Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[Papa Rat]

2 minutes ago, Thom said:

Keep an eye on the dog and you might find it again...

Hahahaha. I see what you did there. Lol

Arcee is looking great! Is the Starscream from the same producer? I’m very excited to see more. 👍

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Keep an eye on the dog and you might find it again...

 

💩

 

I do like the look of the kit more for sure. To bad they don’t make have a bonus kit of the vehicle mode

[nightmareB4macross]

Checking out a few different looks.

[tekering]

On 10/18/2025 at 5:49 AM, Papa Rat said:

I think you mentioned being super busy in preparation for a macross event. 40th anniversary if I remember correctly?

This year's the 40th anniversary of Robotech, actually... 😝

It's a moot point, though.  I'll be busy with work all weekend, and will barely have any time to visit the modeling exhibit, much less participate.  😓

However, given that deadline's not hanging over my head any more, I can put more time into Halloween prep instead:

I've been asked to host an event downtown, so I can display some of the masks I've painted. 😋

[Big s]

48 minutes ago, tekering said:

This year's the 40th anniversary of Robotech, actually... 😝

It's a moot point, though.  I'll be busy with work all weekend, and will barely have any time to visit the modeling exhibit, much less participate.  😓

However, given that deadline's not hanging over my head any more, I can put more time into Halloween prep instead:

I've been asked to host an event downtown, so I can display some of the masks I've painted. 😋

I used to work at a medical university and this looks like one of the things we saw on a bed in the willed body room once. Although the real thing was a bit more unsettling sine the face skin was peeled down, yet still attached and the eyes were still in the sockets. Some rather gruesome stuff over there.

[nightmareB4macross]

1 hour ago, tekering said:

This year's the 40th anniversary of Robotech, actually... 😝

It's a moot point, though.  I'll be busy with work all weekend, and will barely have any time to visit the modeling exhibit, much less participate.  😓

However, given that deadline's not hanging over my head any more, I can put more time into Halloween prep instead:

I've been asked to host an event downtown, so I can display some of the masks I've painted. 😋

Wow looks like Robotech fans when you say Macross.

Happy Halloween!!🎃 

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, tekering said:

This year's the 40th anniversary of Robotech, actually... 😝

It's a moot point, though.  I'll be busy with work all weekend, and will barely have any time to visit the modeling exhibit, much less participate.  😓

However, given that deadline's not hanging over my head any more, I can put more time into Halloween prep instead:

I've been asked to host an event downtown, so I can display some of the masks I've painted. 😋

Um... we need to talk about how much of that new skin cream you've been using. I think it may be a little harsh....

[Big s]

With that mask above, it would be an interesting one to do as a duo for trick or treating where one has that mask and the other just has the missing flap of skin as a mask

[Papa Rat]

5 hours ago, tekering said:

This year's the 40th anniversary of Robotech, actually... 😝

It's a moot point, though.  I'll be busy with work all weekend, and will barely have any time to visit the modeling exhibit, much less participate.  😓

However, given that deadline's not hanging over my head any more, I can put more time into Halloween prep instead:

I've been asked to host an event downtown, so I can display some of the masks I've painted. 😋

Wow. Love the mask!

[Thom]

On 10/19/2025 at 8:39 AM, Big s said:

With that mask above, it would be an interesting one to do as a duo for trick or treating where one has that mask and the other just has the missing flap of skin as a mask

Great idea!!

Very gruesome looking mask @tekering!

Tough decision between the two, @nightmareB4macross. The top black one is more classic, but the orange has an interesting new profile that makes one wonder what special uses it has.

@Big s The toy version can transform and I'll probably put it back into its motorcycle mode when they go back onto the shelf.

@Papa Rat Yes, the pink Arcee and Starscream are both from Trumpeter, and I have him together now and will post pics this evening. 

[Papa Rat]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

Yes, the pink Arcee and Starscream are both from Trumpeter, and I have him together now and will post pics this evening. 

Awesome! Excited to see. 
 

1/144 KOG is coming along. Got the base colors gold and brass/copper down after masking. Lots of these smaller panel details in Nagano designs are rather hidden but I’m a sucker to paint those areas as well. Lots of those elements are areas under skirt armor and small panels sandwiched between other parts. 
 

