Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

To be fair, Bandai has just as much trouble in this regard, at least as far as the DX line goes.

They don't understand that fighter cockpits are tight.  Making the pilot two scales undersized is the only way they seem capable of making their pilots fit in anything at all.

May as well be kids flying them.

oh wait....

[Urashiman]

11 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

May as well be kids flying them.

oh wait....

hhahahahahaahahahha oh wow hahahaahahah

[Rock]

On 9/10/2023 at 5:11 AM, arbit said:

I'm surprised these new 1/20 kits have fit problems.  What exactly is the issue?  About the pilot not fitting, I learned from 3D Designing pilots that the thighs/legs/torso actually need to be shortened  (I'm not into anatomy, so feel free to explain the issue to us if you are).

Sure the parts are large without enough reinforcement on the backside so there is warping on the 2 large nose halves. The pegs they have for the most part are extremely loose fitting and will require tape to even test fit together. Suprisingly even with the male/female pegs being so large. You have very little wiggle room if the parts are under tension. Most of my complaints stem fro. Their decision to do a multipiece cocpit on the VF-31. The front is a single clear piece but the back half is 2 clear parts, a black frame and a black bow. If you've ever had a kit with a multi piece cockpit instead of a single clear one you paint the frame on, you'll know how much a paint they can be. You slowly have to clue around the frame, which is deformed/warped and then a ton of clean up on the clear plastic. After your gaps are fixed you usually find the entire assembly no longer fits as well as the single piece option would have. Have to remember Max Factory's target isn't modelers with this line so color seperation>having to paint.

On 9/11/2023 at 7:52 AM, MechTech said:

@Rock That sucks that the figure doesn't fit into the cockpit. How hard is it to make an ACCURATE cockpit in that scale Bandai? The figure should fit in - espeically at the scale! NICE save Rock! Too bad you had to do so much work just to make her tushy fit in!

Well they do have a posable, soon to be released Alto figure that may fit in one. The issue may also be that they clearly reused the vf-25f cockpit parts instead of designing new. A few extra leftover parts on the runner confirmed it. I expect the seats i. The anime are power adjustable like a car or something, but the model has the seat base moulded to the structure and the floor of the cockpit moulded to the backside of the landing gear bay!

You have to remenber they use ex gear cockpits, sadly the arms don't fit into the gear and it makes her body position look way too unnatural. Compromises.

Cut out and move the front of the interior forward to clear he knees. I fee the legs look perfectly angled for some pedal controls to come.

 

 

I lowered the floor a little under a quarter of an inch so she didn't have to amputate/loose her feet too.

Shocker after cutting the landing gear doors off to close the bay... they don't fit either. Hopefully I can get them blocked off enough so a minimal ammount of filler will be required.

I have zero plans to any custom work on the exterior. Just want to detail up the insides using a few references (and some make believe.) Depending how it goes, I may try to led lighting effects, not that I'm very fond of them.

[MechTech]

@Big s Dah, you're right, it's Plamax! My mistake!

@Thom Sorry, Thom! I just realized I forgot to comment on your interior detailing! The details look realistic and BEAUTIFUL! It's too bad they won't be seen!

@Rock I'm glad you got her to fit in. The photo with the rod comming out of her belly is a bit disconcerting 😄 Your modes are looking good though! - MT

[Thom]

@Rock Sad to say, some model companies want to make us work rather than have fun with their kits!. You'd think that after decades of complaints, they'd at least have the gear doors match the opening, even if they are supposed to be posed open. It can't be that hard to do... Oh well, glad Mirage is seated now. For the gear doors, it may be easier to just make some new ones from sheet plastic.

@MechTech No problem! As for the detail, I new a lot would not be seen straight on, but when looking down through the cockpit glass and into the open back end, it makes it nice and busy.

 

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Thom

[Chronocidal]

5 hours ago, Thom said:

@Rock Sad to say, some model companies want to make us work rather than have fun with their kits!. You'd think that after decades of complaints, they'd at least have the gear doors match the opening, even if they are supposed to be posed open. It can't be that hard to do... Oh well, glad Mirage is seated now. For the gear doors, it may be easier to just make some new ones from sheet plastic.

As much as I will generally complain about gear doors not fitting the bay on almost every kit I built as a kid... I actually have a hard time faulting them in this case. 

Sure it would be nice.. but I mean.. it's just a nosecone.  How else are you going to display this?  And if you're actually going to make the effort to build the rest of the plane, I feel like making the gear doors fit are the least of your worries.  

