tetsujin

I'm assuming you mean aftermarket stuff? (Wave, Kotobukiya, Yellow Sub - rather that kit parts ordered separately from the kit) Yeah, you can order quite a lot of that stuff and it'll still fit in one of their small boxes. What stuff are you getting? If you're getting ball joints, you might want to consider the Yellow Sub "Kansetsu Waza" type, they're very tough.

Well, consider the grid is there to stop battleships from parking in orbit and bombarding the surface. Small fighters and combat units like the Nousjadeul Ger or Glaug can do relatively little damage to anything if they break through the defense grid and enter Earth's atmosphere. In an invasion the role of those small units would be to attack the defense grid so the big ships could move in - and UN Spacy's fighters would be responsible for intercepting them. At any rate, it'd take quite a lot of resources for an invading fleet to take out enough of the grid that they could assault the planet. Meanwhile, UN Spacy forces would be mobilizing to support the earth forces. The small units wouldn't be able to do enough damage on their own, and would most likely be overwhelmed by the large number of fighters stationed on Earth. Still, I'm sure the UN Spacy folks would always be doing their best to fortify the defense grid as well as they could - although it's just one piece of the overall defense system, it's one of the cheapest ways to get effective firepower into orbit for use in those times when they don't need much intelligence controlling the guns. I doubt it's something they'd be inclined to use unless a major offensive was being directed toward the Earth.

Nah, no amount patience could make me order from HLJ again until they provide some better options for shipping. It is either an outrageous amount, or a just hope it gets there sometime delivery. Either one is not a choice I'm willing to make. So I'll stick to getting my models and toys else where. Do whatever you want. I got my last SAL package from HLJ 14 days after it shipped. The two before that (also SAL) were around 21 days. Very few places on the web can match HLJ's selection, price, or service. SAL takes some time, but I have about 50 unbuilt kits, so it's not that often that I need to have something "immediately". But, hey, you do what you gotta do.

Ah, indeed. I never thought the answer would come from the model kit instructions, of all places. I could have avoided this whole debate here if I'd just read that page on my instruction book. I can read kana and everything. Anyway, thanks for the help.

Right. Except if a cylinder is cut at an angle not perpendicular to its axis, then the opening will be an ellipse rather than a circle. However, the openings on the Glaug do appear circular. So whether that's a mistake, or whether those panels are supposed to face forward a bit more, or whether the missile tubes are angled out to the side farther than they appear in the lineart is pretty much subjective, I guess. Certainly there are side-firing missiles in Macross (Queadluun Rau comes to mind - and damn, I love how they always drew Millia naked for the scale reference in the lineart) I'm just not convinced that's the case. I guess the rule will be "whatever way I can find that doesn't require major alterations to the kit" will be the way the missile tubes go.

Actually, while mecha kits generally have fairly simple shapes, there is usually something that'll wind up compromised on the injection-molded kit as a result of molding issues. On Bandai kits you see that a lot in the form of molded-in "cables" (PG Zaku, MG Kampfer, etc.) misshapen and fused onto a flat surface somewhere, or panel line problems as panel lines make their way around a surface. While a lot of great stuff can be done with injection kits (Hasegawa Battroid comes to mind - too often I think of injection-molded mecha in terms of what Bandai has to offer, which is relatively crappy in many ways), I think resin often is better because the people making the kits don't have to pay as much attention to how the molds will be made. They can devote almost all their attention to making the parts look how they want - and in my experience that yields beautiful kits. (I love my MG Gelgoog-J!) If you have an eye for detail or for a beautiful sculpt, I recommend at least taking a long look at some resin kits, mecha or otherwise.