I’m really digging the nice contrast in metallic colors and also appreciate the lighter value of gold for the cockpit that is silver base coat with a 70-30 split of transparent yellow and orange. Gives me ideas on how to make my own gold colors using transparency and silver base coats. 
 

[Thom]

Those colors are poppin' @Papa Rat!

[Big s]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

 The toy version can transform and I'll probably put it back into its motorcycle mode when they go back onto the shelf.

That will make a pretty cool display.

 

35 minutes ago, Papa Rat said:

Awesome! Excited to see. 
 

1/144 KOG is coming along. Got the base colors gold and brass/copper down after masking. Lots of these smaller panel details in Nagano designs are rather hidden but I’m a sucker to paint those areas as well. Lots of those elements are areas under skirt armor and small panels sandwiched between other parts. 
 

I’m really digging the nice contrast in metallic colors and also appreciate the lighter value of gold for the cockpit that is silver base coat with a 70-30 split of transparent yellow and orange. Gives me ideas on how to make my own gold colors using transparency and silver base coats. 
 

I bet that sparkly gold looks way better in real life. It even looks good in the pics, but I know cameras can rarely catch how great metallics actually look. Can’t wait to see this one finished 

[MechTech]

Sorry guys, life has been BUSY the last three weeks! I missed so many pages of AWESOME builds you have been working on!

Two weeks ago we had our modeling convention. Here's a couple of highlights that were our better builds from the "Sci-Fi" category. TWO of these were by women! The Gundam diorama was actually entered in the "Diorama" category of judging.

This Zoids build got gold and "Best Of" category for Sci-Fi.

And for making trophies for our work golf tournament, I wanted patina copper placards. I found a good recipe! Three tablespoons apple cider or red wine vinegar and one tablespoon of Miracle Grow plant food. Let the copper sit in it for 30 minutes. Take it out wet and let it dry. When it dries, it looks like these:

I gave it a LIGHT sanding to clean up the exposed copper.

Thanks for checking in! - MT

[Papa Rat]

9 hours ago, MechTech said:

Sorry guys, life has been BUSY the last three weeks! I missed so many pages of AWESOME builds you have been working on!

Two weeks ago we had our modeling convention. Here's a couple of highlights that were our better builds from the "Sci-Fi" category. TWO of these were by women! The Gundam diorama was actually entered in the "Diorama" category of judging.

This Zoids build got gold and "Best Of" category for Sci-Fi.

And for making trophies for our work golf tournament, I wanted patina copper placards. I found a good recipe! Three tablespoons apple cider or red wine vinegar and one tablespoon of Miracle Grow plant food. Let the copper sit in it for 30 minutes. Take it out wet and let it dry. When it dries, it looks like these:

I gave it a LIGHT sanding to clean up the exposed copper.

Thanks for checking in! - MT

Those look great! Thanks for sharing. 😊

 

[Papa Rat]

Starting to look like a Motar Head. Now I’m waiting for paint to dry and I need to fiddle more with that scratch build face armor. I haven’t totally committed to it yet. I did reach out to Volks and I might be able to buy a replacement sprue. Just waiting to hear back, but I feel like I could just skip it if the one I made is good enough. 

I hand painted the red in Vallejo acrylics. I want to put down another gloss coat over it, but read that I should give it 24 hours before I mess with it.  Once that’s done I need to do one more layer of brush painting. I guess it’s more like a white enamel panel line outline on the red eye shapes on shoulder armor. 

[Big s]

18 minutes ago, Papa Rat said:

Starting to look like a Motar Head. Now I’m waiting for paint to dry and I need to fiddle more with that scratch build face armor. I haven’t totally committed to it yet. I did reach out to Volks and I might be able to buy a replacement sprue. Just waiting to hear back, but I feel like I could just skip it if the one I made is good enough. 

I hand painted the red in Vallejo acrylics. I want to put down another gloss coat over it, but read that I should give it 24 hours before I mess with it.  Once that’s done I need to do one more layer of brush painting. I guess it’s more like a white enamel panel line outline on the red eye shapes on shoulder armor. 

Totally digging those little red accents. Really brings out the look

[Thom]

And Starscream is finished as well! 

There were some extra pieces in the box, like different chest/intake pieces, and I think those are meant for the Blitzwing kit.

And the two of them together.

[Papa Rat]

1 hour ago, Thom said:

And Starscream is finished as well! 

