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.

This is the one I use http://www.dixieart.com/BadgerSotar.html. It is a double action gravity feed. I started out with the Aztec brand and still own two of them but these days I never touch them. Aztecs are a real pain to clean and you have to have 20 different nozzels to paint details etc. The Sotar is a snap to clean and I usually use the medium needle but if I need super fine detail it takes about 30 seconds to change out to the fine needle. The medium needle will paint some impressively small lines though. The best advice I can give anyone who is planning to buy an airbrush is to spend the extra money and get a quality brush. You will regret it if you skimp and go cheap. Cheap airbrushes do an almost good job which will cause you no end of frustration. I don't know how many times I wanted to pull my hair out thanks to one of my Aztecs. There is nothing worse than spending hours on a model only to have your airbrush screw up the paint at the last minute. P.S. Be sure to get a moisture trap too. You can get air hoses that have one attached or you can get them to go between your air source and the airhose. They will go a long way towards keeping moisture buildup at bay.

That is looking really good!

Wonderfest was awesome! There was plenty of talent in the model competition this year with a lot of wonderful kits on display. The pictures just don't do them justice. The only bad thing was no Macross kits! I did not see even one on display in the contest. What is up with that? I thought that the Hasegawa kits would show up at least. I did not see a lot of Macross stuff for sale either, which was a disappointment since I am always on the lookout for something rare. Next year will see some Macross kits in competition. I am already working on two dioramas for next years show and I am about to restart work on a conversion kit I am doing for the Hasegawa VF-1 Battroid. A year seems like a long time to get this done but it will go fast and I have a few other projects that use my time like a HUGE Gundam diorama for next year that I am working on as part of a team project and a 1:1000 scale Klingon Dreadnought for a friend of mine who wants one to go with his Polar Lights Enterprise. Yep, this year is going to go fast alright. Free advice, if you can you should go to WF next year. It really is worth the trip (I drive across 4 states) and you won't find a better bunch of people to hang out with for a weekend.

I will post updates and pictures of this project as I continue to work on it but as I am trying to get some other models done for wonderfest (which is fast approaching) I am afraid it will have to sit on the back burner for a few more weeks. I would like to finish this project some time this summer but I am anal about details so it may take a little longer. It has to be done right or not at all. Thanks to everyone for your positive feedback and encouragement!

Well I guess I will have to keep working on it. Wonderfest is only about a month and a half off so I will most likely start up on it at the end of May. I will try to put up some in progess pictures when I start back up but right now it is sitting in an air conditioned storage unit where I keep my unbuilt and already completed projects. I don't have enough work space to keep anything I am not currently working on at hand. EXO can you tell me where those pictures you posted came from? If possible I would like to hunt down a copy of that magazine. I had not planned on the leg missile pods opening up but since seeing the one pictured I might have a go at it. The biggest problems so far have been the opening missile pods and as you ponited out the wings on the legs. It looks like the parts used in those pics are plastic and not resin which is what I am using for the masters but unlike the one in the pictures mine has to be able to be duplicated in resin. Which is of course where the problems come in. The easiest solution for the leg wings would be to remove them but I want to make this as authentic as possible so the leg armor needs to go on around them. That is going to be tough without making the legs look disproportionate but I have some ideas. I had only planned to make enough of these to meet the needs of my diorama as well as a couple for a friend of mine who would kill me if he did not get any but if other people are interested I guess I could make a few extras.

Wow, nice pics! I had not seen that before but yeah, thats about what I am trying for. I do not read Japanese so tell me is that a kit preview or something? If it is I will just scrap what I am working on and wait. That looks really good and I would hate to put all the time and money into producing a couple of these if I can just buy them. I am working on a set of masters that I can use to make resin copies of so I can produce a small run of them to build a diorama with 2 or 3 of these things being loaded for action. Needless to say the cost of the rubber and resin is fairly expensive so my wallet would be grateful if Hasegawa would get off their butt and turn these things out.

If any of you are like me then you are a little miffed that Hasegawa has only done regular and strike Valkyries and has snubbed the Armored Valks. In my humble opinion the Hasegawa Valkyries are the best macross models to date so an armored Valkyrie is a must have. With this in mind I have been working on a resin conversion kit for the standard VF-1 Battroid kit. I had hoped to have it finished in time for Wonderfest 2004 in Kentucky this year but because the quality of the Hasegawa kit is so good doing a conversion that is of equal quality is a time consuming project. I had hoped to have a couple of them ready for a Macross diorama I wanted to display in the WF model contest since I figured they would be unique but alas it is not to be. At this point I have shelved the project until after WF to free up my time for other projects but I hope to finish it some time this summer. The main snag I ran into was the missile packs. I wanted them to be able to open and show the missiles but this has been a bit of a problem. I see that a number of people on this board scratch build. Is anyone else here working on a similar project? If so I would like to compare notes.

I see a lot of people on both sides of the recasting issue and I have a question about your opinions on recasting. If these kits are released as event only kits in Japan and in quantities of twenty do you feel it is wrong to recast them? I understand the opinions about money and incentive for the original casters and how recasting lowers the profit/incentive to make more kits but what about these kits? They are only released in Japan so your chance of getting one is non-existant unless you go to Japan for the event or buy one on the internet later at an inflated price. With only 20 of them in the world chances are not good you are even going to get one then. Are recasts a good/bad thing for these kits?