MacrossJunkie

Is that different from the Adobe RGB setting in the camera?

I figured out what was the problem. Adobe Lightroom was f'ing up my photos when I imported them so that I could convert the RAWs to JPEGs. I was trying to wrap my mind around why it looked so different when previewed in the camera and I finally realized that was the problem. It was killing the color range and blowing things all out of proportion without me doing a single thing to the photos. I need to figure out how to get it to not do that. For now I have started using the Nikon software that my camera came with instead since it leaves the photos intact. I haven't tried doing HDR shots, but I should look into that. The three latest pics I put in the other thread have a better color range and the highlights aren't shot to hell.

Awww, that sucks. At that point, I normally just take the slip with me and head to the post office the following morning before going to work to pick it up since the USPS in my area doesn't automatically try to redeliver the following day. I'd have to put the signed slip back in the mailbox and then they take it back and do the redelivery the day after that. I'm not patient enough to wait an extra two days when I know it's just within my grasp

Hmm, I wasn't enamored with the paint scheme, but the old one does seem better to me than the new one. If only they would come out with Ozma's YF-29. I thought it looked pretty awesome with its various shades of gray and black.

Oh cool. The price actually dropped a bit since the time I placed my pre-order back in August.

I think my personal preference would be a smoke tinted canopy across the entire line of VF-25s, but how they are now looks good to me as well. Bandai actually went with a lightly tinted blue in their version 1 of the 25G. I'm not sure how they bounced from that to a more saturated purple tint on the version 2. Just for fun, here's the two side by side. I think seeing the differences between the two helps me appreciate just how much improved the version 2 is. The parts all fit so much more seemlessly. The version 1 also had mismatching shades of blue on the chest, hips gun pieces, shield and legs, whereas they managed to keep a consistent shade of blue across the entire thing on the version 2. Extra bonus points to them for that. Edit: Bah! I finally figured out why my latest photos all look so weird to me. I've been using Adobe Lightroom to convert my RAWs to JPEGs and it does all this funky processing to all the photos it imports without me even touching a slider which screws with the colors and everything. These latest three photos were converted using the default Nikon software and they look much better to me.

Oh good gosh, that is both awesome and frightening how much Macross you have packed in there. Most of all, I really want one of those display cases you have.

I actually just removed those photos because I thought they were bad. I put up some new ones with better results after playing with the lighting more.

I didn't like the way some pics came out so I played with the lighting more and came up with these.

Thank you. Doing other people's valks is probably a can of worms I'd like not to open, however. In my head, so many things could go wrong. And what do you mean if you only knew where yours was at? o.O The slick bare plastic is certainly extremely difficult to get the weathering to stay on and requires a lot of effort so that's why I start with a clear coat which seems to take the weathering easier. when using the brush that comes with the kits, the trick is to use more pressure and the the part of the brush that's closer to the metal handle as that is where it is stiffest (just be careful not to accidentally scrape the handle against the finish). Otherwise, it may be easier to find a brush with stiffer bristles to do the drybrushing with. You're practically rubbing the powder into the clear coat with repeated motions and some light pressure. I'm probably making it sound more tedious than it really is. You do have to take some care while handling the toy during transformations. I screwed up a little during the second clear coat phase and the head got in the way and scraped the clear coat at the edge of the backplate. Repeated additional coats didn't help smooth it out. I've since fixed it by treating it like a chip in car paint and instead of spraying on future, I used a fine brush to dab some of the flat coat onto the chipped area and let future's auto leveing properties to take care of the rest. I then blended the weathering and sprayed a little more of the flat coat localized over the area to seal it in. In retrospect, I should have popped the head off completely so it would be less of a hassle. Once you let future dry for a couple days, it should be pretty solid and durable. I can transform it back and forth and there's no wear along the wing hinges, the edges of the hip guns that meets the wing root, the side of the legs or the chest area. There are only three parts you have to really pay careful attention to while transforming. One is the tip of the black area on the nose after you've folded the tip of the nose down while transforming to battroid mode. The blue area on the shoulders that have the "SMS" and "003" markings while taking the arms out from fighter mode or putting them back in. Finally, the back of the arms in fighter mode when using the GERWALK joint as the blue plastic part of the leg that's just behind the white intakes can scrape along the plastic if not careful while straightening it out to put into fighter mode. I'm a little less than careful, but so far those places have held up. Those are just the potential problem areas during transformation that I'd like people to be aware of. More shots of my 25G are found here in this thread: http://www.macrosswo...ndpost&p=999220 I need to figure out how to do the lighting better while achieving the lighting I need. In some shots as it caused a look of splotchy whiteness in some photos. The first photo in fighter mode and the one in this thread are closer to what it looks like in real life though still a tad bit exaggerated. The fading and whiteness in some areas are way overexaggerated and doesn't look quite as consistent from pic to pic due to the way the light is reflecting off the surface I think. The battroid mode pics turned out pretty well. Oh yeah, I didn't add any additional decals because they pretty much got the bases covered as far as markings are concerned which is nice from a lazy person's (e.g. me) perspective.

