Kremmen

hahaha!! I'm gonna get this SDF-1, then a repaint TV version, and then the SDF-4 Global repaint, etc, etc...

There were a couple of comments like this back a few pages which didn't really get addressed. (Or I missed the responses, sorry if so.)

You *can't* repaint this as the 'real' SDF-1. It's, IMHO, an ugly, mutant design and has a differently-shaped hull and less appealing proportions. SDF-4 would be pretty much OK I guess.

I'm not buying. This thing is just too small, an ideal 'big' SDF-1 would be 1/1200 scale. (1200 metres down to 1 metre - perfect.) At least this leaves the way open for a "proper" large version of the "proper" ship. </snob>

Good on Yamato for having a go though. I hope it sells very well.

Just out of curiosity, what do the experts out there think the cost per model would be if someone with experience (like the Captain) were to take on the infamous 1/60 Monster for a production run?

/Every time I see that picture, I just drool.

Which picture? I assume you're referring to the Yamato one? So are you asking for something that ships assembled and painted, or an actual kit? I'm not an expert, but for a modelmaker to assemble and paint models you'd have to expect to pay commission prices; several thousand dollars I'd think.

If you're asking about a kit, there's already a 1/72 which might give some idea of the price for a 1/60, but I can't recall what Mike was asking.

A 1/72 Gluag booster would be huge and would be a lot of resin, and attaching a resin Glaug would be a problem. If you have seen the one that Monkey Nugget did a long time ago in 1/100 it was one heavy solid piece of resin and it used a Bandai 1/100 Glaug kit because the resin Glaug had weight issues.

I'm assuming few people would want to buy an aftermarket booster-only kit and sacrifice half of their Arii or Moscato Glaug to put the cabin and arms on the booster. So the Glaug booster kit would logically have to include a partial Glaug kit, which can be adapted for an easy fit. A resin Glaug booster would certainly be large and heavy, but not more than the Randy Cooper Star Destroyer. I'd think vac-form would be lighter and cheaper though.

Not sure I can wait. My old scrapped Arii Glaug has shredded legs; it was part of a 'war relic' dio. It's just lying around doing nothing, and so is a stack of Renshape...hmmm....

PS sorry, the thread was just getting back on track, I'll stop hijacking. John as you can see there's some excitment about the G, how far away is your official G thread do you think?

Thanks for the input. I think I'll do a solid prototype driver cab first. May be will try the vacuum canopy. As for all the other parts will mostly be resin. The ladder might be photo-etch and the stairs going to the driver cab will most likely be Plastruct. Even if a Vac form canopy be provided, the actual driver/crew will not be big because an airlock must be provided. The truck can be use under atmospheric pressure and without atmospheric pressure.

I'd almost finished doing the tyres and I'm doing the driver cab right now. As for "let buyers do the work" no promises. My skill is not very good. Let all if they are going to get one and decide it when I finish the vehicle and start to mass produce it.

Well, your wheels look good so far!

An airlock, yeah, and also probably a micro galley, sleeping area and toilet. I get the idea this thing is for seriously long-haul work. You can picture it trucking stuff thousands of miles across Lunar plains and Martian deserts.

Edit: a solid cab is what you need first off anyway, for your vacform buck.

Feel free to give your inputs

OK, thoughts: vacform the whole canopy in clear - struts can be painted on. Internal cabin area, wheels, machinery, suspension and chassis in resin. Ladder in brass rod - provide a bending template and the rod, with a cutting template and a sheet of thin styrene for the treads, or cast them in resin. Let buyers do the work, anything resincast that was thin enough to look good would break in transit anyway.

Most of the load could be vacform I'd think.

I'm all in for a Glaug. I missed out on this one due to my poorly timed attempt at self restraint, you can be damn sure I won't do that again, even if the scale is off from what I wish it was.

and then the Cat's Eye?

/crosses fingers, kisses blarney stone, tosses coin

Amen to that (scale). I like the old injection kit, it can be made to look pretty damn good. One of my offline acquaintances here actually got a buildup of a Glaug into Hobby Japan, back in the 80's. (Very beat-up, on a gantry base - looked great.)

But a 1/48 or 1/35 kit would be completely awesome. I guess anything that size would pretty much have to be vacform though.

