MickyG's Yamato VF-1S Unpainted, Unassembled Kit Build

[Valkyrie addict]

I totally get you on having plans but no time, I have 3 project half way done waiting for me to get enough time to finish plus any new ideas that you suddenly come up with and jump at it inmediately.

From what I've seen, most aircraft intakes are white, don't know why? maybe it's the way it comes from the factory. Here are some shots of an F-18E, F-14 and F-16.

Again, awesomeeee scheme, I'm a fan!

[mickyg]

Thanks!

They're white to make it easier to see foreign objects. Whether that's real "objects" or hydraulic leaks, I think the idea is the same - white makes anything that doesn't belong in there much easier to see.

The Tomcats had a lot of variations on the intake painting, whereas the Super Hornet and F-16 seem to be pretty consistent. I might be able to get away with a look that's similar to the F-16, with just a gray lip around the outside. I think it probably looks better on a rounded intake though.

Food for thought.

You know, I've got these really great intake covers too...

[Reïvaj]

Great scheme, loved it! Congratulations!

[Ignacio Ocamica]

You're getting there!!! It looks awesome.

[MechTech]

Great paint scheme and marking work! - MT

[Kanedas Bike]

Knock, knock.

Get back to work buddy!

-b.

[mickyg]

Got too weeks off work and do you think I can he any time on this? Nada...

I am building an Airfix Zero though. While that's a distraction, I'm sure, it's also a strategic move to help get my mojo back...

But thanks for the reminder - I'll get something done soon.

[Kanedas Bike]

Alright, alright - get back into the groove first with your other projects.

I'll remind you again soon enough.

-b.

[mickyg]

Much appreciated! I definitely need a good kick in the pants occasionally.

I'm glad I have this thread because I honestly forgot where I was with the build. I think I need to resolve the intake trunk painting and then work on the corroguard on the intake and leading edges of the wings (that's the stuff that looks like metal on a tomcat, in the same places).

And then I think I need to work on the landing gear a bit and she'll be nearly ready for a final couple of clear coats.

Edited January 23, 2014 by mickyg

[sreichma]

"I also decided it'd be appropriate to retain some of the "Macross-ness" of the pinstripes for the engines/legs and the nose/waist joint, so masked and painted them"

The stripes on the legs are actualy a marker that shows where a danger area of the engine is (usually where the area of actual combustion happens after the air passes through the compressor) in an event of failure or malfuntion this is where it would explode. That's why Macross also has the little Red Rectangle sticker right behind it (it has the verbiage of the warning). Essentialy this is where the engine could detonate or explode. You'll see it on most F-14 Engines.

Your work looks awesome and I'd buy it if it went for sale. I just thought you'd think its even cooler knowing the lines have a purpose since your making a real world looking VF-1

Edited January 24, 2014 by sreichma

[mickyg]

Thanks!

I actually knew about the engine warning stripe - I'm just as much an aviation nut as I am a Macross one. I should have explained better that I wanted the valk to keep those stripes as they're consistent across all VF-1 variants in the show. But if you study the NSAWC F-14A this build is inspired by, you don't see the nacelle stripes. I wanted to make sure this was consistent with the NSAWC theme, while still being unmistakably "Macross" when you look at it.

I hope that makes better sense. Thanks or your comments! You guys all keep me wanting to finish this.

EDIT: Just checked my own references and the stripe on the NSAWC Tomcat IS there, it's just not as long as it is on more common schemes (it doesn't cover the whole side of the nacelle). Carry on.

Edited January 24, 2014 by mickyg

[sreichma]

Thank you also. Never knew the area of placement was called the nacelle. I only knew it was a warning stripe from another member on here who posted it once last year in a thread.

Edited January 26, 2014 by sreichma

[mickyg]

Nacelle is just the term for the elongated "pod" that houses the engine. In the case of a valk, usually the leg. Just a generic term that I probably use more often than I should.

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, you see that term used a lot if you start discussing star trek ship designs. "Warp nacelles" is just the "proper" term for what most people will just call warp engines. A lot of times on aircraft, you won't see it used because the engines are integrated, and they just become part of the fuselage. F-14s, Su-27s, MiG-29s, etc all have distinct tubes where the engines are housed, while planes like the F-15 and F-22 have them buried in a big box.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing how this comes out. I admit, I'm probably going to chicken out and do mostly white schemes on all the unassembled VF-1 kits I bought, just because I love to fiddle with things, and the idea of scratching paint makes me paranoid.

