ChaosWarrior

They look excellent! Very nice work. ChaosWarrior

Looks very nice! Like the color scheme. ChaosWarrior

Looking awesome! Very nice work! ChaosWarrior

Very nice first build! ChaosWarrior

Very nice step by step, ending up in very nicely painted figures. ChaosWarrior

It looks great! Nice paint job and weathering too. ChaosWarrior

Yes, that certainly looks interesting. ChaosWarrior

My advice, never by Academy It's never fun when you're on the verge of throwing things away. The closest that I have right now is the crappy Amt X-wing, which is a skill 2 snap-fast. In my opinion it requires a little more skill than that to build. Not that I don't have the skill, but how disappointing for a beginner to start with such a lousy kit. I think I prefer Bandai when it comes to easy kits ChaosWarrior

My attempt at doing a F-14D cockpit. [attachmentid=41097][attachmentid=41098] I need to do some touch ups before I mount it in the fuselage and add seats and pilot. Sadly enough there's no figure to the rear seat. ChaosWarrior

I bought a few of these Arii kits and they're rather easy to build, but I think somethings like the hands are way to big and or out of proportion. I have also built two of Bandais 1/144 kits (VF-17 and VF-19) and they're really easy to build and has much better fit than the Arii kits, and in my opinion have better proportions. I also have a Yellow Sub VF-11B resin kit, that looks very nice, but that have to wait until I have the appropriate skills ChaosWarrior

Among all things I'm working with is this little one. [attachmentid=40170][attachmentid=40171] I'm no specialist at scratch-building, but I added a piece of cardboard in the wheel wells and basic seat and instrument panel made from a piece of sprue. ChaosWarrior

Nice pics, but no, they didn't say a word! ChaosWarrior

Looks great! Nice pics! ChaosWarrior

Well, it seems like you got most answer already, but since I asked about colors for another of ARIIs 1/100 kits here: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=21191 I've learned a few things. First all colors, as Chad said, referred to is Gunze Sangyo and if you look closely on the instructions there are lines pointing to some parts and there the letter H with an encircled number indicating the matching GS color for that part. Also Hasegawas instructions provided on this site is very useful. Isn't the Hikaru rather small, like 1/24 (mine is)? I think most color brands have skin tones that will be useful as a base color. ChaosWarrior

Maybe this could be of some use: http://ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/colorcharts_2.asp There are lots of color conversion and reference charts. I've used these charts when translating colors from other brands to Humbrol. ChaosWarrior