wm cheng

Hi oh! Thanks for all the kudos, unfortunately, the first photo with the canopy down was not built by me. The second photo was of my model (can't remember who did the photoshop work though), but I did cut the flaps and repositioned them down which is not the case in the first photo.

Sorry to hear about the yellow Mechleader, Any closeup photos for me to see? My models are in a pretty bright room and sometimes even gets direct sunlight in the winter! and they are still fine after 2 years with this technique. I am wondering, did you let the oils dry before sealing them in with the clear coat (I let mine dry at least 24 hrs) Did you wipe away all the excess? What kind of solvent did you use to thin the oil paints - was it low odour varsol? Maybe you should try a different thinner - get a scrap or cheap kit and re-do the panel wash and let it sit to see if it does it again. How long did it take for the yellowing to appear? I have heard somewhere that Future could yellow slightly over time with direct exposure to sunlight. Becareful when you thin the oils down, if you thin too much the colour might break up into little particles (cheaper oils do this) you don't want to go that far.

Woohoo - that's a date on my calendar!

These little compressors are cheap and cheerful - they do the job for the price and are a good beginner. However, they do heat up, and cannot be used continously, depending of capacity, they must be turned off every 15 minutes or so - its a bit of a hassle to pause your work if your compressor overheats or constantly bend down to switch it off when you have a model in one hand and an airbrush in the other (best to get a compatible foot pedal). Plus if you pause too long, the paint in the airbrush dries and gums up the internal workings of the airbrush. But for small jobs, they are great, and a good way to start - especially that they are oiless. I would invest in a really good regulator though - and that idea of a really long hose sounds like it might take some of the "putter" out of the airflow from these little compressors. Thayer and Chandler airbrushes are good, they are the same makers as Badger.

I've used a crappy old refridgerator compressor I bought at the junk yard for $5 and retrofitted it with a decent moisture tap and regulator for a good 10yrs - boy they really made me hate my airbrush (mind you I didn't use my airbrush all that much then!) However, I have an italian made SilAir silent compressor now with a gallon reservior and auto-shut-off. It is like night and day, like moving from an KIA to a Mercedes now - and I must admit, I enjoy using the airbrush and in fact do airbrush more than I did when I had the crappy old compressor. Mind you, I spent over $600cdn on this puppy - but its designed for the artist/illustrator use. I do not recommend the hardware type of compressor since they often use oil as a lubricant in the pistons (in fact the illustration models use a diaphram type mechanism - less "puttter" vibration in the airflow than pistons) which can occassionally travel out through the airline. Good if you have air-driven tools that need the occassional lubricant - bad if you are doing detail model work! Additionally, the reservior type (which is essentially a holding tank - you airbrush out of the air in the tank, the compressor automatically senses pressure loss in the tank at a given threshold and kicks in silently to replenish the tank) allows absolutely even "non-puttering" consistent airflow essential to eliminate splattering and maintaining even lines. In fact, sitting next to the compressor, I don't even know when its on (I've accidentally left it running for days). I know that its a pricy hunk of change - but you get what you paid for! There are smaller cheaper ones, but I would recommend ones designed for illustrator's purposes with enough capacity to provide even airflow from 10-30psi. Remember to get a moisture tap with the air-regulator if you live in a hot or humid part of the country (I live in Toronto Canada, and often see condensation in the clear window of the moisture tap) and I would recommend a oil trap if the compressor is oil driven or lubricated. Good luck.

Hey Valkyrie, No exposed magnets, I mean they should be under the plastic inside the booster housing, so the magnets will have to pull through the thickness of the styrene plastic (so it would lessen the attaction and not pull our precious models apart). Don't the connection points of the claw move farther forward, I thought those red decals on the top edge of the booster packs delineate the connection points to the launch arm.

I personally use my old (15yrs old) Badger 200NH single action - its been great! Its really simple and easy to clean. With the fine head (IL) attachment, you can get a fairly fine light line which I use for my post-shading. The NH is bottom feed which allows me to use a colour cup as well as small bottles which is a plus. I would invest in a good quiet compressor with a top notch regulator though. Good luck

I get them via Lee Valley Tools up here in Toronto, there are a variety of sizes, I'll look into what the smallest ones are this weekend and get back to you. I was thinking maybe four magnets (they are round kind of like little watch batteries) - two per booster - or three one per booster and one underneath the backpack - it would be better if we knew what the points of contact were underneath the "claw". Maybe the claw portion would only have a metal plate, and the magnets are only in the model boosters? Then you wouldn't really have to hollow any resin out. I love the traffic light idea too.

Here's a shot of from DYRL - I'll look to see if I can find some lineart.

Yeah, I too think its a scratch build. I think the magnet idea would work (these rare earth magnets are crazy strong) I don't think we need to drill anything, I was just thinking that it would be epoxied underneath/inside the packs. So there would be a layer of styrene plastic between it and the magnets in the arm part. They are so strong, I believe they will hold through the plastic without actual magnet to magnet contact (actually, I think if there was magnet to magnet contact - we'd never get the Valk or packs off without breaking the model kit!). Or I wonder if that photo-etched plate on top of the packs would be magnetic - maybe all we need is a magnet on the arm part itself. But you are right, the packs on the model are fragile, but the model is pretty light, and I held my model by the packs and shook it abit on the angle and it seemed fine (I always, scrape the paint away from the contact areas when I use a "solvent" type styrene cement on joints that will be stressed though). I don't think you need the screw to go though the back pack (IMHO). Actually, maybe you don't have to embed the metal tube at all, the scratch build has it exposed, maybe we should only resin cast the ends. The tubes are pretty common at most hobby or train shops, maybe it could be a two tube system like a 1/4" diameter brass tube on the bottom teamed with a 1/8" diameter tube up top - bonded together it would be quite stiff. Interesting to see what happens, keep me in the loop.

