MacrossJunkie

Thanks guys. It was definitely more effort than usual having to take it apart and redo the canopy and fold quartz, but it was worth the effort as I'm definitely much more satisfied with how it looks now compared to the heavy blue tinting they used. GU-11, actually the weathering didn't do double duty as panel lining. I penciled in the panel lines prior to weathering. I also lightly dusted some white powder from the tamiya weathering kit into the black painted areas so that the panel lines there would be more visible without being too obvious about it. The weathering itself was airbrushed on using very thinned out smoke colored clear paint.

Quick teaser pic of my progress. Still need to do the gun and also make some finishing touches on the weathering. Sorry about the craptastic pic. I had put away my photography setup during the holidays, so I need to take all that back out and set it up again. I just set it on the floor with the bluish LED lighting from the case to illuminate it. I had to heavily compensate for the color of the lighting and a lot of details were washed out as well. I'll do my usual proper pics soon once I'm done with this.

I went to Ikea yesterday to get another Detolf because I can't even fit all my 1/60's inside the display cases anymore, but they were out and weren't getting more until April. Grrrr... So I decided to at least get some lighting. Got some of the Dioder light strips... what a let down that was. I tried setting it up when I got home and found that the cables for the light strips are less than half the length that they used to be. You can't use them to properly light up the Detolf display cases anymore because the cables are no longer long enough to reach all the shelves. I tried instead using one unit to light the top shelf, and then another to light the third shelf down. This is not in final state as I need to decide if I want to keep it like this and if so, try to manage the cords a bit better.

Nice job! I like the repainted color of the armor. You did a pretty good job with masking off the areas around the yellow for painting too.

Cool pic. Looks like they goofed a little on the paint scheme there on Isamu's 29. Just above the LERX, they left the black stripes that are on Alto's and the 30th anniversary 29s. I actually kinda like that though.

I think the feet and other grays will end up being properly colored when better pics are taken, but the canopy will still be really dark. I have the feeling that I have more Isamu canopy repainting in my future...

Those guns are actually pretty sleek and the entire assembly doesn't look like it would introduce too much drag. Not much more than a rotodome on an AWACS plane would produce anyway. Also, something like that certainly wouldn't produce enough drag to hinder the fighter's very powerful engines. Like modern planes, it also uses a fly-by-wire type of controls so it would do the necessary calculations and adjustments while interpreting the pilot's input to make the plane do what the pilot intended to do while still keeping it up in the air. I think the main reason those guns can only be used in subsonic atmospheric speeds is the risk of damage to the guns if they were being raised and rotated around at mach speeds. The drag at those speeds would probably damage the mechanisms or maybe even tear it right off.

I think it was either that they were just lazy or felt it didn't look good. I repainted mine to be gray to be more like the movie and even I didn't do it exactly like the movie. This was because the armor was entirely gray in the movie and I felt it lacked any sort of contrast so I left the black parts and only repainted the blue areas. I think more people preferred the blue over the gray and Bandai might have felt the same.

Awesome custom paint job, Scream Man. I love it!

1. "Enigma" - sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 2. "Minmay Guard Paris" - sample 1 sample 2 3. "Minmay Guard Moon Act" - sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 4. Blue Roses 1J (either one)- sample 1 sample 2 5. Blue Roses 1S - sample 1 sample 2 sample 3 If not actually make these paint schemes, at least make 1/60 scale decals or stickers to make it possible.

My purple glass paint was delivered today so I tried it out when I got home. It's a thick paste when squeezed out of the tube so naturally I had to thin it down. Fortunately, it mixed pretty well with both Tamiya thinner and Future. I airbrushed it onto the fold quartz pieces and this is how it came out: It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close and a whole lot better than the previous attempt as seen on the previous page. I think I'm satisfied with how it came out. I just need to spray it with Future after it dries for that extra glossy sheen.

There really is no suitable ratio of tamiya's clear blue to red to get a decent purple. Trust me, I've tried all sorts of ratios and nothing was acceptable. What I came up with after hours of experimentation was the closest I could get to a purple and I tried to convince myself it was good enough, but I couldn't. I should get my purple paint tomorrow so I'll see if that works well enough or not. Why bother with harpoons when you can get right in their face and annoy them with singing until they leave? Maybe we can call them "Fold Wave Harpoony Thingies For People Who Can't Kill Vajra Good And Who Wanna Kill Other Stuff Good Too."

