CrossAir

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Was a custom that showed up in a Dengeki Hobby magazine long ago.  I think it might have also been shown in one of the PSP games, but that might have been a different scheme.

Thanks for the info. That’s a cool scheme, too.

2 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I -might- be tempted to kitbash the parts between the Klan and Ozma versions, and paint it up as that theoretical red VF-25S we saw years back.

Red VF-25S? Never heard of, I think I missed that one. 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

Excellent job @CrossAir 

Thanks a lot! 

I gonna get Klan for sure. This will be my first VFG kit where I'll paint the fighter in its original colors. And for Klan I try to do her pilot suit as much anime accurate as possible.

44 minutes ago, Duymon said:

I finally found a use for the un-helmeted isamu fig in my collection. I wanted a real isamu for my YF-29 so I just used some hand-mixable silicon to make a mold and cast some helmets.

After that I decapitated my spare unhelmeted isamu and replaced it with a helmet and then painted it with some Citadel abaddon black and waystone green for the visor

Great idea and it looks good! Like the helmet has always been there.

11 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Well, if you wanted to, you could always reprint the decals for these, strip the model parts and do a rebuild on it. Dunno if you would consider it worthwhile or not though, but it would be interesting. The factory itself looks like it wouldn't need that much; just some touchup in a couple of areas.

If I knew I could rip the parts apart without too much damage I would consider it, but I glued my models together like hell these days. I even have some leftover decals for those kits. The dark grey of the factory is not painted . That would be the easiest part to fresh up. 

I just found some of my robotech builds out of kids days some time ago:

No sanding or priming at all. Just glued together and hand painted in thick layers of color. Horrible, almost no chance to panel line it by now.

3 hours ago, peter said:

Yup, it's not that noticeable unless you're looking for it.  Actually, there's all kinds of things wrong with my build, lol!

 

peter, you're a funny guy . It seems your camera is great at enhancing photos cause I think this thing looks really really good. If I gonna build one I would be happy if it comes out half as good as yours. And it's these little flaws that makes your build unique! 

@peter I think the Fortress will turn out great, too. Just as your Valkyrie squad does  

I was about getting me an Arcadia SDF-1, but now I think it would be more fun to build one by myself as well as to get a more realistic look.

And to you other guys: Amazing builds around here again!

2 hours ago, badboy00z said:

Where did you preorder from? I think I'll preorder on the P-Bandai site when it comes up. They'll have the limited Unicorn mode box art.

I preordered from https://hobbyfrontline.com/ . It is not the limited box art and the price is higher, but in the past months I had some higher pay ups for custom fees on my orders directly from Japan. Since I'm located in the EU and so is Ireland I can avoid any uncalculated custom fee.

Just preordered it. Not cheap so, seems I have to skip on some upcoming MBs. I have the Fix Figuration Final Battle Version of the RX-0, but it does not have the finish of a MB figure and it is solely green. Thinking about to sell this one once the MGEX RX-0 is build. With the MGEX kit I have the finish in my own hands and im curious about the illumination feature. And I have still my Jesta Cannon to build, so these to MS will be matching in time and scale perfectly.

5 hours ago, derex3592 said:

@CrossAir, I own the weathered edition of the Aoshima, got it when it came out, while an awesome piece, the motor stopped working after not many uses, and there are just two pilots in the front cockpit and then a grey wall. No "Dom" area. Also one the door hinges doesn't close all the way, and the weathering is a bit weird, kind of like the old Yamato Rickaru Weathring Specials. I guess the point here is, it's cool, but not worth a ton of $$$ on Evilbay.

Oh, ok. Good to know. So I quit on Aoshima. Wether the die cast nor the plastic kit. The prices for both are ridiculous high anyway.

I would go for an old AMT/ERTL kit again but these seem even harder to grab than Aoshima by now.

7 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

So, after finding this in my stuff, i did an experiment, and was able to open her up to show off the interior. Don't worry: I still have the outer panels! I cut them carefully along panel lines and am working on tabbing them so they can pop back into place. I'll just need to rework it slightly to make sure the fit is as seamless as possible. But after remembering the work I did, I think gluing it back would be just wrong!

My paintwork isn't all that great in there, but this was nearly a decade ago! Classic pengbuzz work here; see what you think!

I built the AMT Airwolf kit back in the 80's. And as it came with the original CIC stations, I glued the cabin shut, too. So the whole work on the interior was for nothing.But was even more worse, I "painted" the entire exterior with a black paint stick from Tamiya. What can I say, it looked horrible and a short time later I scrapped the whole helicopter - though I really liked the design. I wonder if I could have "saved" it with my "improved" skills of today 

45 minutes ago, derex3592 said:

Love it @pengbuzz! I wish some company would make like a 2020 new mold Airwolf in like 1:32 scale with removable side panels to reveal the inside and swap the weapons out for the "closed" position when you wanted. That would be SO an instabuy! 

I have the Aoshima 1/48 kit on my watchlist on eBay but I'm still uncertain to buy it or not. But indeed, a bigger and newer version would be much appreciated!

