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Well its been a while since I built up a Hasegawa Valkyrie. Hard to believe its almost a 20yr old kit, still very nice, but some flash and ejector pins to fill. Tried my best to paint up Minmay and Hikaru from @arbit's amazing 3D prints (thanks for making the helmet a separate piece it made painting her much easier). I wish I could paint in Minmay's eyes, but I just didn't have a brush small enough to lay down paint, I ended up just using a pin to make some depressions where I thought they should be. With the Canopy (dry fit) on you don't see as much as I would have hoped. (I really should have dusted before I took these photos) These are just some other reminders of the injection pin depressions I filled (with crazy glue) some added cut styrene and notching out the thruster pivots so I can paint them separately and install them at the end after everything is filled/sanded and painted. Now that the strikes are over, I hope to be getting a paycheque from my real job, so I might not be able to finish this baby up too soon.

That looks great @Thom can't wait to see more! Would love to get my hands on the newer Academy kits but its not that readily available here in Toronto (lots of older Revell, Monogram & Hasegawa, but any of the newer FineMolds, GWH are hard to find and usually expensive online shipping only). At least I believe the Academy is supposed to be cheaper than the FineMolds & GWH ones. Those cockpit decals really bedded down amazingly! Wow, who needs the 3D stuff when they lay down so beautifully especially if you've going to leave the canopy closed. I wonder if the rear RIO coaming is too narrow like the GWH version (reason why I did mine with the canopy down in the end) but that lump above seems odd as well as those lines in the forward coaming too. I've finally started on my VT-1 (after about a 20yr wait...) thanks to @arbit amazing 3D print. I've always wanted a Minmay in the back seat without her helmet off (on her lap and @arbit was kind enough to make it a separate piece for me) yelling at Hikaru in the front and finally got my wish. Thanks so much to @arbit for his amazing sculpt. The only things are both of their legs are a bit long and I have to cut their butts at a 45 degree because the Hasegawa has this strange seat bump that comes out like butt cheeks that pushes the figures too far forward. I wanted them to look seated into the seats, I ended up having to cut poor Minmay's legs at the ankles. I didn't realize how brittle these 3D prints are (never worked with them before) - I ended up breaking Hikaru's right arm at the elbow (weak spot) and Minmay's left leg at the knee. A little crazy glue fixed it and I'm in the process of painting now. I thought I'd try to use crazy glue as filler this time around (I'm sick and tired of using multiple coats of Tamiya or Mr. Surfacers only to find out they contracted during drying and having to do another coat). I've been told crazy glue is a good filler and it doesn't contract - we'll I'll try to learn something new.

Hey @Thom - looking good, what's in the cockpit of that F-14 - looks like a 3D cockpit set? I'm surprised you got the seamless intakes before resin seats - you see the seats up front and personal, you really have to shine a flashlight into the intakes to see that far back. I'm always disappointed with all the work I do to the fan face when its so difficult to see afterwards. What do you think about the Academy F-14 (I've been meaning to get one) compared to the GHW or FineMolds (I've got too many old Hasegawa that I don't think I will ever get to nowadays with so many better kits out!) @electric indigo - that's a lot of bad seams on that HobbyBoss kit. I wonder how the new Trumpeter Intruder at that scale will be fit wise. I just race through to get to the painting and decaling stage - I hate doing all the filling and sanding.

It's just not the same angle, it has to do with the focal length of the lens. You shot your Yamato with a very wide angle lens (short focal lengths), so it exaggerates the perspective and elongates the nose disproportionately. Where as long lenses (long focal lengths) tends to compress background and foreshortens length towards camera. I think the magazine was shot with a long lens, look at how parallel the wing root separation lines are vs. your Yamato wing roots definitely converge at the perspective vanishing point within the image. I'm still holding out hope for that side angle view we were treated to earlier on. I just hope all this complaining here means I might have an easier time at pre-order (but somehow I don't think so :P)

OMG! That looks amazing especially for 1/72 scale. Thanks so much for pointing me in that direction. Although they could have had a more interesting colourful scheme to provide decals for.

This looks so good! Man I really didn't want to branch out from Star Wars too much, but with this and Concorde lately, my wallet needs a break especially with the strike still going on!

I don't get how the nose in fighter mode could look even shorter but in battroid mode look too long?!?! I was hoping there would be some magic transformation to extend the nose in fighter and shorten it for battroid as the YF-19 lower calf fill out panels were genius. I'm still getting one though (if I have any luck at pre-order time).

Wow @electric indigo that is absolutely stunning!!! Congrats on another amazing addition to your collection. Love it so much. Is it 48 or 72 again?

I feel the same way, I had a good laugh when it came out, but when I have it in hand, it is quite fun (wished it hand landing gears of its own), different and even looks good attached to the VF-31. Although the orange doesn't suit the blue, magenta or green schemes as well and seems to match the only one that hasn't been released yet?!?! Can't wait for that release if it will ever happen.

I'd love an Intruder in 1/72 - is that a 1/48? What's the best kit in 1/72?

Hey @Darkspire17 which toy is this? Is it the 1/24 Arcadia?

