Valkyrie

For priming parts that will end up white, I highly recomend Gunze Sangyo's Mr. Base White. It's a lot like Mr Surfacer (the bottled stuff) in that it makes a great spray primer, and it's a lot cheaper than Mr White Surfacer (which is still only available in spray cans). Painting white parts white is usually pretty easy, just by skipping the primer phase. But when the part isn't white, it can take several coats of white to cover up the original color completely. Likewise when painting over gray primer. For stuff like that, Mr. Base White is awesome. It'll cover most any color in just a couple coats. You may want to try it on the booster, WM. It looks like HLJ is out of it right now, but I can get you some if you want. I stocked up on the stuff a while back As for what to use as a filler... I use Mr Surfacer 1200 on all the small stuff, like seams and small air bubbles. Bigger stuff gets either MoriMori polyester putty, or Tamiya epoxy putty. BIG stuff gets Aves Apoxy Sculpt. It's a moderate quality epoxy putty, but it's cheap! I've tried the superglue filler tracks, with and without filler. They're not for me. They cure way too hard. I like my filler to be equal or less hard than the piece I'm using it on. Otherwise, it's a pain in the ass to sand smooth.

Assemble Insert?

Got mine today too. Very nice kit! I'm pretty impressed with the casting job too. The resin isn't quite what I'm used to working with. It's a bit harder than most resins I've seen before. At first, it reminded me of a couple taiwanese recasts that I have, which are cast in a very hard and brittle resin. Horrible stuff to work with. But I quickly realised that the Oberth casts are nowhere NEAR that bad. Even though the resin isn't what I'm used to, it's still very good stuff. The resin is slightly flexible in the thin pieces, as it should be, and it still shaves very well with a knife. So I've got no complaints. It just freaked me out a little at first I'm kinda curious though, some of the small parts are a slightly different color from the rest of the kit. Is there any particular reason why?

Nope, the text says it's a Hasegawa kit Another item of interest... it seems this is an Ace Combat design. And someone's making a kit of it http://www.geocities.jp/runchickens/hs2005sep/16.jpg

I've been wanting to do a ARMD kit for quite a while now. Probably in 1/1500 scale (which would make it about 12" long). Mainly because, if I made it any longer, the mold for the main deck piece wouldn't fit in my pressure pot. But then again, it'll be the movie version, not the TV one. So there wouldn't be much point in putting them together anyway

Nope, no sub yet. AnimeOne has subbed 1-4, but they've always been pretty slow in doing so. Their episode 4 sub came out at least 3 months after the DVD was released. So it'll most likely happen, but it could take a while...

Yea, I'll definitely have a parts list included with the kit. It'll be in the form of a photo (or perhaps a series of photos), as I'd have no idea what to call 95% of the parts

Oh crap, did I forget to include the barrells in Carl's kit?! I'll have to fix that... Anyway, yea, the barrels have been finalized. The master was produced using that 'bullet' looking thing that I think I posted pics of earlier. And after a few minor mishaps, I've been able to get consistantly straight casts (warping was a problem for a while there). The final casts still require a bit of machining, so it's been a lot of work, but I'm quite pleased with the results. Still working on those finished pics... it was a busier weekend than I had expected ^^;;

Believe it or not, it's a Kotobukiya 1/72 injection kit! There's a page on it in the new Dengeki Hobby. It looks pretty damn cool! I haven't seen a release date on it, but it'll be selling for Y2,940

IT'S OUT!!! EPISODE 5 IS FINALLY OUT!!!! http://bt.greedland.net/torrents/2005/08/2...4501796.torrent The DVD isn't out for about another week, but apparently it aired on japanese pay-per-view early, like the previous 4 episodes did. Expect scrolling ads for models, DVDs, and such during the episode. Also, the DVD version is supposed to have about 40 minutes of extras, which I'm sure aren't in this version. But I don't care about that now. All I care about is that 15 months of waiting will be over in about 2 hours from now

The past 3 weeks have been pretty hellish at work, so I haven't managed to get much. But things are returning to normal now (even got a whole weekend off!) so I'm gonna try and get caught up this coming week. Quick update: Got a test model assembled, and everything went pretty much as expected. No unpleasant surprises. Good thing. I never got any good pics taken of it tho, and I've since disassembled parts of it in the process of writing the instructions. I'll try and get it back together and get some pics up soon. As a bit of an afterthought, I contemplated casting the kit in green resin, like the IHP kit, so that if the paint on a finished kit chips, it won't be as noticable. But I've decided to go with gray resin instead, because 1) I couldn't get a green tint that I liked to come out consistantly, 2) I figure gray could simulate bare metal underneath chipped paint, and 3) I don't want it resembling an original IHP kit too closely anyway. The only down side I can see to using gray resin, is that it could make it a little hard to see when a piece is adequately coated in primer, if you're using gray primer. If you foresee this to be too much of a problem, I'll also accept orders for VB-6s cast in my normal, off-white colored resin. Aside from that, the only real news is that I'm still trying to cast these things up. I've probably got somewhere between 2 and 3 kits completely cast right now, but I haven't gotten so far as to divide them into kits. It's been pretty slow going, but I should be able to get it done a lot faster, now that I'm back to my normal schedule at work. I've still gotta finish the instructions too. They'll most likely consist of translated japanese instructions (which aren't too detailed), and a PDF (or something similar) of my own general assembly tips, and annotations to the japanese instructions.

