mickyg

Bummer, man. I totally understand though. Any word on why such delays?

Me encanta que tiene misiles bajo las alas!

How'd you get the cover off? I've got flash here and there between the cover and body of the backpack and would love to take care of it.

4 pack of Bandai missiles just ordered and shipped to my brother in Eugene, Oregon. Some tricky credit card payment options made it possible, even though I'm in OZ but hopefully they'll be waiting for me when I'm there for Christmas. Thanks for all your efforts, mate!

Absolutely!

I know I've asked this question before of you, but can't remember where I put the conversation - the Anti-vajra missiles that you have on the shop site, are they Bandai ready? The description says Yamato/Arcadia but since they were never seen on anything made by either, I got slightly confused. Clarification would be most appreciated.

I'm in agreement with Jenius on this one. A thread for each major portion of the HMR series.

Very odd. It used to be iPhone only, if I recall correctly. And I can't say it happens on my Nexus 5x. I've seen guys fix this up for others before. Probably involves saving the pic and re-uploading it from a computer though.

iPhone? Seems to be something to do with the inbuilt orientation not getting correctly identified when you upload the photos. And it only seems to impact iPhones for some reason.

Man, these spambots are getting out of hand!

I've got the clear one with Hikaru's 1J and a CF on it now. I like it a lot! I think it'd be a piece of cake to fit 4 valks on it. And it'd probably fit 6 if you play around with it a bit.

NZEOD, I would have cried! Glad the damage wasn't too terrible. I actually found it worked really well as far as sticking went. But I didn't like it for direct borders of the paint. I found the paint sat over the edge of the mask and because the mask isn't a hard edge like tape, it was more prone to lifting the paint right off the part instead of coming away cleanly. Lesson learned... I have pretty well finished the red scheme on the super parts now. I removed the red on the "stripes" on the missile covers with a cotton swab and windex - even though the red was thinned with lacquer thinner, that has no impact on what works as a solvent for the Tamiya water based paint. That revealed the Mr Color lacquer paint underneath and then sprayed Mr Color gray over the top of the white, to bring it back to a more muted and easily covered base: Then I finished the red on the rest of the parts, as well as painting the blue hip gun parts with my white lacquer paint. Unmasking the next morning was fun! But that's also when I learned the maskol has a tendancy to lift the paint right off the part if you're not careful. You can see some of my attempts at weathering/blast damage on the chest part and the intake cover parts here: All that's left to do is add the decals for 007, and flat coat the parts to protect the paint. Not a terribly time consuming project but the masking was definitely tricky (and I'm still not happy with the way the intake covers turned out). Oh, and I painted that silly, bland crotch armor as well. It's subtle but adds a bit to what's otherwise a strangely boring piece.

I did not know this. Thanks for taking the time to explain some of the history. Makes a lot more sense now.

Yeah, I remember that picture and the discussion about it, but as I recall, it really was just a light/shade screen grab that makes it look like there are white parts. The funny thing is that there never appears to be any animation evidence for body coloured parts on the super packs, and that's leaving out the crazy white they went with on the HMR toys. Then again, in almost every frame I've looked at, the gun is the same green as the super parts. So there's that... And just to stress this point, I actually don't mind the look of the HMR Max/Millia scheme, I'm simply pointing out how vastly different they are to the original series they featured in.

