MechTech

Hey GU-11, sorry for the delay replying. The thinner is what the paint is made of before pigment - its the solvent. It's the main part of the paint in this case. Stirring or shaking? No scientific difference I'd say other than I stir and shake my paints, no differnce. Stirring DOES help pick the solids off the bottom so it can make a difference if the paint has been sitting around awhile. Shaking does make air bubbles, but they of course go away. About 1/3 of my Tamiya paints are mixed colors I make and keep for projects. No difference again. Many are a few years old too! If you are brushing paints on by hand, layering can possibly take up older coats of paint. Brush GENTLY with thin top coats (like for effects). A thick coat WILL cut through to the lower coats since its "Wet" enough to act as a solvent still. I dry brush Tamiya paints with no problem. I have had wet top coats take up parts of the lower. If you use water based on top of enamels, no problem. Enamels on acrylics are also usually alright. The different solvents are litterally liek trying to mix oil and water - litterally. I hope that helps! - MT

Thanks vt102! I think I have a caster. I'll keep you all in the loop!- MT

The UV light does look cool, BUT be careful if you ever use it. Flourescent/UV lights cause styrene to break down and cause white paint to yellow. Its good for short bursts, but not to display all day. Everyone has some great feedback for ya! - MT

Thanks cool8or! Now you know why I'm scaling down to 1/350 I can still build "big," only smaller.

Fifthed! I'm still waiting on a TV version of the Macross. - MT

Hey GU-11, I just saw this. Are you talking about the light blue "wash" in some of the seems? If you ask me, just get Tamiya light blue like X-14. - MT

Looks great! - MT

Thanks EXO, you bet I'm exited. Now I can begin to move on to other stuff. Anyone got one of those little airline champagne bottles?

Thanks guys for the advice. I doubt my son will care about the seems, but I'm trying to teach him patience I have seen that guys Yamato website. He's got some insane work on his pages! I wonder how long it takes him to build that stuff!?? I DO like his Andromida in 1/500, even with fiber lights. I'll probably put some LED's into my son's, I can tone down the light so it's not so strong on the engines. I'm thinking of using candle LEDs for a combustion flickering effect. The main guns, just some LED's on a switch. - MT

Looking great man! - MT

That'd be great BigF! - MT

That looks great! I'm interested in a couple! I think it's close enough to 1/350. - MT

I SOOooo need to get a display case like you guys I've posted earlier versions of this, but it's a very SIMPLE setup. I got a cheap milk table (front folds up for more space) for the actual bench. The columns are simply cheap plastic pull out drawers screwd onto the table. On top of that took a cheap pine board and put several smaller plastic drawer units on it with bolts. Lights are hooked up under that. The important thing - this was done over a period of time so I could pay out a little at a time. I have moved four times with this setup and with the exception of a couple bins cracking, its hanging in there. The bad part, it's white and so are styrene parts that fly out of your tweezers - MT

Great job! I'd have to say the camo is more 90's like you see from that era. It looks great all the same. If you've never heard of adding talcum podwer to your paint to make it "chuncky", it works great. I also had some Tamiya paints that lasted about 20 years! The secret is to keep them in an airtight container like a modern ammo can. - MT

Awesome finish and build cool8or! The chipping looks great and realistic. The "bad guys" never were good maintainers. Thanks for sharing! - MT

Guys, what you don't realize is Mike has a full sized hanger for a "garage." That would have to explain all these giant builds, either that or he is slightly visually impaired and can only see big things - just speculation now... I agree with EXO on the scale issue. Many of the drawings and even size comaprison charts done don't match up with the stats. I'm going to use that to my advantage with some of my builds. It's easier to use a 1/72nd scale figure than try to find one in between that and 1/48th for a Zentraedi. I just went through trying to do the math on that one last week. It doesn't work out. Awesome build as always! Keep up the great work! - MT

Nice work everyone! I'm not a Galcactica fan, but what I remember of the pilot, the colors look good on the Galactica Derex. VF-19, that photo of the Andromeda helped sell my son to buy one - along with the newer 1/500 Yamato. Guess what will be on my bench when they get shipped Time to dig out the old stash of LEDs! - MT

$15 isn't bad for a 1/72nd old school valk. It's no Hasegawa and looks more like the lineart/anime than a real model. These typically had "meaty claws" for hands, big feet, and other over exagerated features. But they're still cool if you ask me. If I recall correctly the nose will need some work too. - MT

Tamiya's paints are water and isopropyl alcohol based so you're safe. There are other chemicals in them, but in smaller quantities. Here's a thorough breakdown in a thread elsewhere: http://www.network54.com/Forum/112088/thread/1001854333/The+proverbial+Tamiya+acrylic+thinners+question! These are probably about as safe as you're gonna get next to tempura paints. In a nutshell, I use over the counter isopropyl alchohol to clean and thin mine. It dries faster though, so keep to their stuff or something slower curing. Have fun! A dehumidifier or food dehydrator will help when the humidity gets too high! - MT

Hey BigF, that would be cool if they are in the same scale. I used to have some of those myself, don't remember what happened to them. Let me know if any of it is in scale and we'll see what to hit first. - MT

Thanks guys, I was thinking of making them available. I thought they'd be right for a chess set too. Thanks for the compliments as well! The recasts should be cheap too! I just need to get them casted and then I'll let you guys know the cost. I'm hoping not a lot - for all our sakes - MT

I'm just catching up with this, but remember, nothing is too ambitious! Even if it takes you six years to complete! Looking great so far. I'm thinking of doing some 3D drawing myself like this. You're doing it right. It's great to be able to make your virtual parts and check their fit, versus my method of making it, screwing up, and making it again until it fits right Keep it up! - MT

Thanks guys, I appreicate it! Still looking for a good reccomendation of a caster. - MT

Thank you Kyekye! Yeah, finally some paint! With tommorrow's high around 32 degrees F, it aint happening anytime soon! Thank Rotorhead, no sweat. I thought it was an "inside joke." If it make you feek better, the Imai 1/5000 kit has knees That's funny. Happy New Year guys! - MT

Hey Kelsain, It does look like it (I was using one to help me remodel this as a 3D referance). It's actually 1/350th scale, or 40mm "tall". It was one of the lesser known 1/320 kits (the original is in one of the photos, though its actually 1/350th). Due to lack of space to display things, I'm moving to 1/350th scale. I can get every plane/tank/ship I want in this scale, but it's going to mean doing some scratch building to get some Macross stuff. I even have Mospeada stuff in this scale now! So here's the first work. I'm using macro lenses so EVERY single speck of dust or flaw you can't see with the human eye is getting picked up. All of the parts are in one of the photos, they just need to be copied and glued together. Some interesting points, the original hands looked more like claws, so I used 1/35th scale hands. The GU-11 has a 1/35th scale .45 pistol grip on it (also heavily modified). The hip missile "X" detail was pressed into them using a sharpened micro phillips screwdriver head on my drill press. A lot of the parts are "doubles" since the originals flew out of my tweezers into the carpet and forever lost The VF-1J head is shown next to the head of a pin for size comparison. The next step I think will be a Regult and Zentraedi figure. I want to get several copies of all these done in resin, that's why I'm looking for a good caster who can do SMALL items like this. That's it for now, I'll probably post the next figure up in this thread too. - MT