I got em all from HLJ. BTW, if anyone wants to buy my Mave "S" Flying type, I'll let go of it for $25 plus shipping. Still sealed, even Collectability or not, I've got no use for two of the same toy :/ Oh, and it looks like the 1/144 Fand II is coming out soon! That's another one I'll definitely be picking up. And it looks like it has all the missiles and droptanks, which the 1/72 Platz kit lacked!

I haven't found confirmation that YS is actually making the FFR-31 Normal Sylph. Aside from HLJ's entry for it (which is at least 18 months old, mind you), I've found nothing on it. If it never gets made, I might just have to scratchbuild a 1/72 model of it one of these days. I've got enough design art to make it possible And on the subject of the 1/144 pre-paints, they're actually really good! I picked up several of them, and although they're kinda pricey, they're rather impressive. The sculpt, detailing, and paint job are all top-notch. The plastic is good quality too. None of that cheap, soft, vinyl crap here! Just don't get suckered into buying both the 'S' version of the Mave and the normal 'flying type'. It's exactly the same as the normal version, except the missiles are painted blue (they're supposed to be the dummy missiles that it was equipped with in episode 2)

Just thought I'd share my latest Yahoo Japan accuisition Came across this a couple days ago -- a 1/72 scale (i think) Cosmo Attacker V resin kit! It's the space fighter that the Exelion employed, in addition to the RX-7 series of machine weapons. It doesn't exactly have a prominent role in the series, so it's an obscure craft to say the least. Imagine my surprise when I found that someone made a resin kit of it! It was an event-only kit, though I don't know when, where, or by whom it was sold. Hopefully I'll learn more when I get the kit. I'll be very interested to learn if the group that made it produced any other Gunbuster kits!

Exacyly. There's no way either of those could transform. They're missing all kinds of joints they'd need. Also notice that there's no screw holes anywhere on them. In fact, I initially suspected that their prototypes were little more than cleaned up resin kits (the Newtype/Monocraft Armo-Fighter and the Trans-Factory Armo-Soldier kits, specifically). But I compared them, and there's actually pretty clear that they're different. Though it definitely looks like Toynami used them quite a bit for 'inspiration'

Looks like the serie it's from is called Fire Man. Never heard of it myself. Looks like an old sentai show, judging from the character's head shot. The vehicle name (in blue text) reads 'Maringon" in katakana. Could mean 'Marine Gon', or something like that <shrug>

I tried that Venturi pump once. Hated it. I had to borrow a friend's 20 gallon (i think) compressor to use it, and even even after I emptied the tank through the Venturi, re-filled it, then emptied it again, I was still only at about 25in/Hg. Not even enough to degas resin. It was a waste of $15. I eventually gave up on finding a cheap solution, and got a Robinair 6CFM pro grade vacuum pump. Last I checked, you could still get them on ebay for around $200. They're kinda expensive, but they're worth every penny.

I can't imagine those things pulling enough of a vacuum to degass silicone effectively. You need to get it to around 28in/Hg (inches of mercury) to do the job well.

I got mine running with the PC Engine emulator last night. Downloaded a torrent with ALL the HuCard games for it too. The whole setup procedure and the swap itself was surprisingly easy. 95% of the games work fine, and it looks great. Also picked up the japanese version of Namco Museum today. Awesome game, if you're a fan of the classics! You can even play games like Ms. Pacman in fullscreen mode, holding the PSP vertically

I'll definitely be in for one!

Actually, it seems E2046 is going to be doing another run of their recast soon. They have it for pre-order now. $72 each.

Yep. It's done The first kit (Carl's) will be shipping on tuesday, in fact. But I'm not ready to take final orders quite yet. I'm still casting up kits (a fairly slow process, considering the size of the kit) and building up a kit for myself, writing the kit's instructions as I go along. (Also not a not a quick process...) I'll have more updates later this week.

Yes, please make the TV ARMD. Cause I'm planning on making the movie one

Think that's impressive? Check out the work-in-progress pics of Studio Half-Eye's Perfect Variable Gunbuster!! http://halfeye.m78.com/himiken/h-ken/h-ken.html The proportions look kinda weird... But keep in mind, the Gunbuster has what may just be THE most implausible transformation in the history of anime. And this guy's making it work!!

Actually, I asked them about it at Anime Central (as I do every year) and they said it's been officially canceled. Though they wouldn't confirm that they no longer hold the liscense.