looking at my glaugs I would suppose that they are the 3 black circles on either side of the cockpit. Kinda look like torpedo tube hatches. Only other place I could think would be the legs as there are three hatch type plates on the outside of each leg. There are also three hatch type plates on the inside of each leg so I'm thinking it's the black circles on either side of the cockpit. Yeah, I'm sort of thinking the same thing at this point. I had a few other ideas where the missiles could be, but I'm not liking most of them so much any more: Circles on the front of the leg near the bottom: Seemed credible enough, but I think most of that area would be occupied by ankle mechanisms and the winch claws. Circles on the front of the leg near the knee: Didn't seem too likely, since that would mean the missiles are stored within the knee joint area. Circles at the front of the two engine pods: It seemed like a strong possibility, but there's actually not much space in there. Internal stowage in the legs (that is, contained within some kind of door-enclosed missile bay) is one I hadn't thought of. I looked through the Glaug pages in the Perfect Memory book today and, in the cockpit lineart, there are some sort of tubes extending back behind those openings, to the side of the seat and behind it. So probably I'm gonna assume that those are it. The fact that there are exactly six of them is a favorable indication, too. It's not as obvious as indication as I'd like (not like a bit in the lineart showing a missile in the tube or coming out of the opening) and it's also possible that those openings and the tubes that connect to them inside are something else. I guess there's probably no way to know, since the lineart doesn't seem to give an answer, and even if they'd shown the Glaug launching missiles in the anime (I don't remember if they did) there's a strong possibility they would have animated it wrong. The main problem with having the missiles there, though, is that on those surfaces, circular openings wouldn't quite be forward-facing, or even close. The missiles would have to be fired out almost laterally. On the model kits those surfaces are actually built on a really awkward curve (at least for the Imai and Nichimo versions. I haven't seen the Arii in person.) Still, I'm trying to think about ways to handle all that without reshaping large areas of the pod. Working on the assumption that those are the missile tubes, I'd like to put something there that says "missile tube" rather than just "randomly inset black circle". Thanks,

Don't know what it means - but it refers to the system included with old Nichimo kits for mounting them to suction cups to stick them on windows.

The Gunze Lacquers are hard to find in the US because of EPA regulations limiting their importation. There are a few sources for those in the US, but I haven't tried any of them: http://www.legendshobbies.com/paintetc.htm http://www.greatmodels.com/ For importing, the usual choice is Rainbow 10: http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/english/index.html I got those links from a thread on Child of Mecha. I can't really vouch for them. I used to buy my Gunze paints from Giuliano's shop, but he closed it down recently. As for the Gunze acrylics, those are relatively easy to find. They have them at http://www.gundamshop.com, for starters. Also consider: 1: it's not always worth following colorguides (sometimes they're not that great, even on good kits) 2: For a real-world (subject) colorguide there's a strong possibility that those will be "standard" colors, marked "FS" or "RLM", as in "FS34287" or "RLM82" - those colors can be had from a variety of manufacturers (though they may vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer).

The grading system is a Bandai thing. Bandai kits are great and all but in terms of detail and representation they have nothing on Hasegawa. I would put Hasegawa's Macross kits against anything Bandai has to offer anytime. Even "Perfect Grade", as impressive as it is, places a much higher premium on toy-features like posability than it does on simple detail quality. It's possible that it would sell better than Hasegawa's stuff if it happened, but it's not something I'm especially hoping for. I'd much rather see Hasegawa keep up their fine work. They make better models than Bandai does.