[Darth Mingus]

On 9/12/2023 at 1:34 PM, Rock said:

Well they do have a posable, soon to be released Alto figure that may fit in one. The issue may also be that they clearly reused the vf-25f cockpit parts instead of designing new. A few extra leftover parts on the runner confirmed it. I expect the seats i. The anime are power adjustable like a car or something, but the model has the seat base moulded to the structure and the floor of the cockpit moulded to the backside of the landing gear bay!

You have to remenber they use ex gear cockpits, sadly the arms don't fit into the gear and it makes her body position look way too unnatural. Compromises.

I think I saw that the soon to be released Alto figure does not fit in the cockpit either and you will need to make some modifications to the seat in order to close the canopy.  Unfortunately, it looks like the cockpits were designed for looks, not to actually fit a "to scale" figure.

[505thAirborne]

So many great builds & customs, looking good everyone!! 

Here is my update with the Aoshima Ride Armor kit. Still a pain in the butt to assemble but once that part is done, painting is a bit easier. I'll just have to do a lot of masking on the parts. Once this baby has the decals on & a Flory's wash she should be looking really good in the end. 

I've learned quite a few things with this first attempt so that (fingers crossed) Yellow's Ride Armor should go much smoother.

 

[electric indigo]

Decal time. Did I mention that I love the SciFiness of the design?

[derex3592]

Cockpits look exactly like ALIENS Colonial Marines dropship.

[foundshaian]

The intakes and tail kind of look like it too

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, derex3592 said:

Cockpits look exactly like ALIENS Colonial Marines dropship.

1 hour ago, foundshaian said:

The intakes and tail kind of look like it too

Right? Just leave the rotors off and borrow a pair of VTOL engines from a 1/72 Osprey kit and you'd have a sci-fi craft!

[foundshaian]

Hey, do you guys know any places where I can get really thin styrene sheets? Very specifically under 0.5cm in thickness. Also, I've never used styrene before. can I get away with using tamiya ET to bond the styrene to plastic, or should I get a CA glue?

[Chas]

https://evergreenscalemodels.com/collections/plain-opaque-white-polystrene-sheets

Scroll down and look for the thickness you want. Most brick and motor hobby shops and model train shops will carry a variety of evergreen products or find an online shop that has what you want in stocks.

That Mospeada is looking pretty darned sweet 505th, and electric indigo I completely agree with you about that chopper! ( of course your modelling skills and great photography go a long way in swaying my opinion)

Just about done the assembly on this 1:3000 Hasegawa Creator Series Cordoba model from Crusher Joe. Definitely one of my favorite Kawamori designs!

Edited September 15, 2023 by Chas

[Big s]

6 hours ago, foundshaian said:

Hey, do you guys know any places where I can get really thin styrene sheets? Very specifically under 0.5cm in thickness. Also, I've never used styrene before. can I get away with using tamiya ET to bond the styrene to plastic, or should I get a CA glue?

Most places I’ve been to only offer thicker sheets. There were a few places that had it thinner online. Try train modeling shops, can’t remember which one I bought from.

Styrene or abs cement will definitely work better since it makes a nice melt. Depending on the project ca can just crack apart. I guess it depends on if it’s just making extra armor or if you’re completely scratch building parts, but either way I’d still suggest a styrene or abs cement.

[MechTech]

@505thAirborne Your Ride Armor is looking good! That kit is borderline cool and evil all at the same time!🤣 It is cool that it transforms, but building it and making the parts stay in place are the evil part😄 And yes, the accessories that go with it are ULTRA cool!

@electric indigo Great looking helo! It DOES look sci-fi! The Chinese have been trying hard to keep their military hardware futuristic looking. Gone are the days of Soviet era stuff they license built or copied (other than old stock still in use). They're definitely going for street credit and the intimidation factor.

@foundshaian When using the ultra thin styrene, go ultra easy with the cement too😉 It melts easily and will even crack if under pressure like being bent. The fast melt means it also produces more "goo" when applying pressure after gluing. It is a MUST have though for detailing, as your obviously doing. Its also cool because you can cut it on the Cricut machines and similar CNC devices like butter. I love it for all sorts of stuff.

@Chas That's one Cordoba that does NOT come with Corinthian leather😁! COOL looking model! I almost thought of getting it, even though I never saw the whole series. - MT

[foundshaian]

@ChasThanks heaps for the link, i guess i could of done a little more digging to find the actual evergreen site, but I'm happy anyways. And it's at a good price

@Big s and @MechTech Im attempting my first kitbashing/scratchbuilding project, but I would like to keep it a surprise, unless I make a mess of the kit. I'm just trying to fill in some spaces on custom parts, which at the moment, are 100%, slightly maluable bandai plastic. I realize i ask more questions than i do actually posting progress, but thanks for always helping out

[505thAirborne]

Thanks @MechTech, yep, she's not a very forgiving kit. I'm definitely going to do next time (What you're almost always supposed to do) which is pre-paint everything first, then assemble with most likely some touch painting to do. 