There were some extra pieces in the box, like different chest/intake pieces, and I think those are meant for the Blitzwing kit.

And the two of them together.

Those look great! They came with stands too?  Rey cool. 

[SteveTheFish]

On 10/17/2025 at 9:50 AM, Papa Rat said:

So have you ever been super careful with tiny pieces, cut them out and immediately put them in a dish to keep them safe as you work on other elements of the kit? Days pass and when it’s time to clip them up for priming, you look in the dish and the small part is MIA and have no idea how or where they went.

Hey, since I live in Japan, contact me if you need replacement parts on model kits. This goes for anyone on here. Thom and Chas may remember that I helped plenty of people on the Starship Modeler forum to get replacement parts. Bandai parts are the easiest because my LHS is a Bandai Pro Shop affiliate. I just give the shop owner the parts request order and he can request them. For Bandai models, you order on a part-by-part basis, whereas with other companies you'll need to order the entire sprue, plus pay for the postal money order fees and all that crap. If you or anyone needs replacement parts or decals, I'd just need a scan of the parts request form from the instruction booklet (unless it's a kit I own myself).

EDIT:

So this is a kit that will soon be in my possession: a 1:72 scale VF-4 sofubi kit! Wow! I know that there's been resin kits of this, but I'd never seen a sofubi kit. I found this on Mercari and since I had a 500 yen coupon, I snagged this kit for only 2800 yen! It shall soon be in my hands. All shall love me and despair!

 

Edited October 22 by SteveTheFish

[Papa Rat]

6 hours ago, SteveTheFish said:

Hey, since I live in Japan, contact me if you need replacement parts on model kits. This goes for anyone on here. Thom and Chas may remember that I helped plenty of people on the Starship Modeler forum to get replacement parts. Bandai parts are the easiest because my LHS is a Bandai Pro Shop affiliate. I just give the shop owner the parts request order and he can request them. For Bandai models, you order on a part-by-part basis, whereas with other companies you'll need to order the entire sprue, plus pay for the postal money order fees and all that crap. If you or anyone needs replacement parts or decals, I'd just need a scan of the parts request form from the instruction booklet (unless it's a kit I own myself).

EDIT:

So this is a kit that will soon be in my possession: a 1:72 scale VF-4 sofubi kit! Wow! I know that there's been resin kits of this, but I'd never seen a sofubi kit. I found this on Mercari and since I had a 500 yen coupon, I snagged this kit for only 2800 yen! It shall soon be in my hands. All shall love me and despair!

 

That’s super generous of you. I will keep that in mind if this doesn’t shake out locally. 
 

Also, congrats on the new kit. I’m not familiar with that one, will make sure and look it up. 👍

[Papa Rat]

A quick update on KOG aka “my little buddy” before I hit the hay 💤 

I might do one last gloss coat on it after finishing tonight’s final brush painting. I have never been so nervous to paint tiny, tiny details. I didn’t use any of the color correcting decals. I wanted to paint the few color details including this tiny white outline on shoulder “eye” designs. I was stressing but got it done. Not too shabby. 
 

My thoughts and feels on this new Volks 1:144 scale KOG Delta Beren is outstanding! It was a treat from Start to finish and can’t wait to do the larger 1:100 scale once I find that Gaia paint. 
 

Here’s a few photos taken at the bench. I’ll grab better pics tomorrow with some natural light hoping the gold has more sizzle if that’s a thing. Lol

 

Edited October 22 by Papa Rat

[SteveTheFish]

40 minutes ago, Papa Rat said:

That’s super generous of you. I will keep that in mind if this doesn’t shake out locally. 
 

Also, congrats on the new kit. I’m not familiar with that one, will make sure and look it up. 👍

I found info on this sofubi kit on the Macross World legacy site here. It's at the top of the list:
https://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models/hobbybase/hobby_base.htm

I have another Valkyrie sofubi kit that's not on that list. It's a VF-1S in Battroid mode. I noticed that the legacy site does not list any figure models, such as the Arii sofubi kits or that clunky ABS(?) kit of Misa DYRL by Tsukuda. Sofubi kits aren't as popular as resin kits because they're a bit different to build. Many people don't have patience for them, but I'm rather fascinated by them. 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

A quick update on KOG aka “my little buddy” before I hit the hay 💤 

I might do one last gloss coat on it after finishing tonight’s final brush painting. I have never been so nervous to paint tiny, tiny details. I didn’t use any of the color correcting decals. I wanted to paint the few color details including this tiny white outline on shoulder “eye” designs. I was stressing but got it done. Not too shabby. 
 