It's the Imai, 1:100 scale. Stands maybe 7" tall. Around 3AM I'd gotten as far as assembling the pod (To simplify the painting process, I polycapped a lot of the joints so I could disassemble them/reassemble them any time - that means in order to assemble the pod I first had to polycap the shoulder joints, the hip block, and the beam cannon) and starting my attempt at polycapping/modularizing the legs: but with only 6-8 hours left at best I decided to call it off. I might have been able to finish the mechanical work by then, but the parts cleanup is another story - and I could have used all that time and more just on the paint job. I've been tracking the time I've spent on this project: so far (pod assembled, cannon assembled, arms assembled, and joints replaced with polycaps at 3 points on each arm, and base of beam cannon, and hip block) it's taken around 11 hours of work time. I think that's unusually fast for me, making these kinds of mechanical changes. I guess I've gotten better at that stuff, plus I used Bondo to install the polycaps (I used to use styrene tube and super glue/talc mixture a lot - while SGT cures as fast as Bondo, it takes more time to prepare and in some ways is harder to use. Just burying the polycaps in Bondo was fast, easy, and effective - and unlike SGT there wasn't the danger of it gluing my joints together.) I'm gonna aim for finishing it by next Saturday, in time for the CMC competition. Thanks for the support, I'll be sure to post images and such when it's done. I think now that I've given myself a bit more time for this project I'll want to spend more time on some of the detail issues with the kit - like the badly-molded panel lines on the engine housings or the oddly non-circular circles on certain areas of the legs and such. I'd like to refine the panel lines, too, but I'm awful at scribing, so I'm a bit wary about actually rescribing them. Usually my projects take a long, long time, too. This project was an effort to do something quickly and efficiently, just get something done for a change, and yet somehow I wound up installing all those polycaps... They'll definitely help when it comes time to paint, though. But for the record, I started my Hasegawa Battroid in August, 2002, and it's still not done. (I considered it "done" one year ago, but then I discovered an inconsistency in the paintjob, so now I'm redoing the arms and legs, and possibly the head of that model...) Likewise I have a few Zakus that started a good two or three years ago and never got finished. The last project I really finished was my Guncannon, which I finished last July and just revised a bit since then.

IPMS model show tomorrow. I want to have something to show, so I'm building a Glaug. I have 9 hours left. I don't think it's gonna work out but I'm gonna keep going - I've gotten a lot done so far and it's been a while since I've been this productive on a model project.

Hey, OK, various source list the Glaug armaments as follows: large-bore impact cannon x 2 small-bore impact cannon x 2 long-range electron beam cannon x 1 small-bore anti-personnel laser cannon x 2 close-combat seeking missile x 6 Most of those are pretty easy to locate: impact cannons are in the forearms, the beam cannon is top-mounted, the anti-personnel stuff is mounted on the front of the pod... but where are the missiles? Are they the black circles on the sides of the pod? Are they supposed to be forward-facing openings? If not, if they fire sideways, then wouldn't they be right inside the cockpit with Kamjin? Side note - I'm building my Imai Glaug tonight... I've been rejointing it with polycaps, and so far I'm really kicking ass. It remains to be seen whether I can get it done by tomorrow, though.

The old ones have decals. The stickers that come with the Nichimo re-releases... each individual sticker is printed in a single color - so for a kite logo you might have the black outline, and then the red part would be printed as a separate sticker. I think they did that so they wouldn't have to expend any effort aligning the colors. However, the upshot of the re-releases color-wise is that each includes two whole kits, and the two kits are molded in two different colors. So if you were to buy, say, the Nichimo Glaug, you could take parts from the white sprue, and parts from the gray sprue, and put them together and have a Glaug that's fairly close to the original colors... and a second one that's all backwards. But the parts breakdown really isn't done for color, and all this does nothing about red parts. Just paint.

The little wheeled thingies like the one the Gunpod is sitting on, those may have come from the old Imai transforming valk kit. The beer-can missiles, though, I'm pretty sure are original.

Nope, don't think so.

Geez, "I like the Hi-mo Zaku" would have sufficed, didn't need to toss in the entire image library. One from each series seems excessive. Here's my favorite mobile suit: Zaku Kai. As a rule I love Izubuchi's work, so I'm also keen on the rest of the stuff from CCA, 0080, Patlabor, Gasaraki, etc. but the Zaku Kai is my favorite.

http://www.cybermodelcomp.com/ The Cyber Model Competition is a monthly modeling contest - most months it's fairly Gundam-specific, but this month (deadline is October 25th) is Sci-Fi month. If I'm not mistaken any non-Gundam science fiction subjects are eligible, including Macross. So if you've got a nice model you should consider entering. There's no prizes, but it's a fun contest nonetheless.