Too bad they couldn't cast these in a plastic that would look like bare metal, so when the paint scratched off, it would look like weathering.

[mickyg]

Alright gents (and maybe ladies?). I have been very slack in working on this. In fact, I've been both slack in working on it AND posting any work I have done. So I need to catch everyone up.

Firstly, I bought a second kit. I saw a good deal on HKCollectables (as I recall) on a 1A and couldn't resist. So the 1S head is going to be transplanted on an as yet, unstarted kit. I think I'd really like to have a Roy 1S and since I've never had the funds to buy one when they were reasonable, this seems like a good idea.

Right, so that makes this now an NSAWC 1A Custom. I'm cool with that. After all, the bird I'm basing this on was an F-14A, right?

So here's where I'm at. I've swapped heads and decided, after experimenting with some natural metal colour techniques recently found on a local modelling site near my house (HERE), I figured it was a perfect method to do the leading edges of the wings. I didn't like the idea of doing the whole slat, as it's a pretty fat part on the VF-1. So I masked roughly half.

Masked with Tamiya tape:

And then Mr Metal Color "Stainless Steel" roughly applied:

Some closeups:

And after "polishing the paint with the particle laden brush, then following up with regular tissues (which is very important to do before you remove the tape, as otherwise you'll make a mess of the rest of the painted surface), we get this:

And that's where we're at. Baby steps but we're getting there...

Edited July 6, 2014 by mickyg

[derex3592]

That's looking ridiculously awesome

[mickyg]

Thanks man! It's creeping along. I've got some time on my hands now so hopefully I'll put a real dent in it over the next few weeks.

[chyll2]

yeah, HKcollectible seems like is still able to get VF-1A assembly kit after getting sold out. I think from the time I saw buy copies of it from that store, It got replenished 3x now.

And yeah, I already snagged one but got no time to build it yet.

[chyll2]

hi mickyG

finally got mine. I need your insights here what would be better.

Paint in runner and assemble

or assemble first then paint in sub-assemblies (like hasegawa)

this is my first 1/60 so I do not have any reference which is easier (and would it be easier for people with below average modeling skill to tackle seamline removal on this toy?)

[mickyg]

Hey, my best advice is to assemble what you can and look at where seam lines need to be dealt with. Do all this before painting. This will also let you know what is likely to be difficult to paint with it assembled. There isn't a whole lot that can't be disassembled if you find something that will be hard to get to.

What scheme will you paint it? Unless you plan to use some really tough lacquer paints, almost anything that requires large areas to be painted WILL get scratched. If you're doing a canon scheme that isn't Max or Millia, you should be safe.

Hope that helps!

[chyll2]

i will be taking insperation from this one (of course without super parts since I can't find one)

saw this from isamudeath at photobucket, found it when looking fo custom scheme for VF1. I already re-read your thread for like 2 to 4 times now and I always take notice of the rubbing part section so that is helpful.

[Kelsain]

One other thing to consider would be dyeing some of the pieces, particularly the ones prone to scratching. While the color may not exactly match your paint, it would be less noticeable than the white plastic.

[mickyg]

It's been much longer than intended but I'm finally putting a bit of time back into this little project of mine. I've started quite a few things in the last little while and it's about time I returned to the things I started first, in order to get them out of the way.

When we last left off, I was debating what colour to paint the intake "trunks" and trying to figure out what would look good. Given the shallowness of the intakes, I have decided white will look way too stark. So I think I'll go with slightly whitened base gray (Light Ghost Gray).

But I didn't do that in this session.

Instead I focussed on the only change I've made in this project since I started it, painting the VF-1A head unit. Why did I switch out the head? Simple - I'm cheap! I bought a VF-1A kit when they were still mostly available for non-crazy prices and figured I'd swap the heads around and build a Focker VF-1S out of the new kit, and put the 1A head on the NSAWC custom. Of course that means I'll have to revise that little tiny decal on the back end of the legs but that's for another time.

So here's the progress:

I've been deliberating about the colour scheme for the 1A's head and honestly, I'm not much closer to a decision. The underside is still plenty visible in fighter mode so I'm hesitant to put much on it that'll stick out. I may still do something but it'll need to be subtle.

