pengbuzz

Well, it was fine until the upstairs neighbors banged on the floor so hard that it shook the worktable. ANYTHING is gonna fall and break given those circumstances, and I was prepping it for decals and final paintwork. The pylons were stable and weren't an issue until "leadfoot and the stomp session "upstairs got going! As for "nuking it from orbit", I will never do a "self-destruct" Enterprise. That just hurt too much watching it in STIII! Anyways, a small update: I used JB Plastic Bonder to repair the nacelle pylons. I won't be buying that adhesive again, as even with proper mixing and prepping the repair surface (90 percent iso alcohol, bone-dry and grease-free), it took 2 hours to cure and not the "15 minutes to cure, 30 to paint/sand" as the package promised. Several folks on Amazon reviews complained about the same thing as well. But at least it's fixed. Going to wait until morning to clean up the repair areas on the hull and repaint/redecal. Stay tuned folks

Well, yesterday my darling upstairs neighbors decided to have "Stompfest 2021" upstairs. >:( They managed to rattle several things right off the table in our apartment (I SWEAR they must be dropping bowling balls and cinderblocks!) ; thankfully, the Tomcat was NOT amongst the items that fell from the table. it was safely in its' storage bin and thus was not a casualty. However... the Refit WAS. As it stands right now, both nacelle pylons are cracked apart from the Secondary hull. Thankfully, they both have a metal reinforcement rod (bent into a "u" shape") that supports the main weight. That said:... I DID NOT NEED THIS: I should be able to repair the damage with Plastic Welder; then it's a matter of repainting the areas that got cracked (ugh) and doing my best to hide the damage. But since I haven't slept since it happened (I cannot sleep when I'm upset) When I am a bit calmer, I plan on having a very detailed discussion with our landlord, which will include the price for a new tube of Plastic Welder, as well as any other amenities I may need to effect repairs. This discussion will also include the request for the landlord to issue a written warning against our upstairs neighbors (to be retained in the landlord's files and a copy for our own files), and the future possibility of summoning law enforcement/ legal action concerning them and their less-than-civil behavior. It's a very small universe when I'm angry with someone. Stay tuned...

Thanks! Truth be told though: about 99 percent of the decals on there came with the kit! The only ones I printed were the national insignia "roundels", as the kit-supplied ones looked a bit stupid: At the very least, they certainly aren't the national insignia that the Tomcat had in the mid-80's! Anyways, with the Tomcat wrapping up, I have a "surprise" project that has actually been in the background for a while now: It's an F/A-18E Super Hornet that I rescued from a thrift store a while back. Hint for what it's going to be: look at the aileron: Also: does the pilot look a bit familiar? Stay tuned.... "they're called "orders", Maverick..."

Nearly done... just a few more things to button up:

I think the new enemy will probably be some race we haven't seen before. Kawamori isn't one to repeat himself with storylines or revisit stuff typically.

Do you know what that VF-1S Battroid build says to me? "imagine the possibilities, if you dare..." That kit is just begging for superdetailing, engraved panel lines, weathering, increased articulation and clear parts with greeblies behind them.

That was the intent bro! Enjoy the parts! hey...how do you think 3/4 of my projects happen?!

Yeah, the heads I sent to you are smaller, so they might actually work out for you! As for Imai's stuff; I had to carve detail into mine after building it, that's how lacking they were.

My wife does crochet and I do models, so we leave each other alone but take time to show each other our progress. And no, I have no children; never wanted any, and I have seen the horrors of what a kid can do to collections that are unprotected. O.O One time though, one of my friends brought his grandson over to my house and the kid mad a beeline right for my workshop. Both me and my friend ran to stop him before he could make it in, and he was really upset when "he couldn't 'play' with (utterly destroy) the cool stuff". No...I don't trust kids.

Pardon the tongue-in-cheek example, but it reminds me of this part in Austin Powers: The steamroller would be the star and the civilization in question would be the guard who doesn't move in time, even though the steamroller is taking nearly forever to get to him. With that said, the civilization just sitting there while the star is giving off warnings is very much the same: it;'s their own blasted fault.

Thanks guys! I did have to walk it back a bit though, as the dark areas looked more bluish than "dirty"; was trying to go for a multi-layered paint and repaint job here! lol Current results so far: I finally finished the framing on the cockpit, which is hard for me to get my head around, because the canopy came from a different model! Stay tuned...

In case anyone is wondering where I got that from: https://cheezburger.com/13685509/tumblr-thread-the-staggering-recklessness-of-humans-in-star-trek

Thanks Thom; more to come on this, as I went over the DVD and picked one version of maverick's Tomcat (I counted three versions of Mav's Tomcat, each with a different modex) to replicate. The weathering's going to look a little heavy, but that's how it appears in the film (to me, anyways): Added the underside fuel tanks; just need to add in the underwing missile stores. Stay tuned folks...

The Romulans were stockpiling explodium and it go ker-bluey.

Well, at least this is also Macross, unlike the other two series that Macek tried to cram into the mix. So there's at least some consistency. Because we humans are adept at things like plugging two warp cores together and turning a star into a torus and giving the Vulcan Sience Academy a migraine.

Naw... "RT-style mods" would be trying to piece together MII with two other unrelated series and hack them to bits. Were just talking a little bit of added animation or maybe just a voice-over.

UPDATE: Some paintwork done on the Tomcat ( Corrosion-control painting weathering): Soon, I will be moving into attaching weapons rails and tanks (need to check the movie for whether these are on Maverick's bird during their time @ Miramar); before that, need to check specific references from the movie on any distinguishing different-colored panels and whatnot on the plane. On another note, before I knew that we were going to obtain a new printer, I had put in an inquiry with Round 2 about the cost of obtaining the decal sheet for the refit; on their re-pop of the kit they had redone the decal sheet, correcting the old markings and adding additional ones as well. This was about a couple of weeks ago or so. Being that I had misprinted some of the markings (I didn't use them, such as the hull registry numbers on the nacelles and such), I was preparing for another round of resizing and reprinting. Lo and behold, to my surprise, I got an email from them stating that they were sending me the decals! O.o So, just going to hold off on printing replacements here, and thank those at Round2 who seem to like me an awful lot! Stay tuned...

It would have been more plausible that someone who had it in for the Romulans as a whole either found the designs for or procured one of Dr. Tolian Soran's Trilithium weapons (Star Trek: Generations): https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Trilithium_weapon

And it would only take about 2-5 minutes of additional animation to work it in.

Since they had more than one idiot working on the series' storyline, they really dropped the ball on that one. On another note: I wonder if Earth at the level of development they had in Star Trek (TNG era) would have fared any better against the Zentraedi Attack in Macross any better than their Unity Government counterpart? (perhaps fodder for another topic...)

Fun would be the WC IV "Dragon" fighter.... BTW: I just realized which fighter you're building! One of the most famous in Wing Commander...the Excalibur- https://wingcommander.fandom.com/wiki/F-103_Excalibur_Heavy_Fighter And here I thought it was the Hellcat! lol

UPDATE: got some decals printed up- Still have some rough patches to clear up here and there, but nothing too hard. Stay tuned...

Yeah...there are some battles that are just not worth it. I feel for you, bro. The only cannon I know of in Macross are the big booms mounted on the SDF-1 :D

Be careful your wife doesn't mistake it for makeup!!

Looking forward to seeing this all together.