My thoughts and feels on this new Volks 1:144 scale KOG Delta Beren is outstanding! It was a treat from Start to finish and can’t wait to do the larger 1:100 scale once I find that Gaia paint. 
 

Here’s a few photos taken at the bench. I’ll grab better pics tomorrow with some natural light hoping the gold has more sizzle if that’s a thing. Lol

 

Kinda curious about articulation. I know there are a lot of joints, but there’s also a lot of armor that probably block movement, just wondering about its range of motion 

[Papa Rat]

4 hours ago, Big s said:

Kinda curious about articulation. I know there are a lot of joints, but there’s also a lot of armor that probably block movement, just wondering about its range of motion 

The articulation is good. Knees are double jointed, hips are ball joints, arms and shoulders have plenty of rotation as well as forward back/up and down motion. Feet and ankles are ball joints, skirt armor all move independently except for large rear section. Head is almost complexly static, and waist rotation swivels left to right. Claws on rear of forearms open close and fold to allow for more freedom of movement. This kit has way more articulation than I had expected. 
Hope that helps?

Edited October 22 by Papa Rat

[Thom]

14 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

Those look great! They came with stands too?  Rey cool. 

Yeah, not bad for little 'shake'n'bake' kits. Rey cool!

Always a generous offer @SteveTheFish, just like in the old days! 

And that is looking good @Papa Rat! The gold and the accent colors really work well together.

[Papa Rat]

32 minutes ago, Thom said:

The gold and the accent colors really work well together.

Thanks. 
Here’s a couple photos in natural light. Still not as brilliant as in person. ✨ 

 

[Big s]

36 minutes ago, Papa Rat said:

Thanks. 
Here’s a couple photos in natural light. Still not as brilliant as in person. ✨ 

 

Looks Awsome. The articulation sounds good as well. 

[MechTech]

Thanks guys!

@Thom I didn't know Trumpeter was doing kits like that now. They must have gotten smart and got on the band wagon! Yours came out great!!!

@Papa Rat Your knight looks terrific! Finishes like that are a PAIN to pull off and yours looks great!

@SteveTheFish WOW! BIGTIME FLASHBACKS! I had and built that kit back in the 80's! One of the advantages of living near Little Tokyo, LA. If any parts are warped, some hot water should make them pliable to shape. I loved that kit, but lost it over the years. It has GREAT detail on it too. - MT

[Papa Rat]

1 hour ago, MechTech said:

Your knight looks terrific! Finishes like that are a PAIN to pull off and yours looks great!

Thanks so much. There are plenty of small mold lines that I had overlooked somehow and the gloss makes them more evident. Luckily they are in rather inconspicuous areas. 😓 

Edited October 22 by Papa Rat

[Cheese3]

Finished  the -1j ! 

[electric indigo]

On 10/6/2025 at 11:36 PM, Big s said:

I’ve always loved that design. I still have the hg in my ever expanding backlog, but having to do those seams on eight large identical parts was kinda the thing that kept me away. I do want to get to it one day though

Easy fix – just make your own missiles 😅

I didn't like how the original weapons put so much weight outside of the graceful silhouette of the MS, so I went for a lighter design. Just plastic rods with a tapered tip and added microstrips, and I went for a retro animation color. You still have make 8 of them and fix them on the kit 🤪.

This is the result so far:

 

[Papa Rat]

2 hours ago, electric indigo said:

Easy fix – just make your own missiles 😅

I didn't like how the original weapons put so much weight outside of the graceful silhouette of the MS, so I went for a lighter design. Just plastic rods with a tapered tip and added microstrips, and I went for a retro animation color. You still have make 8 of them and fix them on the kit 🤪.

This is the result so far:

 

Beautiful work!

[Papa Rat]

Oh yeah baby! I’m excited to get this primed and painted. Had picked this kit up at a huge discount form Newtype last year. 
1/144 Engage SR3 Late Junone FSS

 

[Thom]

New on the bench!

Edited October 25 by Thom