Regarding the Max and Millia releases, I've been rewatching the episodes of the original SDFM show and wow are we taking liberties with the colour scheme, or what! And lest this come across as HMR bashing, I'm not just talking this release, but every single toy/model kit ever made, seems to get it completely wrong! Maybe I've missed it, but I can't find anywhere in the show where either super pack has a lick of red or blue on it. Anywhere. Does anyone know where this trend started and why? Was it on the original chunky releases too? And no, I don't think I'm going to take the plunge and repaint mine when they get in. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Got a bit more done last night. Progress is good but getting stuck doing tedious masking sucks. There are so many tiny ridges and lines that you have to mask around in order to get the scheme to look right. The intake "plugs" especially. It makes me appreciate the tampo printing on these things, that much more. My plans of leaving a slightly worn undercoat to paint over were partially successful, there's definitely a certain "used" look to the white I painted that I really like. However, I went the lazy route and didn't strip the blue on the shoulder missile covers. I figured I'd completely overcoat them with white anyway, so why bother. Coverage was not ideal though. And I didn't paint heavy enough. And those white stripes around the perimeter of the cover stick out quite obviously. Probably will end up redoing it. The good news is that I managed to mask the arrow and other white label on the covers, using a very carefully cut piece of tamiya tape. Not something I want to do again any time soon but I was pleased with the end result. Incidentally, I think they're meant to be warning labels and not just random shapes, but whatever... I struggled with a lot of the masking until I remembered I had some Humbrol masking fluid in the "bucket 'o tools" that was an absolute dream. In fact, I used it to mask around some very complex shapes, using nothing but a toothpick to apply it! Definite win in this situation. Paints used were Mr Color lacquer White (FS17875) and plain old Tamiya red, with a tiny amount of Gunze aqueous yellow to take out some of the blue tinge this red has. The lacquer white is actually a slightly warm white - perfect for the white accents but not so good for the pure white of Alto's scheme. Both were thinned with Gunze levelling thinner (which isn't what's there in the pic) and I have to say, this is the best experience I've ever had air brushing! I thinned heavily (2 to 1 thinner to paint, I'd say) and a few drops of each was all I needed to get this done. The paint went down very smooth, and surprisingly glossy. Still a bit more to do but progress is progress.

That is ginormous! You don't get a real appreciation for the size till you see it on the keyboard. Wow!

I think everyone will have a reasonable time getting one closer to (or after) release as well. My experience with the Hi-Metal R series has been the same as you guys with the DX releases - couldn't get one at preorder time no matter how hard I tried. But closer to release date, I always managed to snag one.

They definitely are not a direct match. I still think the 31F is the closest overall though.

Personally, I think the 31F is the closest looking to the prototype. I'm having great difficulty finding the original Macross Delta site with images of the battroids though. The 31C might be close as well.

The YF-29 is basically an integrated Super pack design, complete with the same arrangement for the legs as any other add-on part valk. It's odd because it's not like you can remove them to put the legs in a normal pose, but that's the way this one works.

As an ex-marching band member (way, way, back in Jr/Sr High) I find that absolutely amazing! On so many levels.

Your background will be fantastic for replacing with whatever you want later. Built-in green screen!

That would be a huge amount of work for the supers! Actually, I suppose if you start from a neutral one, it wouldn't be so bad...

Have had a number of things "on the bench" lately but mostly non-Macross. Been working on some home theatre speakers mostly. But last night, finally had a chance to start working on some Macross stuff and pulled my VF-25G Super Packs out of the closet. Given how outrageously expensive Alto's Super pack is on the second hand market, I decided to modify my second set of Michael parts to suit. The plan is to strip the blue and white paint, where necessary, change the numbers from 003 to 007, and repaint the red, black, white scheme. I discovered by accident recently, that good old Gundam Marker eraser will strip the stock Bandai paint quite easily. I think this is mostly alcohol in these pens but there may be other solvents as well. Either way, it does the job very nicely. And note to customizers out there, don't use the eraser pen to clean up any Gundam marker mistakes, unless it's over plain plastic. You'll end up with a nasty surprise. Here are a few pics of the process (apologies for the horrendous white balance. I couldn't fully correct it without rendering the blue as a horrible gray instead): These are the parts I'll be modifying (not pictured are the leg armor with the 003 to be removed) First swipe with the gundam marker remover The marker remover Working on the blue parts And a group shot, post paint removal (along with the cotton swabs I used to get it all done). I switched to Gunze lacquer thinner for a few of the more stubborn areas. This worked a little bit faster but if all you've got is Gundam eraser, the added hotness of the lacquer wasn't really that big of a difference. Some observations on the process so far: Anywhere there's blue paint, it's undercoated with white first This makes paint removal messy, with a cloudy slurry leaking into the panel lines that you really have to be careful about The paint apps are messy from the factory, but not everywhere. Those hip covers are particularly bad and I'll be happy to make them a lot neater during my repaint. There's no need to completely remove the white paint in some places. I'll have to undercoat the red anyway so I have left it in some places. Hopefully it adds to the look of weathering. The shoulder missile mounts are molded in blue. This will have to be painted white. I hate painting white, especially over a dark blue. I see no need to completely remove the blue from the shoulder missile covers. I plan to mask over the white triangle and other white mark to preserve them, then paint a white undercoat, followed by the red. The paint will be thick as a result but hopefully not too noticeable. The replacement 007 markings will come from either the Bandai transformable kit or the Hasegawa Super Messiah kit. The size difference between 1/72 and 1/60 is negligible.