If you were going to paint Yellow's Ride Armor... what color/shade of Paint would you use, I'm assuming it's purple & not a dark blue. Suggestions welcome. 

[Chronocidal]

I might have slightly underestimated how big this model is going to be once I make the rest of it....  

The print failed on the smaller one due to missing some wall thickness in important places, but I think I'm going to make a new one in that size once I get a new ABS spool.  I'm debating how to give the wings a ratcheting rotation joint, and I might actually just embed some LEGO joints in the model.

Edit: Got the rest of the big fuselage printed, and fits decently, but going to take some filler.  Going to re-try the single-piece one overnight.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Chronocidal

[Thom]

@Chronocidal That print looks really good. But...

 

If I had to guess, it looks like the beginning of a Starfox Arwing (?)

[electric indigo]

@Chas the Cordoba is such a great design. Anything special planned for her? I always thought it would look great in a Chris Foss scheme.

[Chronocidal]

6 hours ago, Thom said:

If I had to guess, it looks like the beginning of a Starfox Arwing (?)

Right on the money! I had been working (very slowly) on a model of the version from Starfox 64 for a long time, but I went browsing printable models the other day, and found this one.  Immediately gave up my goal of making my own model, and decided the buy the completed one to print after I saw the author's video of assembly and features.

He made his mostly in liquid resin, so I've been modifying a few bits to make it more ABS-friendly, and it's not going badly, but the polygonal nature of the basic design is proving tricky to get solid structures.  I've had to thicken and rearrange some areas, since printing slicer software tends to have issues with perfectly sharp edges.  

The author goes by "nerdmakerengineer" and has some incredible models on his CGTrader profile, including a Tie Phantom from Rebel Assault II, and an insane X-Wing replica kit designed for 1/12 scale figures.

Seeing how this works, I might put a couple of my own designs up for sale/download.  I still have a few tweaks to make to my old printed Excalibur model, but I'm tempted to try and make a much larger version than my original.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Chronocidal

[Chas]

49 minutes ago, electric indigo said:

@Chas the Cordoba is such a great design. Anything special planned for her? I always thought it would look great in a Chris Foss scheme.

Nothing quite as 'out there' as Chris Foss' s colour schemes. The instructions call for an all over light gray, but I think I'm gonna do a 1:1 mix of flat aluminum and light gray with some dark gray details ant the standard yellow markings.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Chas

[electric indigo]

I used a glossy light grey shading over a Dark Sea Grey basecoat & Titanium Gold for the yellow bits. Aluminium sounds quite promising.

What worked surprisingly well is to fill all the little windows with white acylic.

[derex3592]

Very cool looking ships there!  Speaking of ships...I started the gun sub-assemblies for the Texas this morning, talk about eye strain jeeez...even with my magnifying glasses. I built one of each kind to prove to myself I could do it. This......might take a LONG time...LOL. Each gun is at least 2 parts, the quads have like 8 parts each, most with microscopic PE/plastic parts that are hard to hold with my best and smallest tweezers. The below took me over 2.5 hours to do...I have to make FORTY TWO of the single 50 cals, and I think eight and twelve of the the others..Lord help me..

[MechTech]

@foundshaian Don't worry about questions! As long as you're having fun (and learning new skills), that's what's important!

@505thAirborne When I got that kit (the first time), it was the GoBots Cykill. It was a model, so I looked at the construction photos just for the heck of it. I was like, "Hey, that's Mospeada!" I was bummed that it was Yellow's, of course (I wanted Scott's with the missiles). I messed it up bad even using rattle can paints - just because of the wear and tear on the parts movement. I like the colors you have!

@Chronocidal Looking GOOD! Especially for ABS printing.

@derex3592 Sorry for all the tedious steps, but your work looks NICE n CLEAN, epsecially with the PE parts gluing. - MT

[Chas]

A quick shot with tha base coat down and most of the detail paint done most of the markings (yellow and red) have decals. I'll give them a try, but I don't have a lot of confidence that they will turn out. If my fears are correct I'll have to do them with a brush.

[wm cheng]

@electric indigo Wow, love the design of that Helicopter - don't know it, what is it again?  Great job on it as usual especially in 1/72 scale!

@Chas Gorgeous clean build, love that ship too.  Any plans on weathering or finishing ideas?

