valkyriepilot

additional work done on the SD-GP03EX over the weekend (previous work was here): i modded the rear fins to make them longer and added side skirt armor: the extension for the side armor came from the 1/144 (not HGUC) spare fins as well as the side skirts: i cut up the lower portion of the 1/144 rear fin and sawed it to fit the smaller rear fin of the SD: then i sawed off the pin mounts for the side skirts from the torso of the 1/144 version, sawed a portion off the SD version's side (where the fixed side skirt should be) and superglued the pin mount of the 1/144 side skirt: next up would be added leg details, front and rear skirts extension, and hopefully arm lengthening too. here is a mock up of the front skirts, Blu-Tacked them in place first: the rear fins bother me a bit in that i feel they are too slender or too long. i think i may try to widen it a bit and shorten it's length. but please feel free to comment and suggest as usual. and thank you for looking!

They do have these disclaimers at the bottom portion of the FAQ: Seems to be saying that they will try, but will not guarantee, recovery of lost packages for SAL shipment. And this sort of jives with RainbowTen's FAQ, particularly about shipping types and descriptions: Note the phrases in italics, very good points to consider when picking the type of shipping. For those who are interested, click here for the link to the full RainbowTen FAQ Page.

@ghost train: you can use a pointed hobby knife to place those small stickers instead. place the sticker on the very edge of the pointed tip, with only a very small portion of the sticker actually in contact with the knife tip, and use a toothpick to carefully position the eye sticker over the eye area

@pete: go for the HG 00 kits, great posability and details for their scale. and the smaller HG kits doesn't need as much display area also, for people who paint kits, it doesn't consume as much paint as 1/100's/MG's, though they can be a pain with masking...

As far as shipping, me or my friends have had no problems yet with RainbowTen regarding their shipping, whether it's SAL or EMS. Most of the time we put in combined orders so we can avail of combined shipping too to keep the costs down, especially with EMS. I'm not sure about RainbowTen's shipping history to your area, but so far there seems to be no problem with them shipping here in the Philippines.

Last time when the VF-25F Alto first came up for preorder in RainbowTen, stocks ran out fast, but this was mostly due to Bandai releasing fewer stocks, and they were unable to properly estimate the demand. When the VF-25S Ozma came up for preorder, the stocks lasted a few more days than the Alto. I guess the Macross F kits are just that popular that's why stocks run out fast. But generally if you place an order just a few days AFTER they announce preorder for an item is ok to secure the item.

yep, RainbowTen prices are always lower than the announced prices. it may have something to do with their proximity to Bandai (click here for RainbowTen map location) or their volume orders, not sure really... whatever the case is, it's a good thing for their customers, me included

your scheme is similar to the Harrison Madin custom F91 btw that's quite a big kit...

here's what i'm working on right now, a modified SD GP03S, i call it GP03EX will be using a GM head instead, and some 1/144 parts, as well as left over 1/550 HG Mechanics parts mixed in with the SD Orchis base parts: fitted feet with 1/144 ankle armors: "legwork" the pegs are from SD Astray legs, sawed off and glued on top and bottom: modified the hip assembly by fitting sawed off SD Astray socket joints, and test fitting the legs: that's all for now, will post again when there are updates

wow, the Philippines got more people than post-bombardment Earth

i couldn't agree more a friend of mine who's into pla-modelling too (and very good at it hands down) managed to secure a very affordable source for our sanding sponges. Kotobukiya actually sells these sanding sponges too, but at a much higher price. so if you wanna get these cheap, try and contact your local 3M Distributor directly. oh yeah, here's some info from 3M's website: http://www.3m.com/Product/information/Sanding-Sponge.html hope that helps