O.K. off my soapbox now ( sorry 'bout that not sure where it came from it just kind of happened )

Ha! I understand your feelings, though I don't really share them. I LOVE kits; there's just something really nice about a really well-executed garage kit. I have the skills to scratch if necessary but lack the time. Don't even have time to build kits lately for that matter. Still want them though.

I haven't really read those complaints as being particularly whiney - more explanatory - but yeah, just diving in and giving something a go is always a good plan. John's skills didn't happen by accident of birth.

edit: you've inspired me to get myself a sig quote thingie. It's also from a classic of 20th-century literature.

Yeah Kind of depresses me, all overtime has been cut, my Job is on Highering Freeze its ugly. And we have so much work to do they they are making us do and removing the contractors from the Job to cut down costs.

For me 300+ for a kit right now Is too much even if its in May. Something smaller is fine. I can save 50 here and there until the next kit is ready but I cant put out too much in the next few months. Just not smart for me.

But I back whatever John wants to do. How about those Ground trucks? or even the Cats eye, or even something else not talked about.

I'll probably end up putting my hand up no matter how painful it is. But I can see this being one of the rarest of the rare kits, in the current climate.

I think the remainders went to Starship Modeler. But they seem to be sold out. They don't even show up on thier site anymore. I wish I would have known to buy it there last week when I saw it. I know some people here bought more than one...

Let's GET those scoundrels! Or at least, let's get their kits.

My vote:

1) 1/32 VF-4 (jeez guys, there's already TWO 1/72 kits!) I'd pay A LOT for that.

2) Salan Scout Ship (aka Picket Ship)

3) Line-art VF-0. CG version was a disappointment - long and skinny!

4) Glaug booster

5) Nupetiet-Vergnitz Umpteen-Million-in-Roman-Numerals (1/5000, to go with the injection SDF-1)

Well I had to put in one completely silly one.

The Commanchero project has been wrapped-up almost 2 months ago; the only reason people just recently received theirs was due to my own miscalculation in production & supply. A 1/72 Glaug is in the crosshairs for late March/early April.

Yep, I understood, but asked because of your comment some weeks ago that ten kits weren't spoken for. I didn't find an indication they were taken on the thread, sorry if I missed something. But I wasn't holding my breath or anything. I'd happily take a 'seconds' jobbie, if there's any not-100% parts lying around...just sayin'...still not holding my breath.

I have the Arii Glaug, but dammit. Just...dammit. I know yours will cost decent money, but I'll probably have a *medical need* to buy one. Glaug = best Macross thing of any kind.

Cheers,

Martyn

I'd did all the calculations. Petar, what is the height of your pilots?? For the centipede I'm working on, an average height crew of 1.8 meter will be 25mm i height. For the truck to look consistence with the artwork, the truck will be approximately 250mm in length (18meters). It's indeed a hugh kit. Everyone are invited to give inputs.

This would be a great project. Love the design. If a kit looked good I'd have one.

That was the Starship stuff. I'm still checked out of that part of the hobby. I've always been here at Macross World and Gears Online.

As for the kit, I did have one set aside for a while but didn't act fast enough with payment to get it. Oh well.

Ah, right. I like the other fora but MW is definitely one of the more "relaxed" places, overall.

Second Ahiachris; I'd be really interested in a Phalanx too.

Did anyone buy spares and would be willing to sell one to me? I think the Starship modeler store sold out of John's kit.

Thanks.

Hey, I asked first. Well ok, I didn't think of asking *that*...but I'm asking it now. ;p

Cobywan, last time I checked the forum/s you were doing a bit of a bailout, IIRC. Good to see you're back, things a bit better now?

Cheers,

Martyn

Damn, late to the party as usual. I've been offline most of the time for a few months due to landscaping work on my place and missed this whole project. Curses...

Captain, are any of those ten kits left, by any chance?

Best,

Martyn

Ayup, Robocop II is kickarse bit of design!

Here's a pic or two of my Viper fuse roughed out in foam. The X-wing is a 1/24 SS job for scale comparison. I need to surface these bits then mould them up, so that's all from me for a while.

Awesome set of viper here.

Kremmen, I'm really eager to see more of your WIP in a near futur. Good luck with this.

Thanks Cain. Big storms here the last couple of nights so I stayed away from the shed, but I got a little done tonight. Hope to finish up the fuselage plug rough shaping tomorrow and post a couple of pics. I love your avatar! Is that the FX model or the Argonauts kit? Or CG?