@derex3592  That's amazing, what scale is that again?  Hard to tell how tiny they are without some reference

@Chronocidal Cool 3D print, what is it that you're printing?  Is it your design?

[derex3592]

@wm cheng - 1/350

[Chas]

1 hour ago, wm cheng said:

 

@Chas Gorgeous clean build, love that ship too.  Any plans on weathering or finishing ideas?

No plans to do any weathering right now. Struggling to rescribe some of these ultra fine panel lines before I do the clear coat, panel lining, and decals.

Pretty much resigned to losing a lot of the smaller shapes on the surface. The lines are just too fine, and have rounded corners - always had trouble rescribing rounded shapes.

 

[Chronocidal]

2 hours ago, wm cheng said:

@Chronocidal Cool 3D print, what is it that you're printing?  Is it your design?

Not mine, an artist essentially gave the ship in Starfox 64 the HD treatment.  They extracted the in-game model (all 200 polygons or so of it, given it's a 1995-ish design), then rebuilt it into a kit using box art and publicity renders as a reference.

Essentially took this:

Extrapolated the details from this:

And turned it into this.  

I'm going to eventually print the whole large model, which has linked swing wings, and several optional parts attached with magnets, but for the moment I'm more focused on a more manageable model that's about 60% of that size, and without some of the fancier features.  I still want to make the wings swing though.

The nerd in me seriously wants to build a stand that mounts into the engine, and will slowly roll the model while playing the menu music.  

[Thom]

@Chas The Cordoba's design is so cool! Blunt, powerful and bristling with weapons. Yours is looking great!

@derex3592 You think that's small, you should watch some watch repair videos on youtube. Talk about tiny parts! But at least they are not all PE, as that would be a real nightmare! As for so much time for each gun, there's a reason why ship models take so long. Some real nice work.

@Chronocidal The Arwing looks like it would fit just naturally into Star Wars as a snub fighter! All praise for the guy who transferred it into 3D, and to you for tackling it! Can't wait to see more of it.

As for me, I finally finished the Haruna. She'd been sitting sadly on a shelf, incomplete for about five or so years...

I used some misc decals to make the landing deck behind the tower, and yes I inadvertently made an RAF roundell in the center...

The story behind it is that after the Earth/Garmillas war in 2199, Earth found a few abandoned ships in the Sol System, one of them being this Gaideral class battleship. After reverse engineering it and testing it against UNCN ships the choice was either to use it for target practice, or refurbish it. The latter choice was taken and she was regunned, reengined and given a new command tower, and commissioned into the Cosmo Navy as the Haruna.

At some point, I think I'll give it some newer turrets off of a Dreadnought.

And in formation with the Kirishima (red) and Murasame (blue).

 

Thom

[Froy]

7 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Not mine, an artist essentially gave the ship in Starfox 64 the HD treatment.  They extracted the in-game model (all 200 polygons or so of it, given it's a 1995-ish design), then rebuilt it into a kit using box art and publicity renders as a reference.

Essentially took this:

Extrapolated the details from this:

And turned it into this.  

I'm going to eventually print the whole large model, which has linked swing wings, and several optional parts attached with magnets, but for the moment I'm more focused on a more manageable model that's about 60% of that size, and without some of the fancier features.  I still want to make the wings swing though.

The nerd in me seriously wants to build a stand that mounts into the engine, and will slowly roll the model while playing the menu music.  

Woah! That's so cool. It really takes me back to my N64 gamer days.

[pengbuzz]

On 9/16/2023 at 6:43 PM, MechTech said:

When I got that kit (the first time), it was the GoBots Cykill. It was a model, so I looked at the construction photos just for the heck of it. I was like, "Hey, that's Mospeada!" I was bummed that it was Yellow's, of course (I wanted Scott's with the missiles). I messed it up bad even using rattle can paints - just because of the wear and tear on the parts movement. I like the colors you have!

Yeah, I wanted to do  that Cy-Kill kit, but never had the money/ opportunity. Were I to do it now, the rider figure would be replaced with a pre-made scale retail one. I would also replace the kit joints with ones from regular transformers toys; both of these, since I have an inherent distrust of joints made from styrene.

Also someday: would love another shot at a Gobots Leader-1/ Mospeada Leigoss. Last oen I built was when I was a wee little pengbuzz...

Spoiler

...and it fell apart and broke in a week.

 

[MechTech]

@Chas She's looking good!

@Thom's getting the band back together!😁 Nice-n-clean finish too!

@pengbuzz I love the design of the Mospeada models! Being actual transformer models vs partsformers was AWESOME! They also were delicate because of the styrene too😉 At least they had a couple of metal parts. - MT