cowie165

Wow, excellent result! You really captured the scale - especially the carrier! Did you customize this kit very much? I have not seen many pictures of 1/8000 before. Thanks!!

A polite reminder guys that the thread is nearly two years old and the original poster hasn't been on MW for months so he prob won't receive the feedback.

You said it. You'd need some uber monster to impress Zentraedi.

Arii 1/100 VF-1A and VF-1D Highly recommended kits The Good Part fit is very good. Only one or two injector pin marks. The landing gear is reasonable for the scale. Assembly is very simple. I bought them because I read they were the best proportioned of the 1/100 fighters. They look good to me! Plenty of decals. The masking is reasonably complex. The Bad The panel lines are fairly strong. That said, I rescribed most of them to emphasise parts involved in transformation. Cockpit detail is non-existant and pilots are not included. Canopy is quite thick. Vertical stabs don't have placement pins - so alignment is just via MkI eyeball. The instructions were lousy but most of us discard them anyway. Decal instructions only placed around half; the rest was just whatever looked ok. I still have lots left over. Extras I added a few VHF/TACAN antennas to the dorsal spine and a few ECM/ESM bumps onto the vertical stabs. The nose cannon (I think that's what they are) were drilled out, same goes for cannons (or whatever) next to the intakes. Pilots to both aircraft, in nifty DYRL uniforms and electrical tape for seat harnesses. Brake lines to undecarriage, made from fuse wire. 1A Added a pitot tube. It's half a staple super glued in. Next time, I'd spend more time blending it into the fuselage. 1D Dropped slats and flaps. This was fun. Happy enough for a first time but next go I'd like to make it a little neater. Thanks to: Valkyrie for supplying pilots Berttt for also sending a conscript Grayson72 for the 1A colours maxwinamp for the 1D colours ...and best of all, I can update my avatar. Sweet.

Amazing work on the Imai kit! For me, the weathering is just perfect. And I love the use of figures - it really enhances the scale and makes it look like mecha and not some scale-less toy. Can't wait for more! Great job.

Hi mate, welcome to Macross World. If you're serious, send a PM to username "Valk009". I'm pretty sure he has a Moscato Defender still available. Hope that helps! Mark

...just checked the Bandai variable kit: the pilot is MUCH worse than the Hase DYRL. The Bandai guy looks like a cross between BSG and WW2 RAF.

I don't think the original release came with PE

Hey great looking F-14! The weathering is very well done. Did you do the decals yourself? And boy those pilots look good. I just noticed you're down on the Gold Coast, nice! Mark

Thanks for the link, and bummer about the news!

Oh yeah, the tyres on the main gear look wonky - my fault for not dry fitting first. The main gear looks like Arii meant it to be straight like an F-15 but it just didn't look right to me, so I splayed it like an F-18. I prob should correct the tyres but decided to learn the lesson and move on... Mark

Thanks guys for the kind words, your posts are very encouraging. The kits were a lot of fun to build. Once I take better photos this weekend, I'll pop up another post with the changes I made to the kits that might help out the next guy building the same ones. jardann: Thanks mate. The instructions had directions for about half the decals on each sheet, so it was kinda freehand using an F-14 reference book for a few pointers. There were lots left over! The nose art is an albatross, from a 1/72 P-38 I think. It was a step back from shark's teeth - I was trying to highlight the difference between a training jet and an operational one. MT: The canopies had future on the inside only. When I've previously dipped in Future, I've always ended up with dust (or some other blemish) in the surface. I also make 1/24 cars, so on the outside I used micromesh then Tamiya polish. Future isn't easy to come by in Australia - regardless of what swanny says, the 'equivalents' aren't. And I have to agree with you on the thick details and panel lines. They are a little deep but they also seemed to help capture the anime feel. The gerwalk in the background is the Bandai 1/100 variable you can see in my avatar. The guys standing around are some 1/100 figures from evilBay. They're meant to be a bunch of observers (there's a few military generals, dudes in suits, etc.), Manhattan Project style, and they are going next to a 1/100 F-14 I'm currently building as a Macross Zero jet. The dio theme is a live firing of a VF-0 micro-missile using the F-14 as a test bed, and the goverment guys are making sure they're getting their money's worth. [sorry about the long explanation.]

These two are 1/100 Arii kits. I'm pleased with how they turned out. The pictures are a little ordinary - I took them in a rush the other night using incandescent light and sans tripod. I'll take a few more on the weekend in the sunlight. Mark

Is the Macross Zero F-14 the Hase raised panel kit?

I'm keen for some recasts in 1/100! :thumbsup:

Not terribly helpful (because it isn't very large in the pic) but there's an Angel Bird VF-19 in the foreground: And this one is neat just because there is a whole display team

Petar I am about to place another order with HLJ for a bunch of stuff. Please shoot over a PM if you'd like me to grab a second VF-1D for you (and perhaps you'd like to sell your PE set too? ). I'm in Brisbane. Cheers Mark

+1

And cool8or... Wow! Great looking models! Such a clean finish. The pictures look excellent; you must be very pleased to have them in your display cabinet!

Cat's Eye finishing in 11hrs. http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...A:IT&ih=005

I've only ever done closed canopies, so I dip first, the glue it on, mask and paint. You can airbrush Future on as an acrylic sealant to produce a high gloss finish that helps you decals settle easier and look more like they are painted markings and less like stickers. There's more info here: http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index....showtopic=63929 http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/TnT_...ives/Future.htm and I'm sorry about going OT

Apparently the substitutes are SuperShine, SuperStride, Reckitts Longlife Floor Polish - I thought those products were nice until I actually used Future. I remember someone saying it was due to Australian legislation requiring the products to be modified to taste foul or smell awful or something like that - but I don't know why you'd be drinking floor polish. I think the Oz products have ammonia in them. Don't quote me on any of this, I just know that real Future is much much better for dipping cockpits than the "equivalents". I was fortunate and found a mate at work who went to the US on exercise and brought back a crate. Hey if your cousin is keen, I highly recommend decanting it into 3oz/100ml bottles or something like that. Divide and conquer for increased profit If I could buy a crate I'd be doing it myself!

Speaking of Future, you guys in the States could do well to sell some on eBay Aust. I've seen listings down here selling the stuff for $29 a bottle. Some hobby stores import it then decant it into 1oz tubs and ransom those at crazy prices. No matter what Swanny says, local stuff just aint the same!

@mslz22: Great AT-ST! The green screen adds to the 'movie' effect! @PetarB: The SW kits look very nice mate. Ref Slave 1, how did you achieve the weathered effect? The pattern doesn't look like salt or blu-tac.

Hi Scopedog, welcome to MW. Sounds like you've been around the hobby for a while. Nice. I have no information on the vinyl kit, however if I may offer a suggestion to help you receive more member responses: turn up the politeness by not bashing members about 'Did you even read my post?". Hey what's TL;DR? Once again, welcome. Best of luck with those pics you're looking for.