Funny you should say that as it was your work on your models that made me unsatisfied with the way my toys looked and inspired me to start experimenting with weathering and such in the first place. I wish I remembered to take pics as I worked on it so I could properly illustrate. I'll just have to explain with words for this one and then the next valk I do, I can take pics as I go for a proper step-by-step. ------------------------ Supplies on hand that I used: Paper towel Microfiber cloth for dusting Tamiya weathering master kits B and D Gundam Marker GM01 Testor's enamel thinner & brush cleaner Flat black Model Master enamel paint Future Tamiya flat base X-21 Fine tipped paint brush Wider tipped brush (mine is about 18mm wide) Airbrush and compressor Glass container to mix things in Masking tape xacto knife ------------------------ I did very minimal disassembly of the toy during the entire process and my steps here reflect that. Prep work: I used a wet paper towel to clean off the greasy mold release residue off the toy. Then I used the microfiber cloth to remove the dust particles left behind by the paper towel. Alternatively, make sure your fingers are dust free and wipe off dust particles with fingers while blowing air over it. Step 1: First clear coat Transform the valk to GERWALK mode but leave the shield either attached to the end or taken off. As long as it's not attached to the arm. Then detach the intakes/hips from the underside and straighten out the legs so that no part of the knee caps are obstructed or hidden in any way. Pull the crotch piece down out of its locked position and stand the valk up so that the legs are straight down and the fighter part is more or less either angled a bit down or up. Fold the back plate down and get the head unit up and out so that it is exposed and move the backplate back up. Postion the head so that it is not obstructing the backplate or the chest area for when you go to spray it. Pop the head off and do it separately. Remove the plastic pieces on the feet and the hip guns and set them to the side. Also, make note of which way the feet pieces should be facing for when you put them back on. Hint: The thicker blue band should be towards the ground when standing. Now you're ready to spray the first coat and the majority of the surfaces on the valk should now be exposed. With the airbrush, spray an even coat of Future onto the valk. This should include the inner sides and back of the legs, the underside of the fuselage, wing gloves and wings, and the shield if left attached. Use some masking tape and roll them into rings with the sticky side facing out and stick each hip gun on a piece with the outside surface facing up. The four pieces from the feet can be stuck to the tape like arches. Clear coat these as well. Once the valk is dried, fold down the knee caps and bend the knees and spray the gray areas with the clear coat. Step 2: Panel lining I normally do panel lining only with thinned paints, but with the darker blue colors, it's very hard to get visible results so I turned to the black Gundam marker for assistance. I panel lined all the areas on the blue plastic with the gundam marker and avoided any areas that had white paint or plastic. What you should end up with is a rather harsh black that stands out, perhaps a bit too much. This will be dealt with later. I mixed some enamel thinner with black paint. I used probably about 10 drops of thinner and 6 or 7 drops of paint. I took the fine tipped brush and dabbed it along the lines on the white plastic or painted areas and let the capillary effect take the thinned paint down along the lines. Wait for the paint to dry and tear off a piece of the paper towel and put a drop of thinner on it and use it to wipe off any excess paint that is not in a panel line so that the panel lining looks clean and sharp. The thinner should not react at all with the clear coat. Use the gundam marker to do the little rivet dots that's on the foot pieces if so desired. Step 3: Clear coat again Just spray a single layer of clear coating to keep the panel lining sealed in. Wait for it to dry and then expose the front of the chest that's hidden behind the cockpit and clear coat that by either spraying or brushing on Future. Do the same with the blue half of the crotch piece. After it dries, move it back to how it was in step 1. Step 4: Weathering I used a sort of dry brushing technique here except instead of the standard way with