Macross Group Build 2010 - 2011

Cosmic J

I was just searching through HLJ's Macross section, and they had the Bandai 1/72 kits listed for pre-orders. Looks like they're going to re-pop the Regult, The Defender, the Spartan and the Monster (in 1/200). 

I checked out the HLJ listings as soon as I read this.  While I did end up paying more than the reissue price for the Monsters I have, I managed to keep the price close enough to avoid the grumpiness that would've been there if I paid the common $100-$150 collector's price I've usually seen ( the one I've started on was marked down drastically for a few pieces being removed from the sprue, the other was part of a lot  ).

While I'm considering the 1:72 Regult, I think I'll pass on the other re-issues in that scale.  Based on my experience with their VF-0 battloids, I'm willing to accept Wave's prices for the added detail and accuracy.

As far as WIP pics, I've had some issues with my camera but will be posting updates on this and the Battlemaster in the SF section very soon.  I did get the mess in the Glaug's toes fixed and the first subassemblies of the Monster are in the putty/sanding stage.  I haven't forgotten about the RVF-25 or Queadlunn, but I'm finishing a few other projects while figuring out a few things for those kits.

Hi guys,

Just to keep this thread moving, even though it's not listed as one of my submissions, here's the troublesome little 1/170 scale VF-1S Armoured Battroid mentioned several posts ago.

This little fella is all of about 3.5" tall. It's essentially the same kit as TD's Armoured VF-1A several pages back, except it has a "-S" head. Due to the small size, simplified moulding and odd shapes, masking this little beast was a challenge.

Whas Up Fellas, did you miss me yet, LOL.  Have not posted for awhile and I know it ain't the same with all my ranting going on.  Been busy with some other projects.  Any ho, I am finishing up and hope to post the progress on the Gerwalk VF-1D.  Wow, some of you are working on putty monsters, as for putty, Phil I saw your reply to the Tamiya putty.  I @ one time would not use any other putty but Squadron Green Stuff, then like everything bad for us, they changed it to be politically correct.  I still will use if I have no other putty, but I use Tamiya all the time.  Reminds me of the ole Sqdn type.  Now if'n you need to build up area w/a whole heep of putty, go to your local auto body shop/paint store and get you a big fat tube of spot glazing putty, you will never use it up, the stuff is great to work with and sands smooth as a baby's butt.  Testors also markets the stuff when you can find in a large red tube, the only bad thing about it is, the oil that is apart of the putty wants to seep up to the top and you just get a glop of it and not putty, but pretty close to what I suggested.

Mad-Modeler

You mean the tube of Basic Putty or their Epoxy one?

Both are still available but some countries made importing them tougher same for many paints, etc now.

Meh, my memory must be playing tricks on me. For some reason I thought that Tamiya had swirched to grey caps for the basic putty. I don't actually use Tamiya's putty (well, not until I popped an old tube thats been sitting there since the late 90's a couple of days ago)so I haven't actually bought a tube in years. Then I realised why I hadn't seen the orange caps lately - they're in a box now, but the last one I bought was a bare tube.

We have both types of putty (the tube and the epoxy) here in Australia, but the tube putty costs about the same as Squadron putty here (both around the $10.00 (AUD) mark). I just ordered a couple of tubes from LuckyModel for about $2.50 each...

Hmmm.... I think I want a Monster kit to build.....

Really liking that build Cabecar. The fella on the right has a nice pose, not as stiff as I thought that kit might be. Good work.

I was just searching through HLJ's Macross section, and they had the Bandai 1/72 kits listed for pre-orders. Looks like they're going to re-pop the Regult, The Defender, the Spartan and the Monster (in 1/200). 

That made me very happy, and I may have to add another kit to this GB.

You mean the tube of Basic Putty or their Epoxy one?

Both are still available but some countries made importing them tougher same for many paints, etc now.

Getting hit with many work requests and build commissions now. Still working on the kits but slow and not much progress. Also need to buy more supplies, etc.

Most likely will do a mass-update as I like to combineinting with the same colour over builds, etc.

So future updates will cover multiple builds for th GB.

hey, thanks.

yep, it is a "old" tamiya putty tube, but its not that old, i brought that tube like 8 or 9 months ago, from www.luckymodels.com

Hope to have more advances soon.

Hey Cabecar,

You're making good progress there.

Is that an old tube of Tamiya putty I see? I haven't seen the "orange cap" putty for more than 5 years.

Hi!

Some advances:

The last 2 pics aare just to compare, the Hikaru's VF-1J still is not finish, need some re-paint parts and some decals too, and some watering works.

Thanks for watching.

Hey guys, thanks for the comments. The more I look at this kit, the more frustrating it is to see more that's missing or just wrong.

