jardann

The plane looks great Rockhound! I'd be happy if I could complete a kit in three times the amount of time it took you. I'm glad to see someone is bringing some Macross goodness to down home Arkansas. My grandma lived in Searcy for a long time. It really is a beautiful state.

Looking pretty smooth DM! Keep up the great work!

Yeah, I used to have a Pontiac Grand Prix that had a HUD projected right onto the windshield. It also had the radio controls right on the steering wheel. Two of the best safety ideas for a car I think. I never had to take my eyes off the road! I wonder why those options still aren't more common in cars.

Yeah Cowie, I think just a few flicks with the pencils across the edges would do, or use one of those silver gel pens to give a slightly different sheen. Just a little bit though. I think it is easily overdone. The kit looks great right now, (probably better than anything I could do) but the chipping could add some sparkle!

No HUD in the DYRL cockpit? Is everything just projected right onto the canopy?

Great looking stuff guys! Cowie- I love the battle damage on your Tomohawk! The damage on the right hip is fantastic. I think the weathering is right on for an "experienced" destroid. Some added paint chipping might liven things up a bit, but that's only if you like the look. It is really great as it is. Are you going to put it into a diorama? I'd love to see what it had gone through to get into that shape! P5- All I can say is that is some Kylwell or HWRMKII caliber work there! The engine looks like a photo of the real thing! I hope you will be able to see plenty of it once the hull is on.

Good lookin' tank! The pictures make it look big and powerful!

Good luck with your search. I don't own a HCM and so I don't really know much about them. I do know that we don't have a lot of repair/customization threads about them. I think they are just a little bit too rare for people to mess around with them very much. Anyone out there that can give this member some advice?

That's looking nice Rockhound. I like the blue a lot! I think what happened with your preshading is that it was a little too dark for the white on the underside. Next time you should maybe try a lighter grey color for the preshading under a white topcoat. Just another warning about something that I've experienced: Sometimes you can get a problem using enamels under acrylics. The enamels take a much longer time to cure and will cause the acrylic top coat to crack or peel. Keep up the great work! I'm excited to see this finished!

Hey Ryan, you're off to a good start. There isn't that much of a problem with painting parts on the sprue, especially just the base coats of colors. You will need to do some touch ups on the seam lines etc. after assembly, but this way you do have color on the kit and you won't need to worry so much about getting into any tight spaces that occur after assembly. Make sure that any paint is removed from the surfaces that will be glued, the seam edges etc. I found some really nice clippers at Radio Shack. I think they are from their Kronos tool line. They are quite sharp and cut very cleanly on most sprue. If the sprue is thick, you should cut farther away from the part and then use an exacto or a small file or sandpaper to clean up the rest. Keep us posted on your progress. I'm excited to see that kit built up!

Why oh why do they have to have a Mach 6?!!! There was no Mach 6 in the cartoon. Speed always drove the Mach 5 and it survived everything! The Mach 5 is the costar and Speed is pretty much nothing without it. This would be like changing the Millenium Falcon in the middle of Star Wars! It needs to be there for consistency. This may piss me off enough to not see the movie in theaters. I've always been a big Speed Racer fan even through all the cheese, but having a Mach 6 and the cracked out CG effects definitely turn me off.

Your Roy looks nice Gengis. I'm really surprised at how much the cement helped the seam lines! It looks like the only way to improve upon what you've already done would be to do a full disassembly and repaint which you understandably don't want to do. It's your hobby so you can just stop with whatever makes you happy!

Two great builds in one thread! Thanks for posting guys. I've really been wanting one of these kits, but with the Captain's Gnerl fighter coming up money is going to be pretty tight for anything else.

As long as they're producing kits I'm happy. I would like to see something new of course, but I'll be even more disappointed if the well dries up completely.

Amazing what you can do in a day! Give your wife our thanks as well. It's great that you can share your magnificent work with all of us. Can't wait to see it with the booster!

I think maybe he used the CO2 canister for his aquarium. That should be good to use as an air source for the airbrush. If you use a CO2 tank then you can get away without a moisture trap as the CO2 will be moisture free. While the airbrushes in your link look good, I have no idea about that brand's quality. A good quality airbrush will be more economical in the long run and be more pleasing to work with. Try to do some more research as I've heard that some of the better airbrush companies sometimes make brushes that are sold by another brand name.

I have some of these kits (various ones from the whole range) that I've been debating putting on Ebay. If anyone's interested, I'd price most of them between $10-$20 each depending on the kit. Just PM me if interested. Keep up the good work Mr. A!

Wooo! That cockpit looks insanely good! Can't wait to see it finished.

Looks like you've done some good work so far, especially on the arm area on the underside. IMHO the most important areas to get smooth on that kit are the nose and the legs. The other areas are not so visible, and most of the other seams are along natural panel lines anyway. When you get that kit together though, you will have a nice sleek model of a Valkyrie. I'm just starting to get the hang of using super glue and accelerator to fill seams and I wish I had paid more attention to that method a while ago. It really is a very quick way to fill seam lines. I was always afraid of sticking the sandpaper to the glue or just spreading a mess of glue around, but using accelerator eliminates that problem. You just have to be quick to smooth it out with sandpaper before the glue gets too hard. Some people add baking soda or pure talc to super glue to make a thicker paste that will fill larger gaps, but I haven't tried that just yet.

The valk looks nice, especially for a first effort. Did you use Krylon fusion paint? The surface texture reminds me of when I used the fusion paint. The shiny metal landing gear and swing bars look great with the all black scheme. It gives it just a bit of a kick and makes the valk look like it means business. Good work, I bet you'll be looking to cusotmize some more toys now.

Looks like you're off to a great start. If you can eliminate the seams on those kits then you've pretty much got it beat. Is that the kit for Millia's fighter? Will you be going with the recommended paint scheme or a custom? Thanks for sharing your work and welcome back to the fun! I hope to see it when you're finished.

That's a good bit of building for 1/100 scale. I really like the way you built up the headrest areas. Belts and eject handles would probably be the most visible things you could add. It may be just the angle of the plane in the picture, but the nose area looks a bit odd to me for some reason. Is this a pretty new kit? How's the quality in other areas? It used to be near impossible to find anything in 1/100 scale. Now I see that Tamiya has some nice looking planes released in 1/100. I don't know if those are new or reissued kits though. I've been tempted to pick one up since they're only around $8, but I've pretty much moved on to 1/72 with the Hasegawa kits and the Moscato sculpts. 1/100 is a lot cheaper though!

Lookin' good! I like option 3 the best. Whatever scheme you choose, I'm looking forward to seeing the results. They all are good possibilities.

Hey HWR, is that soda can in the background a subtle comment about the size of the tank? Awesome work as always man!

The problem with that is the 1/60 Millia should be larger not smaller than the 1/72!