SteveTheFish

Crap. I meant to say George Miller, not Frank Miller. I always get those two mixed up. 😄

It's not just Hasegawa, but rather an industry standard. I worked at Aoshima for about 8 months, 9 years ago. I was introduced to a lot of that sort of strategy. Look at their Knight Rider KITT models or their Back to the Future Delorean models. They've issued many variants of these two cars alone. Season 1, 2, 3, and 4 for KITT, then the same molds released as a pre-painted KARR, some with the LED front scanners. The Delorean had models of all three versions (actually, there were four versions since the 3rd movie had both the white-rimmed '50s tires version and the train track version). Some with figures, some with photoetch. And they've re-released an all-new tooling of the Delorean, and made it so that a stand-alone, non-time machine Delorean kit could be released (making many happy). Bandai does the same thing, as does pretty much every other model company. My Academy F-14A Tomcat "Pukin' Dogs" kit has variant parts to make the B and the D, it seems. Just re-release the same kit with decals for a different livery and there you go. It's why you get unused, leftover parts on the runners with the kits you build. The mold toolings are the costliest investment, so if you can release different kits using little or no new toolings, you can maximize your profit. At Aoshima, we were hoping to do an all-new tooling for the Mad Max Interceptor, and if we could've gotten the license then I'm sure it would've been retooled to make both the black Interceptor and regular yellow/blue pursuit cars, plus the modified version from the 2nd movie. Who knows? Maybe even a stand-alone Ford Falcon model car. Alas, I was given a definite "NO" from the movie studio. Frank Miller refuses to allow his works being licensed. He probably saw too many Jar Jar Binks pajamas and the whole nightmare of Star Wars licensing and refused to go down that route.

Nichmo re-released their 1:200 scale Macross kits about 25 years ago, but this time gave them stupid, monochrome stickers rather than decals as they did before. I read the Japanese instructions and it's like they're telling you that they're doing you a favor because you get to now color those stickers as you wish. Very glossy stickers too. Ridiculous. They came with two in a package. I bought two Destroid sets off of YAJ only to discover that they came with those absurd, unusable stickers. They are to-scale with the Imai Monster that Bandai repops every once in a while. I'm very curious whatever happened to the toolings for those now that Nichmo is no more.

This guy re-created the starfighter featured on the cover of Asteroids Deluxe for the Atari 7800!

Thanks! The old 1:100 Imai Armored Valk is the first vintage kit I augmented with ball joints. I've learned how to do this through Japanese modeling magazines as well as Japanese YouTube modelers. My legacy Q-Rau kit is almost done... I just need to paint the pilot's eyes and I'll be done. That has ball joints for the hips, reinforced with brass tube for durability.

Two Armored Valks done this year (at last!).

@Papa Rat Very nice work! That reminds me of one of the flaws on the ARII Valks. The UN Spacy insignia on the fastpaks needs to have a support put in. There shouldn't be that bad gap. When the time comes when I build my ARII S-Valk, I'll want to putty that detail in so that the decal can sit flush. I can imagine it was a nightmare getting the decal to conform to those deep contours.

If you are interested, here is how I went about weathering my Blackbird. I have the old 48th scale Testors/Italeri Blackbird model in my closet, but if I was to build it, I'd have no place to put it.

Your Blackbird is looking great! I used Tamiya XF-69, NATO Black. I've built two so far: an Italeri one and a Hasegawa one. Oh yes, and a Hasegawa Eggplane one. Yours is an Academy by the looks of it, am I right? What you're doing is great. My advice from my experience is to mask off corners of the panels with some sticky notes, then shoot the corner very quickly and lightly with some medium or light gray paint. I actually used chalk, but the lighter-colored chalk seemed to disappear after the clear coat went down. If I was to do it again, I'd use some gray paint in an airbrush instead since it won't disappear on me.

Thanks! I went ahead and soaked the parts in IPA as you said, then washed them off with water. That did the trick! They are no longer tacky. So should all 3D printed parts be washed off with IPA, or just prime them as-is?

@Papa Rat You're coming along very well. I'm still tempted to think you're a phony when you say that you've only been modeling for about a year or so, like you're having us all on. You demonstrate skill that people who've been doing models for a long time do not have. Heck, I know one young man online who has been building models for a long time. He slathers unthinned paint all over his models and lays down expensive aftermarket decals, then sends me pictures and asks me how I feel about them. He has no self-awareness. You, on the other hand, are doing a fantastic job with your model kits. OK, so I have a question for people who do 3D resin printing. I had a guy print out a figure of Rei from Evangelion for me and some of the parts have a waxy feel to them, as if maybe the UV curing process was cut short. The figure's body and head parts are fine, but the limbs have a weird texture to them. Do these parts need to air dry, sit under UV lamps a bit longer, or do they need to be washed off with alcohol or something?

Yes, I saw that Minmay China dress figure too! Unless I'm mistaken, that's from Mikimoto's Macross manga which essentially took the story of the TV show and matched it with the visuals of the movie. "Macross the First" I think it's called. I have all the books in Japanese, but it'd be great if it could be published in English.

Hey, I just checked again and I take it back. I just saw a lack of a figure and didn't read it. However, it says specifically TV版ミリアフィギュア in the advertising graphic. D'oh! Additionally, in the product description it says: ミリア・ファリーナのフィギュア原型は太郎もちこみ 氏が担当。/ The Millia Farina figure prototype was created by Taro Mochikomi. In the graphic the Japanese says that it only features the upper half of Millia's body is included, but the kit we already got is like that anyway. I actually bought mine in July when a seller on Rakuten had it on a killer sale, with free shipping. I only paid something like 3800 yen with free shipping. I couldn't refuse! So scratch out my theory that there may be some licensing clause which prevents them from doing non-DYRL stuff. So if that's the case, why did they recreate a great cockpit for the Glaug but no Kamjin figure? Has anyone made an STL file Kamjin for 3D printing?

No, I guess what they are going for is for when Hikaru and Misa were exploring Earth. Here is the product listing: http://www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/product/65896/ So Super parts = Minmay, bare-bones Valk = Misa. It says that it includes the Minmay figure so you can use it with the Super Ostrich. Here is a quick paste of the description in English, ran through Goolag Translate: The kit is composed of parts that allow you to choose between the Gerwalk Fighter and the Gerwalk. The prototypes for the three new plastic figures were created by Taro Mochikomi. Ichijo Hikaru (in ship's uniform) and Hayase Misa (in undersuit) can be placed in the cockpit. As a bonus part, it comes with Lynn Minmay (rear seat seat, wearing a simple space suit, with or without helmet), which can be used with the separately sold VT-1 Super Ostrich. The included display stand allows you to display it in a hovering position. A new plastic attachment for the Gerwalk Fighter is included. The package illustration is by Morishita Naochika.

I'm guessing that the reasons why we aren't seeing figures of Kamjin for the Glaug or TOS Millia for this new Q-Rau is the result of the truce established between Big West and hissy-fit Harmony Gold. DYRL was proven in court to not belong to Harmony Gold's fraudulent claims to international licensing, so figures from the movie are fair game. I'm just guessing. I know the guy who helped broker the deal to between the two companies to help make Macross available internationally. The smoking gun is that he was following one court case and HG was passing off DYRL Valk designs as belonging to their TOS license, and that's how we finally claimed victory over HG. I should ask him if my hunch is correct.