wet sanding also works wonders for smooting down the surface. it also prevents the dust from flying around your work area. as for direction, from my experience it's a case to case basis. back and forth works best with cylindrical or long parts for me (gunpod/rifle barrels, cannons) and big flat surfaces. circular works well for me for those smaller areas, since i find that using back and forth for these parts tend to eat away to much plastic from the edges, leaving the central portion thick and the edges sometimes a lot thinner. as for sanding down sprue nubs, assuming you've been able to cut the gate pretty close (but not too close) to the surface, short back and forth strokes using rough grit (400 grade or so) sandpaper should start the sanding process. then work your way to the finer grades, 600 or 800 next, then circular with 1200 or so for finishing. keep the pressure confined to the area where the nub you are sanding down is, you don't want to sand away plastic from other adjacent areas. for seamlines, the very first step should be alignment of parts that will be glued together. if you already misaligned the parts when you glued them together and there's no way to separate them short of damaging the parts, chances are you'd have to resort to putty or other fillers. otherwise sand down as you would a sprue nub. also to ensure that there would be no gap in the seams, you might wanna use an adhesive that melts down the plastic, so that it bonds both parts at the seam permanently. take great care using these kinds of adhesives, as there's no way to separate the parts again once they've bonded. if all goes well and the parts are aligned perfectly, you should have no need for fillers or putty and you just need to sand down the excess melted plastic that oozed out of the seam. also, for curved areas or parts (like the valk's gunpod or the curved leg area), i use 3M sanding sponges. they use the same abrasive material as with sandpapers but this time they are applied on - you guessed it - sponge sheets. the sponge conforms to the curve of the piece you are sanding, so that there won't be any accidental flattening of a curved area, unlike if you use ordinary sandpapers or maybe files.

what he's trying to say is that making yourself "too quiet" while moving from one point to another leaves a "void" where you are at a specific point. it's a little like placing a gun in a lead-encased portfolio and passing it through an X-ray scanner at the airport; the X-ray wouldn't be able to penetrated all that lead, but the airport security will get suspicious of you since you're obviously hiding something... oh, just want to point out, you don't have to really, you know, bash other shows just to say that you have no idea what a certain element in the show is about right? a simple "what's a GN particle do?" would probably suffice. just a suggestion.

i knew it was too good to be true

wait... the caption said "HASEGAWA 1/72 VF-25S", so Hase is producing *at least* VF-25S kits? or are these special one-offs / limited editions?

happy birthday MW!! many many more years to come (and hopefully more Macross to come too )

looks like they're trying to match Rainbow Ten's price: http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/data/echar.htm on a related note, me and some friends who ordered as a group from Rainbow Ten just got our stuff: VF-25 heaven!!

this one's a bit trivial, but i hope it gets picked anyways... There are currently some seiyuu who try and separate their image from the character(s) whom they voiced. What are your thoughts about being typecasted in a certain In you case, would you still want to be associated with Sheryl Nome's character say 5, 10 or so years from now? If not, for what reasons would that be? - valkyriepilot, Philippines another one: If Macross Frontier gets a live version treatment, would you agree to play Sheryl's role? - valkyriepilot, Philippines

Interesting, so it seems like this big shield makes up for a lack of a Full GN Shield like the one on Dynames before...

Well, the Wave kit has combined features present in the Bandai and ARII Battroid kits: it has the better proportioned (and hopefully better articulated too) limbs of the Bandai kit with the blockier torso of the ARII version. The fighter mode proportions are the same as ARII's based on the pics, but with more panel lining and detail ala-Hasegawa style. These 1/100 kits will be perfect for diorama scenes because of smaller size And yes I agree, more of the same kits from different companies gives us a lot of choices indeed

the color scheme is very good!! and nice clean finish too, the decals make it unmistakeably a Zentraedi mecha

I'm currently using a Lenovo G400 Notebook to play .MKVs as well as .AVIs and I don't experience any problems in playback whatsoever.

Finally got my Alto custom from my friend!! Along with this li'l guy I will have to find some extra display space before I can start working on Alto Custom though

Well, to be fair with anime52k8, his speculations are all in keeping with Bandai's practices of releasing model kits and variants. (MG Strike Gundam variants, nuff said...) I for one expect the VF-25F Alto Custom + Super/FAST pack variant, which only requires designing the FAST pack to fit on the existing Alto custom model, as well as VF-25G Michel Custom (only the head has a major difference in design aside from color) as candidates for next in line release. A VF-25S Ozma Custom Armored might take longer to get released given the sheer number of parts and design work involved, as well as the RVF-25 Luca Custom. As for a separate FAST Pack only release / add-on kit, I'd wager that Bandai would probably just include it in one kit release, since they'd earn more that way. You'd have to buy as many of the FAST pack variant kit in order to be able to dress up the other kits that were released as normal version only

very nice sketches dude! i like how you did even the detailed views of the ventral and dorsal surfaces in gerwalk mode! hope i had half your skills in designing and sketching mecha