1 hour ago, electric indigo said:

Korobukiya has some interesting designs in their Hexa Gear series, but the still look too much like toys for my taste. Your paintjob  definitely helped to make this machine look more serious.

Do you also have some pics of the kit from Suisei no Gargantuan I see in the background?

Thanks. Chamber in the back is not the kit, it's the completed figure from Goodsmile. But the finish of the figure is really good and it looks like it is completely painted (in contrary to Goodsmiles' Arhan from 'Expelled from Paradise'). I have to admit it is hard to tell if the black surfaces are painted or not.

34 minutes ago, arbit said:

Hi CorssAir, I like how smooth and clean your paint always looks. What's your process?

My standard process: At first of course preparing the surfaces of the parts by sanding and filling if needed. Normally I don't use surface primer, currently only for resin kits. But this may change cause I made good experiences with priming, so I might us it also for upcoming plastic models.

Nowadays I try to paint almost everything by airbrush. On the other hand this means a lot of masking, but for me the result proves it. For paint I work almost entirely with Tamiya acrylic colors, except for gold or chrome, here i use Vallejo. I try not thin the colors too much. Depending on the color I try to go over with a maximum of 2 or 3 runs. For some tones it is still some kind of trial and error .

For finish I use solely the TS sprays from Tamiya. Normally a first layer of semi gloss clear, then panel lining and/or weathering and the one or two other layers of gloss/semi gloss/flat clear again.

9 hours ago, MechTech said:

Cross Air - There's a tiny mech in your yard! That paint scheme is cool! It fits it perfectly. The decals and splinter camo all compliment each other. I built the green version of that kit last year with our model club at the county fair (to recruit members). That is a neat little kit. The cockpit is cool. A lot of our members were surprised by it because they are mostly plane and tank guys. Gundams (that's they're general termed) are something new to them. Next year we actually have a Bandai theme night which should be interesting. - MT

Thank You MechTech. In the end it was fun to build. And as you say, in a way it felt a little bit when building 1/35 scale tanks back in my youth .

Meanwhile the mech got its own pilot, too:

Finished a project I started with more than a year ago but gave up on it after spraying the base color completely white. Disliked my plan for coloring back then.

Some weeks ago an idea for a suitable camouflage pattern crossed my mind and here's the result. Did a decent weathering, too. Light wear on the edges and some dust and smoke.

On 6/29/2020 at 10:59 AM, pengbuzz said:

Dug out the VF-1S and did a little weathering and detailing on it:

 

(Why the last one came out yellow is beyond me. I think Skull-1 peed on the camera while i wasn't looking! Bad Roy!)

Anyways...nothing major here, just added some off-white/ blue-grey to a few flaps and leading edges, did some paint chips and scrapes on the surface, detailed the leg landing gear doors to match animation a bit better, and did some heat discoloration on the feet/thrusters, head laser tips and gun pod business-end. I also used some 0000 steel wool to rub down the clearcoat and give this a matte finish while smoothing some paint issues.

This guy really looks heavily used  Great improvement! And matte finish does a lot to remove the toylike character.

3 hours ago, mechaninac said:

^That NEEDS to be made into a Hi-Metal R toy...

I‘d wish for that, too. Bandai, just do it!!!

My first buy from Mandarake: B-Club VF-2JA - a little bit of a holy grail for me.

One of my fastest deliveries from Japan as well, just 5 days including customs.

This weeks arrivals by the way. Some mecha stuff again after quite a long time.

4 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Got another MB Gundam.

In a world where firearms and beam sabers are plentiful, why is he using a sharpened piece of metal? 

In a world where every idiot can pull the trigger a little chivalry doesn't hurt (as long as you're sitting in a Gundam )

Oh, I just wanted to get off the MB-line, but this one is tempting once more.

12 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

@CrossAir Very clean paint job, congratulations. Do you hand paint or airbrush?

I suggest adding a tad of gloss to your paint to get nice highlights.

Today I try to do most parts by airbrush. Black and white paint were semi gloss but I sprayed several layers of matte clear coat. Maybe I overdid it a little bit in the end 

50 minutes ago, sqidd said:

That's how we do it on MW. Peer pressure and enabling!

All right, somewhere my money has to go. Who needs food and clothes anyway 

26 minutes ago, sqidd said:

Do it!!!

Would you please stop teasing us. Me too has an eye on the low vis for a long time but until now I could resist those high prices... but this picture... 

Completed my first resin figure: Ange from 'Cross Ange'. In the beginning I had read a lot of horror stories about working with resin, especially concerning painting, so I was quite anxious about it. But after a lot of cleaning, filling, sanding and priming I am quite happy with the result. Painting and glueing were no issue in the end and although the kit seems to be a knock-off the resin parts had a smooth surface and were free of any bubbles.

Now that I'm thinking about doing another resin kit I'd like to go for Macross 7 or Macross II related stuff. But this seems to be getting pricey