No, the head is not tucked in in this shot.

First up, the "eye" on the 1A - Yamato did a really great job with putting some details behind that simple square lens piece and I wanted to do something to bring it out. There are around 7 dots of various sizes and complexities that can be picked out with a bit of work. The most prominent is the center one, which serves as a mounting post for the lens itself. I thought I'd try my luck at making this look like a camera lens. In order to achieve that look, I went with purple around the outside and blue for the inside circle.

Getting there. I think I've said that before though...

At this point it looks exactly like how I want it to. So on to some other details. Bits picked out with Tamiya Smoke and clear red, here and there.

Closeups can be brutal. This one shows the bubbles in the blue paint, as well as the "smeary" quality of the other transparent paints I mixed up. But flipping it over revealed a nice look that I was happy with. So on to the transparent green for the rest of the lens. I decided to paint just the back of the lens and leave the front clear, figuring it'd help as far as durability is concerned.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, once I mounted it inside the recess of the head, a lot of that detail looked overly bright. I toned it down some with some smoke and then decided to "enhance" some of the features with a bright metallic gold paint I've got. It's Mr Color Super Gold and it's a lacquer. Lacquers dissolve most anything you apply them too. Oops... It's not all bad and I don't have any pics of the process that led up to the finished result, so I'll come back to that.

I wanted some reflectiveness behind the lens so rather than painting the whole back (which might be the right way to go, in hindsight) I just painted the surface of the recess. I used good old Tamiya Silver in a paint marker, as it's still one of the better silvers out there from actually looking like reflective metal paint.

Here's the head dry fitted together, with some preshade and the silver applied. For the record, black is one colour I cannot get to spray properly through my airbrush. It almost always dries on the tip and just sputters everywhere when it does spray. I don't seem to have this issue with any other colour. So this was as good as I could achieve as far as line thinness is concerned.

And here's the lens fitted:

My final task was to get some gray on the head. I went with the Light Ghost Gray of the lower body and did my best not to obliterate the black shading underneath, then followed it up with some lighter gray by mixing white with the base coat. It's far more subtle than I'd intended but I can follow up with it later. The middle part of the top of the head was done with Gunze Gunship Gray (FS36118) but misted on so as not to be too stark. The metal is Mr Color Iron and I drilled out the end of the laser barrel but couldn't quite get it centered properly, so I've sort of left just the tiniest indentation instead of going with progressively larger drill bits, as I'd intended.

[mickyg]

I decided after the last update, that I'd do my best to start spending a minimum of a half hour per day so I could get this thing finished. Unfortunately that didn't happen quite the way I'd planned. Life's been pretty complicated lately and the last week has been no exception. However, Sunday I managed to get a few hours in and I think that might have made up for it in the end.

One of the items on any VF-1 that irks me to no end, is how close those silly fan faces are to the front of the intake. There's no good way to sort this out, because the hip joint is so very close to the fan plate on the Yamato toy. It is, what it is in the end. So my thought has always been that if I could "fade" the paint a bit, it might make it look a bit more like a shadow and have the illusion of depth.

So, with that in mind, I set to do some things I haven't tried before. Namely with paint. I purchased some Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 in both black and gray last week and thought I'd try that as a base. In theory, this is lacquer paint that should be a bit more durable than the typical acrylics.

Case in point, the gray I'd brush painted on one intake, as an experiment, scraped right off with a toothpick. Here's a shot after I very carefully masked the intake:

And yes, those things were a pain to do. And constantly wanted to pull off when I was cutting around the perimeter of the fan. But that's another story.

Next up, using the black "primer" as a preshade base. I hate preshading with Tamiya black. It splatters, it seems to clump, and it just never wants to go down properly. So I thought I'd try something different. The Gunze Mr Finishing Surfacer, is as far as I can tell, Tamiya fine surface primer, in a jar. It's pretty thick in consistency and thins with lacquer thinner, or my new personal favourite, "Mr Levelling Thinner" which is a much more mild lacquer based thinner, with a paint retarder in it. The end result, even when heavily thinned (2 parts thinner to 1 part paint) is paint that is easily controllable and it goes down silky smooth. Finally, a black paint I can actually work with!

