Valkyrie

Sorry guys.... It's coming along, just not as quickly as any of us would like

I've got a good deal of progress to progress to show off though. I'll try to put together an update and get it up tomorrow.

And yes, I most definitely want to have it finished before the Yamato release. Too bad they haven't anounced a release date yet

Yes, 1/72 is a little small for VF-1. I forgot to mention, the tow tractor will only be about 2 1/4" long. But I think it'll make for a great kit. These two models plus a Hase VF-1 will make for a nice little diorama

And yes Jesse, that was pretty much my idea. If I'm not mistaken, mine will be the first 1/72 Macross support equipment kits ever made. Though Imai made some in 1/100 that came with their Macross Factory, and they look fairly accurate, from what I can tell. But they didn't make either of the ones I'm working on

Hey guys. With everyone else showing off their scratchbuilds, I though I'd join in on the fun.

This is a little something I've been working on the past couple days. It's my first real attempt at a scratchbuild, and I'm really amazed at how well, and how quickly it's coming together!

The kit will be in 1/72 scale (made to be used with Hasegawa VF-1s) and will most likely be called "Ship-Borne Aircraft Support Equipment Set #1". It will contain two main models, one of which will remain a secret for now

But the first one will be a Tow Tractor, which is used to taxi VF-1s and to tow other support equiptment. Design art and technical assistance was provided by Nanashi (thanks again!), and I used AutoCAD to create plan drawings from them.

These two drawings are all I had to go on, but they proved to be pretty adequate (posted with permission from Nanashi)

And here's my current progress building it. It's made almost entirely of 0.03" sheet styrene, with MoriMori polyester putty used to make it solid (and therefore less fragile). Building it has been rather intersting. It's easier than I though in most respects, but harder in some others. But all in all, I think it's looking really good

Some of the panels (I think 4 of them so far) are temporary, and I'll have to make detailed ones to replace them. I'm kinda just fleshing out the shape right now.

Lemme know what you all think

And for those of you wondering, yes, I am still working on the Monster too

the closest thing there is to a plan diagram is the side view Rob posted at the beginning of this thread. It's technicly not official, since it came from one of the MAT books (made by fans, not the original designers), but it looks quite accurate.

Your drawings look pretty damn good, John. Except I don't think the front tips should be quite that... pointy. They should be a little blunt, and a little further back (just behind the chest parting line)

Oh, it's definitely a resin kit. It's made by R.S.B., and sold only at events (probably WonderFest). It's one of three VF-1 kits they made, the others being 1/48 and 1/35 scale.

It looks like it's based heavily on the Hasegawa. But from what I can see, it's got some proportion problems.... The taper at the end of the gunpod, for example, is WAY off.

Booster.... equipped.... VF-0? ~~~~~

Wow, suddenly the VB-6 is no longer hard to find.

Right after the recast project was started, (3) have become available.

Maybe we should pretend to be recasting the D'Stance YF-21.

LOL! I'll get right on it.

Seriously though, it's more likely a case of the kit owners unloading them before the Yamato toy is released, in fear of their value dropping once they're out. But from what I can see, that isn't the case at all so far. I've seen at least 4 in the past few months, and all of them sold for over $600. Even the ones with low starting bids. So they're still holding their value rather well, it seems.

But now that I think about it, that's probably only how it started. The first guy unloaded his kit (which Carl bought for a pretty hefty sum), then a few other owners decided to follow in suit, after seeing what kind of cash they're fetching.

That's probably what's going through the head of this latest guy. His auction has a starting bid of Y60,000 (about $600), but it also has a reserve on it! (that's what the red text above "will not ship internationally" means). So you know he's looking to make some cash on it.

Man, that's really bad... He was responsible for breaking it, and now he expects you to pay for it again?

Did you at least get the shattered remains back from him? I'd say the way to go would definitely be to try and repair it so that hopefully the project can continue, and your efforts (and money) won't be wasted.

I'd offer to do the repair work and even the casting myself, if I didn't already have my hands full with the Monster

Sweet mother of crap!!!

http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b53340323

Here you go. Scanned it from my Area 88 volume 2 soundtrack (on vinyl)

PM me if you need the original scan (I reduced it down about 75%)

You missed one. The VF-1A/J/S Crystal Clear version. The CLEAR clear VF-1

The rarest of all the clear ones. But they still turn up on yahoo japan auctions every now and again.

I do indeed have a copy of the program book.

But unfortunately, no audio or video of the concert was ever released

$77 may seem pricey for a 'perfect' Hasegawa VF-1, but consider the alternative before the Hasegawa valks came along.

You had the rather bland 1/72 VF-1 Super Valkyrie fighter kit from Imai, complete with droopy nose and the inability to build it without FAST packs

And the 1/72 Club-M VF-1 resin kits, costing Y13800 - Y16800 (retail). Good kits, but still inferior to the Hasegawas in some respects.

You're being too hard on yourself, Nanashi. I, for one, think you were right on many counts.

Case in point, your Ghost X-9 thread. You were completely right in that Egan ignored the meat of our questions. He glanced over them entirely and chose to only point out your one mistake. He's implied that the information you seek doesn't exist (in another thread, mind you), but he'll never just come out and tell us that when we need to know it. In fact, it almost seems as if the only times he contributes information on these forums is when it's used to contradict you, Nanashi.

Don't get me wrong, I still appreciate Egan's work on the Compendium as much as everyone else. No one can deny that it's a great resource, and the only source of 100% accurate Macross information (in a language we can read, at least). And all the time he puts into updating it is very much appreciated.