I believe the "harpoons" are Fold Wave projectors. http://macross.anime.net/wiki/YF-29_Durandal See under Avionics and Optional Armament.

I have not, but I'll look into it if the transparent glass paint doesn't work out. Thanks!

100% agree. I'm hoping the colour-balance on the photo is just off or that the monitor I'm using at work just has crappy colour accuracy. That just looks way too whitish and the feet are practically purple. Not sure what they're thinking about the canopy either...

Well, that doesn't sound very encouraging, but I'm hoping I'll have some luck with this "transparent glass paint." I got it through Amazon Prime so it should arrive in a couple of days. And yeah, seems counter-intuitive that red and blue makes a not quite purple. I'm betting the yellow clear I have mixed with blue would also yield a more brownish pigment rather than green (not that I need to). I used rubbing alcohol and a paper towel. The paint came right off in a matter of seconds with very little actual rubbing. You'll end up with a completely clear piece of plastic that you're free to paint however you like.

Thanks for the idea anyway. I ended up finding Martha Stewart transparent glass paint in orchid purple, so I ordered a bottle and am going to try that out. It's water based so hopefully it will mix with Future. Pretty expensive for a single bottle though. You'd think she was bottling unicorn piss or something.

Best looking three? That's hard to say, especially without any qualifiers. I love so many of the designs, it's really hard for me to pick. I would have to break mine down into categories at the very least and even then it's not easy. Best looking fighter: 1. YF-21/VF-22 2. VF-11 3. VF-171 (or maybe VF-25?) Best looking fighter with FAST/Super/Armour packs: 1. VF-1 2. VF-11 3. VF-25 w/ full armour Best looking battroid: (really hard to choose. I keep changing what I put here) 1. YF-19/VF-19 2. YF-29 3. VF-171 Best looking battroid with FAST/Super/Armour packs: 1. VF-25 w/ full armour 2. VF-1 (Strike configuration) 3. VF-171

I don't suppose anyone knows of a good clear purple paint? Acrylic preferred. I'm not happy with the results I'm getting from mixing Tamiya's clear red and clear blue and they don't have a clear purple. I've spent several hours mixing and trying to get the right purple, but it just doesn't mix well and the shade never comes anywhere near what I want it to be. I want a bright amethyst colour and no ratio of blue and red clear gets me anywhere near that. If I could find a decent purple, it would be simple enough to change what I have right now. I considered purple food colouring, but I have doubts on the longevity of food dye. I figure it would break down and fade relatively quickly. I'm pretty happy with the canopy though. It's pretty much the same blue they used, only much lighter in saturation and looks a lot less cartoony now. Masked off the glass portions and spray painted the canopy frame black. I just need to do the weathering next and find a decent replacement purple.

I thinned the clear blue with some future and then sprayed light coats on the inside of the canopy with an airbrush.

I've disassembled mine to clean out the grease from the hinges and while I was at it, stripped the paint off the fold crystals and the canopy as well because it just looked too saturated for my tastes. I repainted the silver backing on the back side of the fold crystal piece and put a coat of clear purple on the front. I then did what I thought they should have done with the canopy and painted the blue on the inside instead of the outside. I gave it a much lighter blue tinting. I just have to re-paint the black canopy frame now.

Thanks! I kinda expected to be packaged with the hands. Apparently it had managed to get dislodged from its place and was located on the neck portion of the stand.

I agree with you there. The combination of the colors and the plasticky (portmanteau!) gloss makes it look way more toy-like than any of the renewals or the previous YF-29 releases. I was also very disappointed that they didn't include a plastic version of the head gun when they have been doing that for the VF-171s and VF-25s to replace the bendy PVC versions with. I had to try to straighten mine out because it was bent a little. The PVC ones are also terrible for those of us who like to clear coat our stuff. Mine came out of the box greasier than a piece of original recipe KFC... to the point that it affected the joints and made them all loose. I'm going to have to disassemble mine to try to clean it out of the joints where I can. I guess while I try disassemble it, I'm going to test if the blue fold crystals are molded in color or painted that way. On another note, I'm glad you can still attach the gun without the adapter piece. It just angles down a bit more due to the bayonet. being in the way slightly. Edit: Just did a quick test using a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol. Yup, the blue is painted on.

Mine was preparing for shipping and shipped on the same night. That has never happened for me before from NY. Really must be luck of the draw.

I guess I'll find out when I get mine. All of Yamato's coloured clear parts were non-tinted clear plastic painted with clear colours. But I never tested Bandai's to see if that is true with them or not.