paints (which I've never been able to to properly), I'm using the Tamiya weathering kits. The Tamiya kits come with applicators that have a foam side and a brush side. The foam side is no good for this so ignore that end for now. For the paint wear/fade effect, I use the "snow" from the B kit. Slide the side of the brush against the powder until you get a visible amount on the brush, then with the side of the brush hairs, brush them along the edges repeatedly until you get the desired amount of paint fade. Brush some along the surface to soften the blue and the blacks. Don't forget to do the pieces that were taken off. Using the "soot" from kit B, I drybrushed along the edges and raised areas of the white areas for a subtle bit of highlighting and also lightly against the panel lines of the white areas. For the panel lines, get some powder on the end of the brush and "dust" the panel lines with it and blow off the excess. Use the clean foam end along the panel lines to smear the powder along the panel lines. This should take away the harsh blackness of the gundam marker and make it look grayer and more natural. Step 5: Sealing the weathering Time to spray on another clear coat. What you may notice after spraying this coat on and letting it dry is that most of the weathering looks like it disappeared. Just repeat steps 4 and 5 several times and it should slowly build up. Repeat until you reach desired results. I had to repeat about 3 or 4 times. Step 6: Additional effects I used the "soot" from kit B and "oil stain" from kit D to simulate trapped dirt and staining from smoke and such. Using the brush again with the soot colored powder, brush in the direction that air currents would go along the surface and you should get faint traces of the soot along the surface. I also dirtied up the area outside of the air overflow outlets in the back of the legs like smoke had gotten sucked in and let out over that area. I used the foam side of the applicator for that. Dabbing it into the soot, I then brushed the foam along starting from the outlets and followed along the imaginary air flow. I applied a little bit along some panel lines as well. Using the "oil stain" powders and a cleaned off foam applicator, I applied some streaking from some of the holes and verniers. I also dirtied up the gray areas for the knee and behind the knee caps. Quite honestly, it looks so close to the soot when applied that you could just use the soot entirely and forgo the D kit. Step 7: Clear coat again to seal in what was done in step 6. Step 8: Transform to battroid mode to have easy access to the front of the chest piece and the crotch piece. Repeat steps 4-5 on those parts that were not accessible earler, namely the front of the chest piece and the blue half of the crotch piece. Being such small areas, this should be very quick. Step 9: Final clear coat with added flat base. After you're happy with everything, it's time to put the final coat on, or leave as is if a glossy finish is preferred. Using another glass bottle or cleaning out and reusing the existing one, put some future in and then mix in the tamiya flat base. Too much and it will turn the valk very whitish. Too little and you may not notice it at all. Suffice it to say, it's better to err on the side of too little than too much as you can mix in more later and spray again for a flatter coat. The mixture should be very foggy, but not white like milk. Probably closer to the look of semen, if you pardon the crudeness of the description. With the masking tape and xacto knife, mask off the clear parts like the clear pieces on the head and the canopy. Take the valk back to how it was positioned in step 1. Spray the flat coat onto the valk and let it dry. Then transform it to battroid mode or just expose the front of the chest area and the crotch piece and spray those (or brush on with the wide brush which is what I did) and let them dry. Step 10: Final touches. Take off the masking tape. I made the clear parts extra crystal clear by applying more Future with a brush to the inside and outside of the canopy and over the head unit lenses and over the blue and red wing lights. Let dry. Done. Avoid playing/transforming it for a day or so and let the clear coat fully dry so that it becomes more durable (advice that I ought to listen to as well). ---------------- I know this seems mostly useless without the pics to illustrate. I'll try to make better one with the next valk I do.