But really, if he's going to spend some of that time correcting Nanashi on the creator of the Ghost, would it have been too much to ask to spend another 5 seconds answering our chaff question at the same time? Even if that answer was "the information you seek doesn't exist"

Perhaps this will finally convince AX to ban bootleg products in its dealer room. When I went in '02, I couldn't believe how widespread they were. Bootleg DVDs, CDs, and even toys and art books were everywhere.

I thought for sure a con that big and comercially sponsored would have banned them.... but no.

I've been on staff at Anime Central since the beginning (1998), and from day one, we haven't allowed bootlegs of any kind. It's in the dealers' contracts. If they try to sell bootlegs, ACen has grounds to eject them from the con.

And actually, House of Anime has been an offender to this policy just about every year, dating all the way back to 1998. One year they were even kicked out of the convention when, after being told to remove bootleg items, they put them back on the tables after ACen staff had left.

I'm glad to hear House of Anime is going down.

And I hope more conventions will follow suit in banning bootleg products from their dealer rooms...

FYI, those ones on ebay are recasts. And not particularly good recasts, from what I've heard.

If you want to get an original, don't assume anything unless you see that box.

I just won them on sunday, so I haven't gotten them yet.

I definitely won't be drinking any of them tho. ( I don't like coffee anyway )

Thought I'd share my latest Yahoo Japan score. A lot of 13 Evangelion UCC Coffee cans

Won em for Y500!

I was actually working on scratchbuilding a VF-X4 for a short while last year. Me and Nanashi came to the same conclusion, that it has the same nose as the VF-1. I used a 1/72 Club-M VF-1 nose as the base of my scratchbuild, and started building the fuselage out from there. But I ended up scrapping it, cause it was turning out rather crappily But I'll try again one of these days, using a few scratchbuilding techniques I've learned since then.

It's just one of a long list of models I want to make one of these day

But here's my plan.

I have a copy of Street Fighter 2 here that I'm itching to play.

Since I only have the Duo. I bought a broken TG16 on ebay for a penny + shipping. I'll use the card slot to make my own adapter (since those are also insanely priced).

Then I can finally play my SF2 game

You really don't have to go through all that. To convert a TG16 to play PCE games, all you have to do is redirect a few of the leads on the HU-Card port. All they did for a territory lockout is switch a few wires around.

If you've got a bit of confidence with a soldering iron, you can hard-wire your TG16 to only play PCE games fairly easily. And with a bit more work and a few switches mounted on the console, you can make the territtory selectable.

But actually, back in the day, I was working on making my masterpiece of a console mod out of a TG16. I was gonna give it literally every bell and whistle I could think of for it. And among them was a second HU-Card slot, wired for PCE games, right in front of the stock one. So US games would play normally, and for PCE games, you'd just stick em in the second slot, and the game would be sticking straight up, like a SNES game or something.

It woulda been pretty cool

That's a pretty good summary, JB0.

I used to be pretty hardcore in the PC Engine scene a few years back (without ever having sunk TOO much money into it all). Today, all I have left of my collection is a dozen or so games, and my original PC Engine with IFU-30 CD-ROM, and a 3.0 system card.

About the only reason I've hung onto it so long was because I always loved the design of the system. The PC Engine and the CD-ROM drive plug in side-by-side in the interface unit, and the whole thing has a clamshell cover and a flip-out handle on the bottom, so it turns into like a little briefcase. It sounds cheesy saying it like that, but it's pretty damn cool

But I've actually been considering selling it lately... It's sat in the closet for far too long :-/

Well, I called it. HLJ now lists the FA-2 as an August release, not July.

I knew Platz wouldn't be able to release a Yukikaze kit on time

Try HobbySearch (1999.co.jp). They carry the same ones, but they keep much better stock than HLJ. Do a search for 'templet' and you'll find a few good ones.

You should also pick up Tritool's 'modeling scriber'. It's probably the best scribe tool I've found to date, and it's PERFECT for use with those templates.

The 'Line Engraver' tools are great too, but they're better for scribing straight lines.

Very interesting....

It looks to me like it's an original kit, since it has decals and the Big West sticker on the box.

But it looks like a different incarnation of it than the ones Carl and Mr. Anonymous own. The resin is white, and the instructions are printed... but it looks like it came from the same set of molds than the one Carl just bought (which has green resin and CD-ROM instructions).

It's an interesting variant, no doubt. But the big question in my mind is, which version came first?

I don't think you've found the root of your problem. If you've got your regulator set to, say, 20 PSI, then as long as that 20 PSI is getting to your airbrush, regardless of the hoses and fittings it has to go through.... then you're golden.

I've always used the yellow coil hose on my compressor. I put a quick-disconect fitting on the end, so I can easily swap in my airbrush hose, pressure pot, or anything else I need. I just put those quick-disconect fittings on everything.

But if you really want to get rid of the coil hose, just go to a hardware store and get a 1/4" fitting with both ends male. Then you can just screw that into your compressor, and your airbrush hose adapter into the fitting.

But in all likelihood, you just need some more time experimenting. Try thinning down your paint more, and see how it works at lower PSI. And make sure your airbrush is thoroughly cleaned. That alone can affect both airflow and paint flow, and contribute to spattering.

Personally, I like to stay at around 20 PSI. But it can vary greatly depending on what I'm doing. So just take some time and figure out what works for you. There's no one 'right' way of doing things