor wax also but if you do it is going to leave you with a high gloss finish (it is floor wax after all) so you will want to use something like testors dullcoat to knock the shine off of it. Artist oil paints or water based acrylics if you intend to do a wash. I like polly S water based acrlyics thined with 3 parts water and a dish soap like Dawn. You can wipe the excess right off of a good gloss coat (which future is good for) with just a Q tip.

I went. I only had 3 models completed, all of them things that I threw together in the last 2 weeks before the show. I had a 1/144th Zaku II that got a merit award, a Master Grade Nemo that got a Bronze and a Master Grade Zaku I that got a silver and won the best Gundam award. It was the first time I ever entered anything in a contest so I was both very surprised and pleased to win anything. It was worth going to just to see all the other models. There were a lot of them that totally blew away anything I could make. Next year I hope to take a VF-1 Diorama I have in mind to make.

Very nice. I don't have a VF-0D but after looking at yours I want one. I particularly liked your weathering effects. Don't feel bad about having to redo it. My little "Ewok" destroyed an entire legion of my best troops when she was about 2. It gave me a reason to update all my older X-wing and TIE fighters to the new Fine Molds castings.

You can also use a hobby knife to trim the tape after you place it. This gives the advantage of not having to worry about curving the tape when placing it. Just make sure to use a new blade and not to cut through to the plastic or resin underneath.

As Warmaker pointed out, some Destroids would be a welcome addition to the lineup. On a similar train of thought: Would it kill them to do some Zentraedi stuff? Just once? Please? Even some repops of the old molds would be nice. I would love to get some of those without paying an arm and a leg on Ebay.

I payed 100$ for my gold book at a hobby shop in Texas and I was darned glad to find it. This was back in the day before you could find any and everything on the internet and it was only the 3rd one I had ever seen at the time and the first one I had any chance of affording. It was worth every penny and has brought me countless hours of enjoyment since. A friend of mine had one of the two that I had seen prior to getting mine and his did not have the poster or film stripe so I was very pleasantly surprised to find them inside. A nice extra to an awesome book.

I don't thin the future. I want a nice glossy coat to act as a base for decal application and to be a barrier between my original paint job and any weathering I do. I put a second coat between the decals and the weathering so any weathered effects on the decals like chipping has to be done 1st. More than once I have made a mistake while weathering and the future let me correct it without having to worry about the paint job. If you are doing a wash the future is a good base for this too as the smooth surface will help the wash flow into seems. Just make sure to clean your airbrush really well after using it to put the future on. Another thing future is great for is giving the cockpit canopy a glassy look. This probably isn't news to anyone but just in case I will tell it anyway. Take the canopy and dip it in future. Pull it out slowly so you get a nice even coating. Holding it at an angle as you pull it out so that a corner is the last part out helps. You can touch the corner to a rag to remove the small amout of excess future that usually pools there. This gives a nice finish when dry and is a lot easier than using a buffing compound.

Nice job. I like the weathering effects. Just enough to give it a realistic look without overdoing it. I am curious, what type of paint did you use for this kit? I mainly use testors MM but I have been trying out Tamiya lately and I am thinking of doing a VF-1 with them.

When I have finished painting a model I usually give it a coat of straight future (which makes it shiney) to act as a base for decal application. Having a smooth glossy surface really makes the decals go on easy. After that, some decal setting solution and another coat of future and what ever weathering I am doing and then I usually top it with Testor's Dullcoat. To prevent yellowing problems I put a single drop of blue paint in every bottle of white I buy before I use it. Mix it really well and you will never see the blue in the white or any yellowing later either. On an unrelated note: Drop a couple of BBs in the bottle with the drop of blue. It won't stop yellowing but the next time you use the paint it will help mix it when you are shaking the bottle. I do this with all my paints and it makes mixing a bottle you have not used in 6 months a lot easier.

That particular model was photographed by Vince Hoffman (for Starship Modeler.com I believe) at wonderfest last year. It was built straight out of the box so it is a little off. It was just put together and then painted and weathered to look as close as possible to what is seen on screen. It only managed an honorable mention from the Judges though. Or was it a Bronze? I can't remember.

As luck would have it I broke my Sotar. It is going back to Badger to be repaired but in the mean time I just purchased a Badger model 155 Anthem from the local Michaels craft store. It is a double action bottom feed and cost me about 140$. I like my Sotar better (maybe I am biased because I have been using it for so long) but this is a pretty good airbrush. I used it last night to put down some base coats and it worked great. It gave a nice even spray that left a good coat of paint with no globs, orange peel, or other of the usual problems you get with poor airbrushes. At 140$ it had better not! The only thing I was dissapointed with was the clean up. Don't get me wrong, it was 100 times better than an Aztec. I just like how easy it is to clean a Sotar. One thing it has in the plus column over a Sotar is that as a bottem feed you can attach several different size paint cups to hold as much paint as you need. The Sotar is a top feed that holds a limited amount of paint so that you have to refill more frequently if you are using a lot of one color. I would certainly reccommend either of these airbrushes to anyone planning to buy an airbrush.