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VF-1 Valkyrie Booster Project 1/72


robokochan

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A very quick update...

Just a few teaser pics of my chosen paint scheme for the buildup Valk + Booster.

I've looked at Valkyries done up in a multitude of schemes, ranging from the original colors, to Minmay guard, to digital camo, and everything in between. While all these schemes are nice, in my mind, they didn't really convey the realism that I wanted to portray in my model. I simply wanted to make a Valk look as though it could be real, with real-world weathering. Essentially, to allow it to leap from the world of fiction, to looking almost feasible.

The results are below.

post-3-1094330145_thumb.jpg

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THe paint scheme was borrowed from current F-14 fighters, modified to still use the "Skull squadron" motif... But rendered with tactical greys au lieu of the usual black/white. Like the F-14, the VF-1 is a very complex aircraft, and in thus, would probably require a significant amount of maintenance; resulting in ground crew climbing all over the aircraft with dirty boots and greasy hands. This was actually quite easy to render with chalk pastels.

Though it's hard to see, I also adorned a lot of the little acess panels with paint touch-ups, which are also common on current fighter aircraft. The impressive part is not that I was able to make paint touch-ups that small with an airbrush, but the fact that I was able to do them with a broken one( I litteraly had to re-solder the main body of my 'brush!) that also had a severely bent needle!

post-3-1094330835_thumb.jpg

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Wow John, That valk is looking great! :D I really like the grey scheme and especially the grey kite symbol. It's great fun to watch your progress on the model. BTW, the pilot is on his way to his new duty station and should arrive in a few days! B))

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Well....as Im the one slowing things down now I wanted to post a quick update. I got the parts...and man...wow..amazing work. John was nice enough to send on nice directions for some molds and completed molds for some of the kit.

(As an aside...I would like to publically thank John Mosacato. As MacrossWorld members go (and just humans in general) he is really an amazing person. About a year ago now John started nicely offering tips and advice on my casting. Little things at first...bigger things later. Always incredibly understanding Johns patience and help has opened new avenues and new successes up for my casting all with his time and knowledge. John didn't have to do this...and I wanted ot publically say thank since he did)

So...all the pieces are pouring now. In addition I made new molds for all the smaller pieces and will be making new masters for the entire kit to hopefully speed this process up (pour more then 1 kit at a time or at least 1 kit at a time)

The last molds I need to do are more engine thruster molds. The first new one is curing now, and hopefully I will pour masters of it and all the parts tonight. More mold material is one the way for the extra engine molds I need to do and then I should be ramped up.

What I finished last night were the first molds for the fuselage. These were the only molds I did not have...though John nicely wrote instructions. I took his ideas and tried to make the molds...but unfortunatly I seemed to be cursed on Saturday.. Nothing worked just right...in the end...after wasting about $100 in mold material, wrecking some clothes, and getting resins in my eyes and hair I did finally get some molds done. Bad news, they wont last as long as I would have liked, but good news is they work. Ill make new fuselage masters tonight and start making kit Fuselages tomorrow. Im particarly pleased that I was able to keep all seam lines away from the outer surface. So...while it looks like sanding will be a minimum anyways...it will also be easy as you wont be re-etching lines.

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another shot of the other 1/2...no dew this time!

booster5.jpg

NOte...there is a thin spot behing the engine...Im no sure why that happend...it is fairly thin on the original...and could just be generational shrinkage, but seems odd...Im going to mess around with it...good news is it is invisible when the pieces are put together.

Anyways...Im very pleased with the details on the casting...hope you agree (and remember..these are test casts...so after some venting changes this should be even better. Thanks to John for the instruction...and to Rob for including me.

Cheers!

Edited by Myersjessee
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Hi Jesse!

Your castings look absolutely FANTASTIC!!! :) I'm glad that things finally worked out after those first little mishaps, and I dare say that everyone wil benefit from these clean castings in the form of minimal cleanup. Truly first rate work, kudos!

Hopefully I'll have pics of my own (almost completed) booster by next weekend; I just realised that I never truly posted any "finished" shots of the booster with all the nozzles attached. In the meantime, here are a couple more teaser pics of the Painted-up Valk... As you can see, I like my planes dirty B))

post-3-1094504255_thumb.jpg

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