PetarB your MkVII is damned nice too. I'm just in awe of you guys, I can't do a decent small-scale paint job to save my life.

Neptunesurvey, your Phalanx is dead sexy. I have the old IP 1/72 IP kits of the others, but must get a Moscato Phalanx some time soon...

G, that is SUPER NICE! I can't believe how good you have that looking, it would be a good job at a way larger scale.

Hey, thanks, Cobywan! I thought that the MM/Gil kit did have that curve? Must go have another look. That curve is really important to the design. I'm taking my dims and proportions as much from the original study model as possible. Obviously a bit of guesswork involved here and there but I think I've got them pretty reasonably close. I'm also thinking of using the oval inner intakes from the full-size mockups, if I can get them to look at all decent. Round jet-style ones probably would look better though.

I'm happy to post more pics but I don't want to hijack this thread into a build thread. I could post one at RI but given all the recent argy-bargy there it's probably asking for trouble! Maybe I'll do it at the RPF. I roughed out half of the fuselage last night and will do the other half tonight; hopefully should be able to take a few more pics. I'm looking forward to casting this up in bondo and scribing it up.

Cheers,

Martyn

I thought I saw a kit for sale of this Viper version somewhere online.

Yeah, there have been two kits so far. Alfred Wong did a 1/48 version and another gentleman did a 'studio-scale' 1/24 version; that is, the scale the studio model would perhaps have been built in had there ever been one. (Being from a failed 2001 production, there would probably have been no model shooting, just CG.)

Unfortunately you can't get the 1/48 any more and the 1/24 kit was, um, "extremely controversial". Another 1/24 version was being offered via a member of RI, but that just blew up a couple of weeks ago into even greater controversy. The original fellow says he is working out the problems and a new version of his kit will be available through a professional caster with all bugs ironed out. We'll see!

It's a shame, all this fuss, because this is a really nice design. Beats the Nu BSG Mk 2, IMHO - brawnier and cooler.

Wow, lots of TLAs over at RI. Hard to keep up...

Ha ha! Yeah, especially "KTM" (a banned ex-member). I've only been there a couple of months, but I think I've mostly more or less made sense of it now. Interesting place, in principle I agree with the strong orientation towards free speech. Makes it decidedly not 'family-friendly', but definitely the place for honest and unfettered discussion. Things can be said that would get you kicked off many another board, even though they might be true and in the public interest.

Gents for all the sci-fi noobs like me, what's RI?

Cowie, it's a forum called Resin Illuminati. Basically the same as the Replica Props Forum but with less heavy-handed moderation. Enjoyable as long as you're thick-skinned.

PetarB, you're not wrong. Galactica is cursed!

I have been enjoying working on my Mk IV quite a lot so far. These are only interim bucks; the engine section will get a quickie skin of bog then thrown into a plaster throwaway mould and cast in bondo which can then be detailed up. Partly in order to suss out the interior of the intakes and engine recess - easier to do it like that than try to incorporate them in the initial buck.

I may skip that step for the fuselage and give it a permanent permanent epoxy skin, haven't decided yet. I've skimped on lofts as you can see, so tomorrow I'll do a quick test with foam and see whether the contours look good. If so then a duplicate set of lofts get bunged on the other side, the foam gets carved down and industrial epoxy gets smeared everywhere.

In case this all looks very quick and dirty...trust me...it's much worse in person.

Cheers,

Martyn

I've been getting fed up over the BSG Viper Mk IV studio-scale kit debacle over at RI. It sounds like the original dude may be (finally) getting some help and they'll be available again, which is good, but I'm feeling impatient so I dragged out the foam and styrene and started cutting. Here's my start on a buck for the engine section.

Got mine today. Nicely cast. I found only three very small bubbles. Three! The 'Zentraedi-looking' detail bits are REALLY 'Zentraedi-looking'. Parts breakdown is good and the mastering is almost flawless. I'm a terrible nitpicker but I'm struggling to find anything to criticise. Love it, thanks John!

BTW Neova, very few resin garage kits are made in anything other than polyurethane resin these days. There are different types and formulations of PU however. Avoid anything cast in polyester resin like the plague!

Cheers,

Martyn

With the use of a Konig Monster maybe we could get some monster love too.

Oh you little optimist!!

How long's it been since the last IP Destroid kit? 25 years or so? It could happen but I won't hold my breath. Would love it though...