jardann

Fantastic work as always! I love the "family" photo!

You seriously must cast that lift truck and rolling platform and make them available to members here! You don't know how long people on these boards have been begging for some support vehicles. Great work and incredibly fast! Keep it up!

Hly Frak Cobywan! That thing is looking very impressive! It's good to see you back at it.

Wm, your finish looks flawless! No glue seams! No matter how much I work at it, I can never completely remove all of the seams on my kits. It always amazes me how people can get such a smooth finish with lots of subtle color variations. Masterful work for sure! (as always) Cowpeeler, that is an excellent job for your first kit after such a long break! Welcome back to the modelling madness. I'm sure you won't be able to stop now! Good for you and us, but painful for your wallet!

This is really some amazing work man! Your progress on this project is fantastic! I love the pit area for the crewman. It looks like something off the deck of an aircraft carrier. Very cool!

For tabletop gaming, I think that 1/200 might still be too big. I would say that the figures from the Macross pencil sharpener sets that were out a few years ago would be perfect. They're probably about 1/300, even smaller than the 1/200 scale kits, but I don't know how consistent their scale is. They are approximately the same size as the Heroclix or Star Wars gaming figures that are popular now. I don't know how easy they are to find anymore. You would be able to get many more on the battlefield that's for sure!

Amazing progress!! It's looking really cool. How do you work so fast?

I'm in for one for sure Cap! Putting $100 down will give me a good jump on the total payment too.

Awesome reults Kylwell! With that stand, it looks like something that Hasegawa might have on display at a trade show! High quality all the way.

Looks like great work there Noyhauser! Keep up the great progress.

I wouldn't ignore that other-other chunk of resin on the table!! Looks like you have some cool projects going on!

Looking good there ALammm. I love those old kits. The thigh swivel mod makes a big difference in the poses.

Hey Vile, The Future (I think it is now called Pledge with Future shine) should work just fine for you. You just have to make sure that each coat dries thoroughly before moving to the next step. Make extra sure to let your enamel color coat completely cure otherwise, the outgassing from it will crack the Future coat. AFter you apply the coat of Future, just let it cure for a couple of days, and then you can use an enamel wash or flat coat over the Future.

Shawn has a pic of these in his collection area: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/collections/arii1.jpg I think that is all of them. Eight in total. I've heard that they don't take paint very well. They are pretty cool looking.

NO, NO, NO! Those will be much too dificult for you to use! It would be best if you just send them off to me, and I can put them on my valks and show you the time consuming pain and frustration they will cause! I would never want you to put yourself through that! j/k If you want, you can purchase other decals from a hobby shop and practice with those. You can practice with them on any kind of plastic object (toy, model, empty 2-liter soda bottle) That will let you get comfortable with pushing the decals off the paper, moving them around, and seeing how they can sometimes fold over on themselves. Decaling is really not that difficult, you just have to pick up a bit of feel for them. I usually find that it takes a little bit longer than 10 seconds for them to loosen up from the paper. If so, just let the decal sit on a dish for a few more seconds until they slide easily, then you can put them on to the model. If the decal starts to stick before you get it placed right where you want it, just add a drop or two of water and gently push with the swab or a soft brush. You will want to use a sharp X-acto blade and trim closely to the design, in order to remove as much of the clear film as you can. Also, don't forget that you will want to put a clear finish coat over them to protect them after they are thoroughly dry.

That's great! It really blends in the decals perfectly. That weathering job really finishes off the kit. Great work!

Looking good! I didn't think that kit would come even halfway close to looking right in that mode. I think there might be a bit of proportion problem between the "arms" length and "legs" lengths. It looks to me that the bicep area of the arms may be a bit too long. All in all it is looking surprisingly good and you are doing some great work on it! Keep it up!

I've always liked the VF-2SS. I just have never liked that the only injection plastic kit was produced in 1/100 scale instead of 1/72. And it was pretty hard to find at that for quite a while. Now, even though the kit has been rereleased, it just doesn't fit in scale or quality with the 1/72 Hasegawas that have become pretty much the standard.

Looks like a real ground pounder with that OD color. Your finish looks great! It would look really mean with a little more weathering and dirtying up. Those white markings really stand out on the darker surface. I definitely like the color change you made to the joint areas, good choice there. Keep up the good work and your "Engrish" is just fine. Your work speaks for itself!

Sounds like you've got it! Those parts actually look much better than I thought they would. You'll still have some work to do, but you are off to a good start.

Yes, that is using preshading (or maybe post shading). Basically for preshading, you first spray a dark color along all of the panel lines. After that has dried, you follow up with the main color and spray the body of the kit while making light passes over the darkened areas or even just carefully spraying up to the eges of the dark areas until you get the effect you like. For postshading, you paint the base color first and then use light passes of the dark colors to go over the panel line areas and slowly build up the color to the amount that you like. This is a basic description of the techniques. They are not really hard to do, but it takes a little practice. You pretty much need an airbrush to pull these off. Especially with the postshading technique.

My Commanchero showed up yesterday , but I haven't been able to look at it yet.

For the panel lines try a technique called a pastel or sludge wash. First, clear coat the model. Grind some chalk pastels (do not use oil pastels!) into a fine powder. Mix it with some water and a drop or two of dish detergent. Brush the sludge onto the panel lines and let it dry for a little while. Come back with a damp tissue, paper towel or cotton bud and wipe away the excess. Don't rub too hard, and the dark pastel should stay in the panel lines. This works only for kits with engraved panel lines. Do a search on sludge wash or pastel wash for more details.

They look pretty sweet in the seats! And they are coming out at the right time too!

I wouldn't recommend it. The proportions are changed on the models depending on which mode it is in. I think that the shoulder cannon booms will not fit correctly if you try to move them to the front cruiser mode position. The central torso part will probably also be hard to convert. I don't think it would be impossible, just very difficult. In my opinion, you would get a better value by buying a kit that is designed in the cruiser mode.