Here, here, I'll definitely take a few off your hands.... Looking forward to this with great anticipation!! Ever thought about putting/embedding rare-earth magnets in the arm which can be paired up with rare-earth magnets that can be hidden in the Hasegawa's fast packs (underneath the plastic) just a thought Please keep us informed.

You said it Valkyrie! It sucks to be broke (otherwise maybe) too bad there are the crappy character designs as well. What is it, are they originals, they seem to be loose pages... Thanks for the line art pages, they are quite cool, love that FFR-31!! Can't wait for a Bandai 1/100 version of that baby.

Hey Phatslappy, Always nice to know one has fans! Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. Feel free to ask away! You could also PM me too. Come on, lets see more modelling... That Yukikaze by LTSO was great!

Beautiful mechanical designs!! Any mechanical art books out there yet on this series?

Great job LTSO!! Nice colours, much more military than that sickly green they suggest. What's wrong with the white decals, they look great in the photos! Nice weathering job on the panel lines - did you post shade them as well? I am surprised to see those two stripes on the back of the plane so blue in colour. Great job, the extra decals on the version 1.5 makes a huge difference. Did you make it so the gears were removeable? A good buddy of mine bought me the 1/72 scale Platz version for Christmas (more on my assembly line...) - beautiful gear details.

That looks fantastic LTSO!! Wow, now I want that resin re-cast - it was 1/72 scale was it not? A question about the re-cast, were there any tiny surface bubbles? I love your stand, mine are all still on the crappy clothes-hangers, I would love to try that soon. How did you actually attach the acrylic rod to the plane - is it still removeable afterwards - it looks great, all you need is an "anytime baby" VF-4 Valk patch on your stand or maybe just the Macross Kite symbol. Great build-up LTSO, congrats on another fine model - don't worry about the shading techniques, its just practice - I think your VF-4 looks great this way, I don't think the VF-4s saw much battle in flashback 2012 anyways. Keep it up - and always, build more...

Damn!! Well... it gives some time to save up.

What a great idea, the gloves I guess are for the hot rod? Where online is US Plastics? The heat gun, is it just the kind to strip paint? I really need stand ideas, all my in flight babies are still sitting on coat hangers! Oh, by the way, could you pull back and take a shot of your spray booth, neat set up, where did you get it, and how much do they cost? I need proper ventilation before I kill myself! So does it vent outside?

Holy geeze, miss a few days, and this wondrous work appears!! Welcome back Jung! great to see and hear from you again - and back in full form - what can I say that hasn't been said before. Excellent custom, it really looks fantastic, top notch. Two questions, how is the paint holding up to the transformations? Especially around the moving parts - what did you seal them in with? and how many coats to protect them? Second, did you use waterslide decals or the stickers? You've made a CF lover out of me Fantastic work on the pilot, when you reshaped its arms, did you use epoxy to re-attach them back? Thanks for putting Toronto on the MW map! We should all meet at Animextreme or somewhere like that some day - maybe a T.O. MWCon.

Wow! I thought the honeycomb was decalled, the masking is excellent. And spraying white over the dark colours even turned out great - how many coats of white did it take? Fantastic work, inspires me to start my own battroids finally (maybe - too much of an airplane guy so far). Thanks so much for your excellent contributions to this board Totenkupf. Looking forward to seeing more in the near future!

Great work so far - keep it up!

Fantastic work!! More pictures please sir...

Man I feel old around here... I'm 33 - and was first exposed to "Robotech" I cannot reveal my true number of Yamato toys for fear of my wife seeing this on my computer but there are no numbers that will be enough!! Although models are more my thang! (pathetic when an old geezer tries on young lingo eh? )

Hey Coyote187, I've been researching some sites for a F-14 as well (although I was planning on doing a 1/72 Hasegawa F-14 from the VF-84 Jolly Rogers squad though) but most of the info out there are for the 1/48 scale. Try these; http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal-...s/F-14/F-14.htm http://www.ecpmod.com/index.html (good tips and articles) http://www.anft.net/f-14/ http://www.hyperscale.com/ http://tmf.myrightfoot.com/gallery/aircraf...14a/index.shtml http://www.topedge.com/alley/models/f14mhase.htm http://www.topedge.com/alley/ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/sys...rcraft/f-14.htm Hope this will get you a start - would love to see postings of your kit build progress (let me know where...) Good luck.

I know its been said before, but I just wanted to add my sincere thanks and congratulations on an excellent effort by all. Its truely inspiring to see all the fellow modellers out there regardless of skill level. I was quite worried a few years back seeing all the local "brick & mortar" hobby shops close up. It seemed to me that this hobby was rapidly dying or at least on a decline next to the Playstation generation. Especially this small niche of modelling - so kudos to all who participated, don't sniff too much glue, and ventilate... ventilate... ventilate!!! Special thanks goes out to the organizers of this contest, community board (especially out-reaching to MacrossWorld, thanks cwmodels ), judges and HobbyFan (sorry if I missed you, but I don't know about the inner workings of this site). I realize no one had to do this, and I don't think a lot of extra monetary business was created - but for a sincere love of the hobby and promoting awareness - for that self-less cuase, I salute you.