IHP VB-6 Koenig Monster Re-cast Project

[Valkyrie]

Actually, I have answers. Me, and soon

I got an email tonight from the owner, and it looks like he will be mailing the kit out on monday.

A 'Count me in' thread, as you put it, sounds good to me. Just don't add the D'Stance to it. He doesn't have one

[Chindenathus]

A 'Count me in' thread, as you put it, sounds good to me. Just don't add the D'Stance to it. He doesn't have one

Hopefully we can find one of those someday as well and spread the love.

But I'm not holding my breath.

So what kind of loose timeframe are we looking at here?

And when would we need to cough up da' change?

My thoughts on this as follows.

Payment sequence:

Step 1: Final price for Kit:A and Kit:B are announced.

Step 2: All of those on the list send in 20% of their final order cost to confirm the order and defray start up expenses, also to allow the Consortium's membership to save up the capital to pay for the requested product.

Step 3: The first run of production is achieved so that each member on the list has

one of each of the ordered items (as was requested).

At this point all interested parties will send in no less than the remaining 80% of the cost for the first wave of items ordered.

This insures all interested parties receive a minimum of one of each kit requested, this staggering of distribution also insures against mishap and time for the manufacturing parties to rest and refresh supplies and have more accessable capital to produce.

This also allows the buying membership more time to generate and/or allocate capital for the next wave of production.

Lastly this also allows the membership to request additional units beyond initial orders as capital becomes available.

Step 4: Each successive wave is produced until the manufacturing parties wish to end the venture or interest has waned to the point of practical termination of the venture.

Just a thought.

Edited March 12, 2004 by Chindenathus

[Anasazi37]

I don't know how I completely missed this thread. Guess I'm the perfect candidate for a long ride on the short bus. ChrisB was kind enough to clue me in. This sounds like an awesome project!

I'd be happy to help out with the decal side of things. The original decals do look pretty spartan, but I can fix that. For example, I could toss in a few sets of 0-9 at different scales for custom numbering and I know there's a bunch of kickass artwork in the old Macross Hobby Handbook that would make for great custom markings. If we can scrape together any lineart or screen captures that feature the Monster, I could pull some stuff from those, too.

As several of you have already guessed, I'll definitely need access to the kit when making the decals to ensure proper fitting, etc. I have an efficient system now, so it should go pretty fast.

I'll try to check in on this thread as often as possible, but if someone can keep me in the loop via PM that would be greatly appreciated.

[Less than Super Ostrich]

For those of you who don't know Anasazi37, he makes EXCELLENT decals. I've bought some from him before for the 1/48 Yamatos and they have been wonderful. I highly suggest him for the decal project.

[Anasazi37]

Here's all of the artwork from the Macross Hobby Handbook. Most of it could be used to dress up a Monster. There's also a TON of WWII-era aviation artwork out there that we could "appropriate" for this project.

[Valkyrie]

Great to have you on board, Anasazi!

As soon as I'm able, I'll get you a kit cast from my clean-up molds (as I've taken to calling them), so you can get going on the decals while I clean up casts and make final molds.

I was going over my VF-X2 art book the other day, and I didn't see a lot of decals which obviously need to be added. But there are at least a few. And also, the red 'eye' decals included with the kit are incorrect. The inside part of the eyes should be white.

And by the way, there looks to be at least two different VB-6 paint schemes in VF-X2! One in the game, the other in the opening movie.

[ChristopherB]

Less than Super Ostrich,

It's cool of you to also recommend Anasazi37, and I completely agree with your sentiments, but let's be honest here, there is no competition, because I personally do not know of anyone else here at MW or elsewhere that could make the decals for this kit, and do half as good of a job as he will. I know you weren't implying that anyone else should be considered, and you were just lending your support.

Et al,

Valkyrie will recast the kit, so that matter is settled. Congratulations to him by the way.

Devin will make the decals for the VB-6, and if someone wants to get their decals from another source they are welcome to, but I know that the majority of people will want his decals included with their kit.

If you would prefer another person make the decals for your specific kit, feel free to contract with them and pay their fees.

Devin,

Thank you for agreeing to take on this project. I officially volunteer my VB-6 recast for you to use when you make the decals. I'll have Ken (Valkyrie) mail it straight to you. Of course you'll need to get it as soon as possible so you can finish the decals to be included with the other kits that are sold.

Best wishes to everyone.

Sincerely,

Christopher

[Anasazi37]

Great to have you on board, Anasazi!

As soon as I'm able, I'll get you a kit cast from my clean-up molds (as I've taken to calling them), so you can get going on the decals while I clean up casts and make final molds.