@electric indigo Wow, love the design of that Helicopter - don't know it, what is it again? Great job on it as usual especially in 1/72 scale! @Chas Gorgeous clean build, love that ship too. Any plans on weathering or finishing ideas? @derex3592 That's amazing, what scale is that again? Hard to tell how tiny they are without some reference @Chronocidal Cool 3D print, what is it that you're printing? Is it your design?

It was scripted to begin with (mostly because we could shoot in the Discovery sets so it made sense to have the saucer from Crossfield class) - other than the saucer, we were pretty much given free range as long as it didn't visually look too much like the Enterprise as you want to instantly distinguish between the two during the fight in the rings (my first version had the nacelles up and the dish below the saucer but it looked too smiliar to the Constitution at first glance).

Here was some of my design contributions to this great series! (they didn't use my Klingon BoP for the J'Gal episode due to budget 😭)

Beautiful Typhoon and weathering @derex3592!!! Wow @Thom that Lancaster kit looks amazing! Did it come with resin seats? I saw a 1/32 Lancaster kit at a show a few months ago that the fuselage even had a "tin-canning" texture from really thin metal panels, the molding quality was phenomenal but it was over $1K - is this the same kit?!?! What a beauty, its going to be HUGE.

That Concord looks amazing!!! I wished it was a more interesting livery but I guess it doesn't prefer either Britain or France. That retractable landing gear mechanism looks great, I hope someone comes up with a mod with landing gear doors too!!! When is the VIP points sale in the fall - I guess its too much to hope for its sale to coincide with the VIP, most likely will sell out immediately and be backordered for a while afterwards like the Aston Martin DB-5?

Hey @electric indigo that camo and weathering variation on the paint is just superb!!! Looks so good, its it all freehand - black pre-shading underneath with white random sprays and then sprayed each camo green over that pre-shading without overlapping?!?! Amazing! Is that a Tiger Eurocopter? Which 1/72 kit is that?

Wow! Is that a decal he made from scans of the original poster or did he freehand paint that all in?!?!

Thanks Shawn!!! You're the best. I can't believe I've e-known you since the early 2000s - I gotta buy you a drink someday if you're in Toronto!

Hi @Shawn my mailbox has gone silent again, did you turn off the email notifications again? Just wondering if you were aware that the threads I'm following are not receiving email notifications once again. I guess its only old timers like me that use the email notifications to followed threads nowadays LOL 😛 Hope all is well with you.

THANK YOU @Angesdad so much!!! Is there an English version of that site that lists other manuals?

Hey has anyone come across the Bandai Transformation PDF Manuals to these AX toys? They used to put out PDF of their transformation PDF manuals for the other toys, but that link had been down for a while now and I'd like to have the PDFs so I don't have to crack open my paper manuals every so often. I know I can just scan them myself - but thought I should ask first before going through the trouble - or maybe someone has already archived a files section for these things? TIA.

@derex3592 Beautiful cockpit and weathering on the sub - did you find something to clear-coat or protect that without affecting it?

@derex3592 I also found that the weathering pastels work best on matte/flat surfaces and a light dusting of matte/flat clearcoat works best over top of what you've weathered - any gloss coat really diminishes the effect and doing the matte coat over top of the gloss coat doesn't seem to bring it back - I've done this mistake too and you live and learn. Yes, I love these new 3D printed cockpit decals (had to piece together ones for my F-4J in 1/72 as they didn't have ones for it at the time) but I've found Quinta to really be the best of all the brands trying to provide these upgrades. Finally finished the Nu-Galactica - not the greatest of kits (I've been spoiled with Japanese kits that just goes together!). Lots of huge gaps, internal sprue gates to cut off and shaved an entire deck off the nose and ground away so much plastic just to the head to align correctly with the body. The Admiralty turret guns were a highlight to use, but the string of dollar store LED lights were too dim to see in the daylight (you get what you paid for) afterwards. The Acreation Models decal set were great and added a lot of depth to the ribbed areas, however there was a variation in darkness between the 3 sheets and lots of areas were left missing without decals - I had to scrounge up and not use decal that where in hard to see places to piece up missing decals in more hero areas. There were hundreds of ribs to cut out individually that my neck is so sore now from the days/weeks I spent hunched over in my magnifying glasses cutting and applying the decal strips. Funny, I always had this deep metallic finish in mind when I first watched the show, and the model turned out similar to what I had in mind, but upon reviewing the references now afterwards, its much more matte and bluish grey. I did do an overall dry-brushing of bluish grey filter and hand painted matte clearcoat between the ribs over the decals and spot matte/flat coated the paneling to create more variation in the sheen especially when viewed from certain angles.

That's amazing @derex3592 - never even knew these tiny compressors existed! Love to hear more user experience from them. 12-15psi is all I ever shoot at anyways. Alclad are shot at that 12-15 and I hardly ever go above 20psi. I have a giant SilAir from Italy the 80's that's like 30-40lbs and the size of a mid-sized computer tower (although half of it is a storage tank) - so this is crazy miniaturization. Unfortunately my Iwata HP-BC just bit the dust from 1986 - the price is the same then as it is today?!?! I guess its time for a new one.