Really... well, damn, shows what I know. Very nice work. Probably the paintjob is what I'm most interested in at this point, I've never painted anything AFV style before, but that's sort of the look I think I'd like to shoot for. I don't know enough about how AFV are typically painted to know if your Monster fits that sort of style or not. Of course, your monster definitely sold me on some of the design decisions made for the Arii kit... assuming neither your Arii monster nor the one in this thread included any revolutionary proportional changes, then that kit is a lot better than I gave it credit for - maybe better than the Imai. In particular, I like the way the sloped surface of the upper-rear part of the body is handled. The Arii kit sort of has an awkward curve from the vertical sides on the front end to the angled sides on the back end. The Imai draws a line, and everything on one side of the line is vertical, everything on the other side of the line is angled. I think it looks better that way. It's still my hope to make a full Daedalus Attack group, so if things work out you'll see at least three more Monsters.

If you're looking for a YF-19 transformation your options are the YF-19 transforming resin kits, or the Bandai transforming VF-19 plastic kits. You can still buy the Bandai kits on HLJ - but they look like ass in fighter mode, so I wouldn't bother.

D.D. Ivanov's SV-51 is pretty low-viz, IMHO. There's pics of it on the official Macross Zero site. Nah, it's too dark to be low-vis.

Try this helpful excercise: Take a MISB item - you needn't start with your favorite, just something. Remove from the box and transform it five times. Now step on the box, tear up the instructions, and throw all that crap in the garbage.

I'm confused. I thought the FAST packs were the conformal fuel tanks on the legs. Is there something we haven't seen yet? On all of the other VFs, the FAST packs only work in space (or at least a vacuum), and the VF-0 can't do that. FAST packs exist in the real world. "Fuel and Sensor Tactical" The F-15's FAST packs are conformal fuel tanks, so it's not unreasonable to consider certain types of atmospheric-use conformal parts to be FAST packs. Also, I think the YF-19 and YF-21 FAST packs were atmosphere-capable as well. They certainly didn't use any of that stuff in space in Mac Plus... I don't know how exactly they're using the term in Mac Zero - that is, I don't know why they'd call the missile pods on the legs FAST packs (and I don't know if those FAST packs also carry fuel), but not the conformal fuel tanks that mount on the fuselage. But there you go. I hope they do start using underwing munitions on the VF-0 soon... I think it's nice to see the plane is carrying missiles. Even though internal weapons bays like the ones on the FAST packs have less impact on aerodynamics, (and therefore make practical sense) it's sort of cheap-looking in an animation sense. It also doesn't fit in so well with how the VF-1 stored munitions, but I don't care so much about that because Mac Zero is cool, so to hell with continuity if it gets in the way. But if I build a model of the thing it's good when people can look at it and know it's armed.

Ha, my thoughts exactly, I like the look of the 51 but there's no friggin' way I'm painting a fighter flaming Cherry Red or whatever that color is, i'll just do the low-viz thing. From what I understand light salmon-type pinks are low-visibility, moreso than grays. Of course, psycho-chick's SV-51 is definitely not low-viz. I want Battroids. That doesn't mean I'm not pre-ordering the fighter version. Mac Zero has officially rocked my world.

Thanks, Yeah, I remember seeing your monster and the resin 1:72. (I'm mainly interested in seeing nice build-ups, well-done paint jobs, etc. Fernando's Monster on AMA is still the best I've seen in that department.) I have seen the Imai instruction scans as well, of course, since I have that kit. Don't you think the linearts are fairly self-contradictory, though? The Perfect memory book shows the Monster at 3 or 4 different angles and in each one the shapes and proportions are different. Still, it's a good reference. I've already started planning my alterations to the Imai kit - it's largely my desire to see that project finished that's got me all interested in finding pictures of other people's Monsters. It's still surprising to me that there are so few built Monsters on the web. I think the one that was being sold here is still the only built Imai I've seen.