I was going over my VF-X2 art book the other day, and I didn't see a lot of decals which obviously need to be added. But there are at least a few. And also, the red 'eye' decals included with the kit are incorrect. The inside part of the eyes should be white.

And by the way, there looks to be at least two different VB-6 paint schemes in VF-X2! One in the game, the other in the opening movie.

Will I get to keep the kit you send? Seriously, though, I'd be willing to do the work in exchange for one of the final kits. I couldn't justify the expense of purchasing an original when they came out. If my design work ends up costing less than the price of a kit, I'd be more than willing to pay the difference. I have no idea when I might get around to building this behemoth, but that's besides the point. It can keep my unbuilt Blackaces recast USV and Tanmen models company.

My guesstimate is that the "stock" decals probably won't take up more than a half sheet, which would cost approximately $10 or less to produce. If we start throwing in numbers and custom markings, we're looking at closer to a full sheet ($20) per kit.

I don't have access to either the VF-X2 art book or the game, so at some point I'll need someone to email me scans, screen captures, etc.

[Anasazi37]

I officially volunteer my VB-6 recast for you to use when you make the decals. I'll have Ken (Valkyrie) mail it straight to you. Of course you'll need to get it as soon as possible so you can finish the decals to be included with the other kits that are sold.

I don't need a pristine kit to make the decals, so if Valkyrie can get me one of his "cleanup" casts that should be great. While he's casting the final pieces I can be designing the decals. The last thing I want to do is hold up the distribution of these kits. Your offer is greatly appreciated, though.

[ChristopherB]

Devin,

I understand what you mean about getting a kit as quickly as possible so the project can move forward.

We'll get it figured out.

I really like the noseart you posted above. If you could include those, as well as any others you find that are fitting, that will be cool.

Everyone else,

Please make sure you contact me so I can add your name to the list of people who have confirmed their interest in the VB-6 Koenig Monster, if you haven't already.

Sincerely,

Christopher

[Neova]

Did we all settle on the box art yet? I have access to a full blown print shop here with world class color seperation and pre and post processing to pump out a bunch of artwork for a good price. The minimum orders is at 100 sheets for 4 color seperated work at A4 size or any size for that matter. Most shops have minimums at 1000 or more.

I can help on this. I'm working a much larger size project right now and can check into this for us.

BTW: This offer is good for anybody looking to have lots of box art printed out. I just don't know where to source the boxes.

PS: If you want POSTERS of the artwork, let me know as that's a specialty of the shop.

Edited March 17, 2004 by Neova

[Valkyrie]

Nope, we're still far from having a final box art.

There's a contest thread pinned in the Fan Works forum, but it hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention so far

[Neova]

If our custom art contest is a bust, I can still turn out near original or better artwork with scans from the original box (colored vesions). We will have to decide if we wish to limit the production run to keep the original artists happy.

For B/W, we can just xerox those.

[trueblueeyes]

Nope, we're still far from having a final box art. 

There's a contest thread pinned in the Fan Works forum, but it hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention so far

I'm afraid Valkyrie is right. Check the thread out here: Koenig Monster Box Art Contest. Hopefully we'll start getting submissions before I'm forced to start drawing stick figures! Any suggestions to get this contest off the ground are welcome!

Melissa

And FWIW, I believe Valkyrie indicated he didn't just simply want to do scans and copy the original artwork. (to distinguish the re-cast and prevent scalping on

e-bay and other sites) So someone *please* help out with suggestions or submissions.

Edited March 17, 2004 by trueblueeyes

[Angel's Fury]

I have late breaking news about the Official VF-4 Order Thread. Be sure to click the link to find out.

[Valkyrie]

Quick update; As of tuesday, the monster is on its way!

According to UPS, I should have it on monday. Expect a thorough review and project analysis monday night

[Angel's Fury]

Quick update; As of tuesday, the monster is on its way!

According to UPS, I should have it on monday. Expect a thorough review and project analysis monday night

Hurray!!!!!! I'm gonna really, really look forward to that!!!

[ChristopherB]

Ken,

Sounds great, I know a lot of us will be looking forward to your review and analysis.

Best wishes and good luck!

Sincerely,

Christopher

[Neova]

nm...

Edited March 24, 2004 by Neova

[Valkyrie]

Well, I finally got the kit. And it was well worth the wait. Now, as promised, a bit of a review and project analysis;

For the time being, I can't comment much on the parts' fit, transformation, etc, since that would involve cutting up the original quite a bit. And it's my goal to keep it unaltered as much as possible. That'll have to wait until the first set of molds is finished, and I have some of my own casts I can mess around with.

First of all, the sculpt looks really good! There's evidence that some of the parts were CNC machined, and based on the all-CG instructions, I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of the kit was, at the very least, roughed out with a CNC machine. That's a very good thing, as it all but guarantees good symmetry.

