honneamise

Thanks LTSO for sharing the pics! I should have done something similar but I never even came close to this assembly stage This time it seems that I´m not the first one to actually finish one of my kits! As for the dremelled out speed brake housings, I´d just take proper, thin plastic sheet, drill holes in it and glue them onto the remains of the old parts, the breaks don´t need to fit if they´re glued in open position.

Now this is REALLY cool, I love that repair scene in ep.2, IIRC this was never shown again in the show. I remember watching this for the first time in the 80s, I had just experienced the very first Valkyrie transformations and then I see that the VF´s are even more loaded with tiny gadgets! Are you planning to use Gundamhead´s conversion set for the VF-1D Battroid? Can´t wait to see that one finished!

No time to make more this week, but next week I´ll start working on the next 20 kits, might take 2-3 weeks from then. I´ll work my way downward the list, so don´t worry if you haven´t received a PM yet. I don´t want to collect money for kits that need several weeks for delivery. And I will replace the molds in time, so you don´t need to worry that kit No 61 comes from a lousy worn out mold!

Wow that was fast... I had expected the kits were still in Germany because of the Easter days... the postal service guys are faster than I thought The kit is getting bigger during assembly... no, really - the main body doesn´t look like much but once you have added everything it´s not that small anymore, only slightly less length than a VF-1. Anyway, I really hope you like it!

PM sent!

I´m at it... first run is almost finished, more to follow... I´m so fed up with the smell of resin and these sticky fingers I get:( my room is a mess but the kits look great.

I´m not into J-Rock/visual etc (maybe too old ?No way) but about 50% of the music I buy /listen to is japanese so I´m not too off-topic I hope. I like the old 80s albums by YMO Yellow Magic Orchestra, influenced by Kraftwerk but without taking themselves serious. The 3 members (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi) all made excellent solo stuff (Sakamoto alone seems to make about 6 albums a year, always changing style, he also did the soundtracks for "Wings of Honneamise" and parts of "Appleseed"). Their latest incarnation as a band is "Sketch Show": they mix electronic sounds with "microclick"-beats, acoustic guitars (even banjo) and swedish lyrics - otherworldly! It´s so funny these guys are well into their 50s and they still sound fresh and innovative!

That's not a design issue as much as a ballast issue. THe Gundam MG kits have PVC internals that add weight to the lower logs to compensate for the bulk of the torso and arms. You can acheive the same results by glueing fishing weights to the insides of the lower legs. 388384[/snapback] Of course you´re right VFX, what I was pointing out was more that the Hasegawa engineers most probably do not spare many thoughts on issues like these. They are used to think "scale model", not "how can we get cooler poses" or even "how can we please the guys who want to play with it" so I don´t expect Gundamish features here - I could be wrong though, it´s always possible that the guys try to combine their aircraft-style attention to detail with the newest poseability features... we´ll know soon, the kits should be on the way.

Polycaps for all joints like they did with the VF-1 series. I assume it will be quite poseable but Hasgawa won´t drop or twist accuracy of the design in favour of extreme poseability. The slightly moved arm joint seems to be the only concession to better poseability. I´m pretty sure it won´t be able to stand on one feet or imitate nifty martial arts poses a la Gundam...

I would LOVE to call you nitpicker for this but you´re definitely right. Only thing missing is a "in case you wish this arm to break off, shoot right here" sign. Don´t know why they did it but that should be changed.

Enterprise with VF-1S on board - awesome!!! Great shading on the VF and very good blending of the two subjects. Here´s my entry, it is a handpainted picture (well mostly, the clouds in the backgraound are airbrushed) of the Ghost QF-3000. It is intended as as the boxart for the resin model kit I made.

That´s looking sooo great! I´s been a long time since a design came out in both 1/72 and 1/100 scale, reminds me of the old IMAI/ARII scale-sharing thing of the early 80s. I´m gonna buy the 1/100 as well, OK it´s less detailed but it looks very good in proportions and I have all the old 1/100s in the basement so why not expanding the collection? Only difference is that back in ´83 a 1/100 Battroid went for 300 Yen and not for almost 2000..... Still, the Hasegawa 1/72 seems to be the most detailed commercial kit of a Macross vehicle so far, it is putting all the MG/PG Gundams to shame IMO. Just plain awesomeness!

I have a subscription for Model Graphix, a Comic shop here in Cologne gets them through Previews (monthly U.S Comic Magazine (more of an order list in fact) where you can order anything Merchandise-related, they also carry Hobby Japan and Dengeki, Replicant etc.) - I get them every month but the price is 16 EURO per issue - thank god I quit smoking a long time ago. A few weeks ago I discovered that Rainbow10 (japanese Hobby shop, very reliable - www.rainbowten.co.jp)offer a subscription service for all the japanese magazines and they charge far less, something like 8-9 EURO with shipping included! Since they ship worldwide, this might be the cheapest way to go regardless where you live.