The main gun booms are missing the semi-circular cutouts - this is a bit beyond my abilities and so will remain as-is.  The main guns are designed to swivel down to a forward firing position, but there are turrets on the booms which will, if left in position, rest on the "shoulders" and stop the guns from lowering all the way to that familiar "fully flat" position. The ship arms lack elbows, so you cannot pose them in that iconic "facing forwards" position.

But it is what it is and I'll see what I can do with it.

CJ. I got the exact same bonus decal sheet when  ordered a VF-1 about the same time you ordered your YF-19.

No problem. I'm looking forward to to seeing how yours turns out.

The head laser is actually pretty much a constant in macross, with much variance in their power and rate of fire.   

As it stands I probably won't make much progress for a while, I'll be filing down those seems and vents on my 1/170. It took a good look at the Battlroid line art to notice that the vents are recessed when closed.

Thank you Scott A. Those clips and links were very useful.

I like the idea of a very light tan - I think it would be more visualy interesting that pure white. Plus, painting pure white can be a pain in so many ways...

The clip shows that the antenna looking thing on the back is actually a gun. That's kinda cool.

I think Hasa actaully went a little too light on the box images atleast for the 1/48. It appeared more tan during the show itself, atleast for most of the show. Thats one of those things about animation they really play with the colours alot to allow them to fit in with the enviroment, the show goes through multiple enviorments so they were a little loose at times.

http://www.macross2.net/m3/macrossplus/yf-19.htm

This has alot of the action from later episodes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRWa1rn_RWI&feature=related

As for those decals, I think that they are for the VF-25S (Ozuma Lee) and Ironically enough she is the oldest of charaters Featured in the Macross Frontier Decal sets, at 21 or 22.

Aaah, Japanese Cheesecake decals, great to make an Ita-hikoki.

Enjoy the build.

Wow, you guys are doing some great work in here. I really like what you did w/ the SDF engine nozzles Phil. That's quality work right there, especially for as tiny as they are. I salute you. It's not a stretch to imagine you'll have to do lots of little improvements on that particular kit.

I'm ashamed to say that this is as far as I've gotten:

Kit looks pretty good in the box, and HLJ sent me a nice set of decals for free. Unfortunately, I think they're for the Gamma Nora. Plus, gaudy.

I don't know about you guys, but I get kinda creeped out by the way the Japanese hyper-sexualise young girls. I can't imagine using most of these decals, except for the cow skull thingies. Those are kinda cool.

The plastic is molded in a light cream color, and the paint instructions seem to say that a light tan w/ dark brown striping is the correct color scheme. However, the box shows the kit in a more conventional white and black. Anybody know what colors are correct, or maybe link me to an image from the show?

Yes, I knew you could do it..  A little imagination and a bit of elbow grease, and look @ what U did!  Looks great and if this is what  you can do, this should be interesting to say the least.

Ok, well I would have been happy enough to leave things as-is because I had really planned to build this more or less out of the box. After thinking about it though it's probably the only time I'm going to build this, so I may as well do the best I can with it.

So....

Before:

After:

It's amazing what you can do with bits of styrene. The most frustration came from the engine nozzles, as I didn't have any styrene tube handy.  I tried a number of times to soften some styrene sheet and plunge-,mould over a number of different forms, including pen points, brass tubing etc. but I couldn't get the consistency that I wanted.  What I ended up using came from an unusual source - beading supplies. I believe they're bead spacers, but they were about the right size and shape, 

BTW: this is about 12mm x 12mm square

Slight gap to fill and it should be just about done.

Niced work Cebecar.

Not been able to touch much plastic now as I got a few local contracts ongoing(which are at night).

Explanation:

Quit my main-job a few years ago and now rely on my 37+yrs of MA to make a living giving lessons, Rape counseling, working with NPO, etc.

Brings in a fair amount but the real cash comes from contracts where I supply security for clients due to my military and MA background. Hence the trips overseas as I need to go where my clients go. Usually work in a team and I do most of the organisation, etc.

Nothing flashy mostly boring and a slog.

Hi!

I started the Hasegawa 1/72 VF-1J TV version MAX type Battroid.

Here are some pics, I will try to post a few more tomorrow :)

Cut it smaller than needed than use needle  or riffler files to enlarge slowly to desired size.

Gunpla Master

Well, then you know what to do then

My scratchbuilding skills are pretty meagre, but I shall see what I can whip up. My biggest issue will be cutting an appropriate hole, something I've not done before.

Well, then you know what to do then

NOT HAPPY...

I have glued exactly two parts together of the SDF-1 kit and already run into a problem.