The casting job is better than I expected in some ways, and worse in others. It's better in that most of the flash is nothing too significant. But it's worse in that the molds were obviously damaged in many places.

This pic shows the worst of the flash problems. He managed to F something up pretty good there, but i have no idea what...

Now, transformable kits like this require you to drill holes in many locations. The parts will have the hole starter holes for you, maybe 1mm deep. Just enough to show you where to start drilling, and keep your hole centered.

Now, a little moldmaking background. Those starter holes show up in the molds' surfaces as the exact opposite - small, cylindrical rubber pegs. Raised details like that are the first to get damaged when the molds start deteriorating. The rubber starts becoming brittle, and the details begin breaking off. And whenever a piece of rubber breaks off, solid resin of the same shape will take its place in every casting made from that mold from that point on.

That's what happened with a LOT of those starter holes on the kit. And most of them weren’t clean breaks, as the starter holes have been replaced with raised blobs of resin where the holes should be. That makes things hard, because now the center points of those holes aren't as clearly defined. But, of course, I'll be repairing all of them.

Here's one example of what I'm talking about:

Here, a cavity to house a nut was partially filled in when its mold was damaged

A damaged mold royally screwed up the nose in the same way as the starter holes, only much worse. The nose has 8 small vernier nozzles on it, and EVERY ONE of them is filled solid with a mass of resin. There's no good way to repair them. I'll have to drill out the nozzles from their ports and replace them with Wave parts or something. Hopefully I already have the same parts IHP used. In any case, the nose promises to be a huge pain in my ass >_<

Lastly, there are quite a few more air bubbles in the casts than I had anticipated. But most of them lie underneath a very thin skin of resin, so I'm hoping that'll minimize how much the little ones show up in molds. But with the bigger ones, they'll be needing a good deal of repair work no matter what.

But I did find one thing that's going to make the project a bit easier than I expected. About half of the kit's parts are duplicates. For example, the two feet are the exact same part - they're not mirrored. Because of that, I'll only have to make clean-up molds for ~50 parts instead of ~100. That'll save me some time and money. But I'll have to make two of each of those molds for the final molds. Because if I only made one of each, they would have half the life of the rest of the molds, because I'd have to cast from them twice as often.

Here's pics of all the parts I've found so far that are duplicates.

With the help of Fulcy, I've found all the screws needed at McMaster-Carr. A couple of them aren't EXACTLY what the instructions call for. But they're pretty damn close, so they should be fine. The cost for one kit's worth of screws looks to be about $10, which is just about what I was anticipating. And yes, they'll be included with the kit for no extra cost.

I've got some concerns about the strength of the joints. There are no Wave or Kotobukiya joints used at all. It's just screws. 124 of them by my count, and only 14 nuts. That means the majority of them will be screwing directly into resin. I'm worried that the resin stripping out over time.

So I'm toying with a few ideas that'd make it stronger. Among them are switching to a denser resin. Some experimenting will be necessary, but I'll make it as strong as I possibly can.

The tentative price remains at $250. It may end up being a bit less, but it definitely won't be more.

Well, that's about all I can think of. If you've got any questions about the kit or the project (no questions about ordering details here, please), ask away.

I shall begin making molds tonight, and I shall also be opening up pre-orders tonight. I'll probably only be taking 4 or 5 pre-orders, with $100 pre-payment. In return, you'll be guaranteed one of the first kits cast from the molds, plus another special, mystery bonus

They'll be first come, first served. So if you wanna get in on it, watch for it!

[Angel's Fury]

That was a great read Valkyrie!

[Less than Super Ostrich]

i'm considering forgoing the transformation and making it permanent in one mode. I think the quality of the joints may limit how many times someone can transform it anyway. I figure that the paint job could be screwed up as well.

[Vermillion One]

Great review, good luck with the clean up and casting.

[Gundamhead]

I'm surprised the kit is so rough.

[Valkyrie]

Well, the owner did say he probably got one of the last kits from IHP's molds. And I suspect he's correct.

But it's not a big deal, really. Overall, the casts are pretty solid, actually. There's lots of air bubbles, many starter holes are fubared, and the nose nozzles are all kinds of F'ed up. But it's not like there's tons of flash, making the parts thicker than they should be. Or worse yet, misaligned mold seams that are almost impossible to correct.

I suspect it'll take a lot of work to fix all the kit's problems, but it'll clean up really nice. The final kit will look like this great kit should have always looked

Whoever did IHP's molds on this one seems to have used a rather... chaotic moldmaking technique, but it seems to me he knew his stuff. It takes skill to be able to cast like that and not have tons of flash and misalignments.