Hopefully they announce the RVF-25 for a release early next year. I want to complete skull squadron, but there's already so much stuff coming out this year that it's too expensive to try to squeeze yet another valk in this year. I don't even want to think about how hard it's going to be get Luca's VF. Each subsequent release has practically doubled in difficulty to obtain. Well, I hope they make enough. Skull squadron needs their little buddy...

Actually, the S does have a purple tinted canopy and the F has a blue tinted one.

Yep, I panel lined it with a black pen, then I applied several layers of gloss clear coat. Then I weathered it and applied a semi-gloss (more on the dull side) coat.

I think if the curve on the wings bothers anyone, just heat the plastic and straighten them out like I had to with the rifle.

There's no need to avoid them. If you put plastic wrap over the tips, they should be fine. Edit: Nope!

Here's my VF-25G. Despite the problems I've had with my copy, I think it still looks nice. ... and yes, before anyone points it out, I forgot to raise the scope in the last pic... Edit: removed some pics I wasn't satisfied with. Reshot and posted further down.

I got it from HLJ. I can understand one part being loose, but for so many areas to have problems is just really unlucky. Well, at least it's not outright broken, just very very loose.

I've had plastic wrap (generic kind that you can get from grocery stores) wrapped around the tips and they work just fine to hold the valks without damage. I've had valks with clear coats sitting on the stands with wrapped tips for months and they seem fine compared to when they were on without the tips covered. I cut a small square. Pull it tight over the tip, wrap the ends together, twist them and tuck it under the tip. It looks clean and holds the valk decently since plastic wrap has some grip as well.

I guess I must have gotten a bad copy. The arms are loose so they won't stay in position. They just flop down. The vertical hinge on the left shoulder block is loose so the left shoulder droops down and won't stay up. The horizontal hinge for the right shoulder block is so loose, that the arm and shoulder just keeps swinging backwards from gravity. You can actually rock it up and down on the hinge. Tightening the screw doesn't help. I put some super glue on all the loose hinges, but it's really just a temporary fix as movement from one transformation just loosens it up again and requires reapplication of glue. I'm going to try to take apart the right shoulder block and layer some glue on the hinge since there is such a huge gap or maybe take some pliers and gently try to squeeze the top and bottom parts of the hinge closer. The gun was all crooked. It angled to the left quite visibly. I had to heat up the plastic with a hair drier and try to straighten it out. It looks much better now, but it's still a bit twisted along its axis. I'm fairly disappointed in the build quality compared to how good Alto's and Ozma's were. I've been layering on clear coats and weathering to hide all the scratches in the plastic which seem to be particularly visible on the blue. On the up side, I was happy they included a plastic head laser to replace the pvc one with.

That is a truly awesome mod.

Oh ok. Thanks. Guess it was a sort of optical illusion to me. From the angle, it looked more like the 27's gunpod than the 29's.

Sweet, can't miss out on the VE-1 this time.

Were you referring to me? I read your previous post, but I wasn't quite sure if you were somehow basing what you said on the pic or based on things you've heard elsewhere. My question was about the 27 since that is the tip of the 27's gunpod showing. I just wanted to know if they were just showing pics of the old 27 or if it was something else. So is it the 30th anniversary YF-29 holding the VF-27's gunpod then?

That grappling hook is a nice and unexpected extra. Looks like they are showing the VF-27 on the next page as you can see the tip of its beam gun sticking out onto that page. I assume it's not an announcement for being an upcoming renewal version or there would more talk about it.