I should have checked my references first, but after gluing the two centre-body parts together, I realised that where there is a nice flat panel on the rear of the body as seen here (above the hole):

there should actually be an engine cluster, not represented in the kit.

I have three options:
1: do nothing
2: Scratch up an engine cluster and glue it on top
3: (2) above and cut out a suitable hole and recess it (as it should be)

I can guess which option you guys are going to suggest...

The two "body" halves also incorporate the bridge unit, which is crying out for more detail.

I have some ideas for this, but that will come later.

The 1/170 VF-1D battroid I posted a few pages back didn't even have any suggestion of the intakes, let alone the shutters. I just masked roughly where they were and painterd them in.

Scott.

Those old 170 don't seem to have heard about fitting. As was said remove careful and you might need to rescribe some of that detail.

Alternatively you  could sand it all smooth and rebuild the detail with thin plastic-stock.

Scott_A

 Its been going alright I guess but you all weren't kidding about the seems, most of them I can sand out but the intake vents on the 1/170 1S have turned out brutal. I'm not sure how i'm going to fix the ridge without destroying the vent detail. Any suggestions?

Hey Scott,

Hmm, that is indeed a nasty seam. Sorry, I don't have any specific suggestions apart from taking your time and doing a lot of scraping, filing and sanding.

These 1/170 kits were designed to be snapped together in minutes and riequire a lbit of work to make them look presentable.

Will have  pics in a few hours

Ripped open the VF-1S kits and started a test assembly of both.

The Kits are nice with fairly few parts but very good detail level, they are snap-kits so test-fitting is easy.

Not that they need it.

Using Poly-caps the kits are modular and thus can be displayed as Fighter, Battroid or the Gerwalk.

Fighter comes with a small display base and the Battroid has a new arm to display the Robot. 

Will take a few shots of the Kits with the Chainbases.

Overall impression so far. Very high quality kits with high detail level and near perfect fit(98%).

True Shake n Bake Kits.

[edit]

Here are some pics that were taken in the wee hour of the morning. Thus the shaky hand, etc.

http://s996.photobucket.com/albums/af84/Mad-Modeler/VF-1S/

[/edit]

I guess I should start actaually posing my WIPs

I've started with my ARII 1/170 VF-1S and the 1/72 Bandai VF-1J. I'm holding off the Hasa VF-0S for later.

1

2

Its been going alright I guess but you all weren't kidding about the seems, most of them I can sand out but the intake vents on the 1/170 1S have turned out brutal. I'm not sure how i'm going to fix the ridge without destroying the vent detail. Any suggestions?

LOL - the box has been open for many years, but the parts had remained bagged until today. That $250 listing was the extreme end (the guy must be dreaming) - I'm sure I've seen it listed around the $20 range.

Somewhere in the stash there's about 7 or 8 Revell boxed transformable VF-1's, some still in original shrinkwrap, which have been there since the mid-80's. One of these may sneak out and find its way into this GB too.   I've seen these listed at crazy prices too - must be the "R" name, cos the Bandai pressings are still available pretty cheaply.  

Sorry to hear of your loss Mad-Modeler, we all have been there, lets just hope it was painless.  I hate to get to the decaling and have the decals go South.  I have about every type solution you can legally purchase and there is 2 brands I use the most.  Micro system and Mr. Hobby (Gunze) system.  For thick or decals that do not stick well, Mr. Hobby.  For thin dante decals, Micro.  A slick finish is a must, Future and or vallego varnish of which I use alot of.  Just as Phil brought out, decals that come apart Micro Liqd Decal Film.  Heck on 20 year old decals, this is a must.

Kugai, Phil H is spot on again, Tamiya XF-57, and the toning down is a great idea to get a closer tint.

Phil H great to see you crack open that box, giving the current rate for purchase as priced by that great model resource price list called eBay, I know my hands would have been shaky and a giddy feeling as if a child getting away with something.  Com'on, you remember that!   Love the kit and as we all know, a 25 year old kit is going to be a challenge.  As for the scratch marks, old Revel kits were notorious for this, especially if from overseas.  I think the mind set was, these models were directed @ kids and not a lot of refinements was put into the process of molding.  But again, if it were easy!  Looking forward to this build Phil.

Cablecar, you got some cool stuff there buddy, that's about a years worth of building for me.  I really like the VF-1J/A.  Thats a future purchase for me for sure.

Great, alot of communication and builds going, now that is what a GB is about.  Sadly, no work today for me.  PSL tickets to go watch Carolina play Cininnati.  I live 30 mins from the Stadium and about 45 mins from CMS, will be there next month.  Nothing can be finer, than to be in Carolina in the morning!

And a Fine Farwell to Ya  all, or as my ole Gran Mammy use to say, catch ya on the flip side.