I think I will try to make like 3 batches with 20 kits each. Ranger 565 I had the same thoughts, I think it is just fair to PM the first people who were interested in the kit first. I can´t handle that many kits all at the same time, so it will take a few weeks before all have their PM - but I´ll keep casting (and making new molds to ensure clean parts) until all orders are filled. As for coloured parts, dye is not expensive. I chose white because of the white portions of the kit - my thoughts were that you´ll need less base colour to actually paint it white if the plastic is already as close to white as it can get. Grey looks somewhat better on unpainted parts and it would make the painting of the blue part easier. Still, if there´s white involved, I always regard it as a limiting factor. For example, I bought 3 Hasgawa VF-1J kits to build the Hikaru, Max and Millia versions but I avoided the Max/Milia 2-kit because I HATE to paint white on blue/red plastic. Of course I can cast subsequent kits in a light grey if you like it better. Regarding reinforced landing gear struts, I had considered putting rods into the molds before casting, but the main gear legs are straight at the wheel wells, then bent outward, then straight again at the wheels - takes hours to bend a metal rod to the right shape, especially if you had to do it 120 times! So I just made them from resin/aluminium (don´t know if this is the cheapest stuff but I already had a can of it) and tried out if the gear can sustain the weight of the plane. Actually, I´ve even put an addidional weight of 500g on top of it and it is still on its wheels!

MechTech I found out that my resin company offers a special paste that comes in several colours, guess you can mix any colour you want. But I´d never leave a resin kit unpainted - over the years they get darker and they yellow as hell, no way around that unless they invent UV-proof resin. If you expose a resin part to direct sunlight you will notice the yellowing (or "browning" if the part was yellow at first) within a week, but only on the sun-lit side! Looks messy.

Well, the two on the left have some air bubbles ´cause they were for testing out where the "problem spots" of the molds are - don´t know if you want THESE.... Right now I´ve been experimenting with white paint and the resin does almost look like like plain polystyrene now, less translucent. For the gear parts I have added aluminium powder to make the stuff harder, I put one of the models on wheels and try if they are strong enough. I think it works unless you point a hairdryer at full heat right on the landing gear.

I´ve just finished more or less all of the molds and they seem to work. Here is a view of my "production line" - hope to get the first +/-20 kits done within the next two weeks.

Some things DESERVE big models, I don´t like those 38cm Star Destroyers and stuff, you can´t see that it is big in reality. Same thing with 1/700 warships - too tiny even if perfectly detailed. That Daedalus is just the perfect scale if you have enough space to display it properly. Personally, my dreams don´t go further than a 1/1000 SDF-1 (120cm), but built in two modes simultaneously. My girlfriend won´t like it because it has to be displayed in the living room, but still...one day...

Thanks Peter for these great pics. I´m definitely looking forward to see the film (don´t know its proper japanese name but it is "The Men of Yamato") - all the (few) reviews praise it as a masterpiece, although it seems to focus on the lives of some of the very young sailors who served on the ship rather than just giant sea battles. It´s a pity they´re going to deconstruct the set - but there is a 1/10 scale full model of Yamato in a museum - that´s almost as great! And HLJ carry a CD with hundreds of images of this thing.

Guess you can´t "build" every single feature of a face in that scale, but I´d make an attempt to slightly increase the eye area and make some of the faces smoother while things like Roy´s chin (and hair of course) would have to stand out a bit. Should be possible... And MechTech I was just thinking about the 1/200 figures - Preiser have had only civilians in that scale for decades but now they are offering figures that are more "crew"ish looking, seem to be made for your ship! But you´ll need a LOT of them for that beast...

Sorry Chad I confused Preiser with Faller! Of course Preiser do the figures and Faller make the buildings, they are just always displayed together in the shops here so I just thought of "the Preiser stuff".

I´m out of words... this will be so AWESOME! Could be the biggest Macros model ever made I guess! Cool!! By the way what is the Destroyer you put into te hull for size comparison? At first I thought it was a japanese ship from Nichimo but I didn´t know the class... American? The hangar still looks japanese to me, just wondering.

Me too, I already pointed out that the whole thing looked a bit too "handmade" for me - those openings are just one of several issues. But it´s funny - the more I look at the kit and think about the original the more I like it. I mean, all those Zentradi Ships are meant to look something between used, beaten up and organic (they started up with "used" in the TV series, the "organic" features were more of a DYRL thing). I imagine how it would look like with all surfaces smooth and perfectly symmetrical - don´t know if I´d find that more convincing. Difficult to judge. If I had too much money I´d buy one to find out....

You´re right about that, a lonely robot on a shelf won´t show its size to the uninitiated - a diorama with people and maybe some vehicles can make it much more impressive. Preiser are doing fantastic stuff, they offer military buildings such as hangars, garages, barracks and everything, even training ground obstacles - the only thing that sucks big time is that they are all in 1/87 scale (railroad HO) - too big for 1/100 and too small for 1/72.

Preiser of Germany have a set of generic 1/72 figures - generic meaning you can interchange bodies, heads, arms and legs as you like and the guys and girls are completely naked First you build the figure in the desired pose, then you sculpt the clothes.... seems an easy starting point although I see some pitfalls such as the need to insert slices of plastic to stretch a figure to Roy´s length and altering the faces to make them look less real-life and more Mikimoto-ish. Should be fun!