And another item I'd really wanted to spend time on, the intake covers. These have always been something I thought had great potential. They're detailed and there are actual louvres that should be possible to shade. So I started with black preshading, but given how dark these parts are to begin with (sort of a dark bluish gray green colour) the black didn't really stand out. So I tried another new technique - mixing acrylics with lacquers! What is this magic I speak of? Well, all Tamiya and Gunze "water based" paints are compatible with their own thinners, in both alcohol and lacquer based types. So you can thin the Mr Hobby Aquous range with Mr Color thinner, and the same can be done with Tamiya acrylics. So I mixed up a batch of gray Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 with some Gunship Gray and set to work on preshading, with various levels of primer gray thrown in to lighten it as I went. It's a subtle shade variation but I think it'll do nicely.

Same thing done with the fan face, only with heavily thinned gray primer alone (and the effect is almost non-existent on these, which is a little disappointing):

Once I'd finished, I mixed up some artist oils (black, brown and a touch of white) and filled in all the crevasses of the intake fan, and louvre lines in the intake covers. I also couldn't resist adding a bit to the back of the valk, as I've been dying to see what a bit of darker fill will add to the panel lines on the top, with all the camo:

And after it had dried for a few hours, wiped the excess off with a completely dry tissue:

And that's where we're at for the moment. Thanks for reading along!

[chyll2]

Nice that you are back on it. Cant wait to see how it finished up,

[Mommar]

Glad to see you're on this again. I've wanted to see the completed thing for over a year now!

[mickyg]

Only a year? You're far too kind, Mommar.

I've long since grown impatient with my own progress on this thing. I had to remind myself that rushing it wasn't really an option.

Glad people are still along for the ride. I really hope to get this done before the year ends.

[Kelsain]

(null)

[mickyg]

"Cut his..."

Thanks man.

[derex3592]

Keep up the good work! That paint scheme is sick!!!

[mickyg]

I wasn't satisfied with the seam on the head unit so I spent a bit of time filling that in with Mr Surfacer 500. My bottle is starting to dry up it seems so heavily thinning it with Mr Levelling thinner again, seemed to help a lot.

No pics, unfortunately. Spent too much time doing little things and simply forgot to take them.

Also back painted the lens assembly with silver. Didn't like the massive seam visible and there was no way I was going to be able to fill that in satisfactorily. It came up pretty nicely and I've got no problems recommending that approach to anyone else making this kit.

I also silver painted the instrument faces, so they'll be reflective for the decals when I put them on. In hindsight, this was probably completely unnecessary, as the decals themselves are likely white backed.

Lastly, I marked out some spots on the heat shield to dress it up a bit, and make it blend with the camo pattern around the fuselage. I'm still tossing up doing the NSAWC lightning bolt across the shield. It might be too much so I haven't decided yet.

[MechTech]

Adding silver to the head clear parts is a great idea. I like to use the same technique myself. - MT

[mickyg]

It works very well indeed. I'm not sure if it's quite subtle though. I'm thinking the camera/sensor unit now looks a little 2 dimensional. But given how slow everything is going, I'm reluctant to spend more time getting it "right" - whatever that is.

Here are a few photos directly from my phone. Usually I upload to my google+ account and link to thumbnails, but again, that takes more time than I seem to have at the moment.

Some seam work.

The silver peaking out from beneath a freshly applied instrument decal. The extra silver will be painted black to match up to the black outline of the decal. The decals by the way, are terribly shaped and sized for the panels they go on. I had to carefully cut this one into three parts to get all three panels in the right place. Off the sheet, it's all one piece.

The "masking" with blue tack inside the edges of the recess for the lens. Why bother? I'd lined it with black and you can still see this with the lens in place. Besides, masking with blue tack is a skill I need to work on. Because it's flexible, it tends to not stay where you want it. I used a toothpick to pull it away after I'd smashed it into place. It worked really well and was much better than trying to put it in place with fingers alone.

Heat Shield and Head:

And my first attempt at a dot filter. This is all three oils I currently own, brown, black and white. Mostly white was used as the other two are very strong. I used a toothpick and hardly any paint.

Before brushing:

After:

[mickyg]

Wow - it's been over a year since the last update.  Time flies and all that!

I've worked a bit on this in the last 12 months, just not much to show for it.  The good news is that it's pretty well ready to be screwed together for good, with the rest of the work happening on the assembled toy instead of just pieces.

[wmkjr]

Looking forward to the pics!