Urashiman

It‘s putty time children! grey revell putty for the things that need more sanding. And then I noticed these giant gaps. Revell putty won’t help here. time for good old miliput! muhahaha! More stuff to sand away!

@ahiachris Nice print! What resolution has you SLA printer? @MechTech Thanks a lot man! Working on the VF-1P again. I think I have the canopy right now. Took me a while to get the proper form. In the back, canopy v1, in the front canopy v3.14 (the one I am satisfied with). EDIT: Some progress from today. Panel lines in real life, as in virtual life are hard to carve, and take their time.

@Thom @arbit @derex3592 Thanks for the encouraging words. No worries, the adventure (much more sanding) will continue. But I got tired of that thing after sanding away and decided to work on the VF-1P a bit more. Here two renders fresh from the renderbakery. I am not too sure if I will leave the canopy like this. It looks a bit too much like the weird 80s Bandai kit canopy.

Hey everyone! I did a bunch of sanding and filling and "pre-panel lining" on the F-5B (CF-116). So this is where I am so far. I have been sanding and sanding and filling and sanding. Rinse and repeat. So I decided to spray the thing with the good old Tamiya surface primer to check for any stuff that needs even more sanding. And boy, the primer didn't fail me, but that #@%&$?! kit frustrates me. After all this sanding, there are still so many things to do. So much fun! Hahahahahah

Have fun with them!

Okay, did a bit of panel line work on the VF-9 again. It is so annoying, and super hard work. You start to cut an then it looks weird. Then you go back to an older version of the object and do it again and again and again until you have something that you a bit satisfied with and then rework it again. At least I am getting progress. Slow but it is there.

Went over it with 1500 grid tamiya sanding sponge. Not too sure if I like this. Defo have to air brush again.

I'm not a careful sander ... I'd probably sand through the primer, the ground color and shading. Hahaha. It dried a bit more, and isn't that much visible anymore, so I'll just leave it like that PS: Revell Enamel blue 50. Fits the VF-22S Max version without any need to color mix something together.

A modellers horror story in three pictures. I hate it when my airbrush burps onto my stuff I decided to leave it like that now, but stilll it annoys me.

Nice, my wife is from cologne. We visit cologne as well as Bergisch Gladbach a lot, family visits etc. I am from the former East Berlin (born and raised in communist Germany, hahaha!)

Yeah, F/A-18, F-14 and F-35 all have straight 90° angle nose gear. Might have asked that already, but are you German?

The Airbus A320 as a slightly tilted front landing gear. Maybe 5° or something, but yeah. Nowhere else I saw this. Appart from looking fancy (adding to the already fancy VF-9), there isn't much I can think of, why they decided on this type of gear. Oh look, the F-16 has that as well. Not at an extreme angle like the VF-9, but from the gear configuration, it seems the VF-9 took inspiration from the F-16 nose gear.

XD well, in this case, the engine bay. thanks!

I made some progress on the VF-9's new legs and wanted to share some renders, because sharing is caring Feedback is welcome.

Ah, that fake wood stuff, having similar features like wood, minus the grain direction and splintering. My brother was a professional casting modeller for a company that did industrial molds and casts. They used that stuff all the time. He brought me some ages ago. Great stuff to work with.

Oh boy, this is so awesome!

It is super smooth. I bet there will be some blockyness, but at this scale, sanding the body once with 180 or 320 grid will get rid of it.

Pushing myself to get the VF-9 done. Only little parts left. I scrapped the back gear idea again. It didn't look good. Finally got the form of the engine exhaust/foot right. Let's hope I get this done this year, hahahahah.

okay, stickers are a bummer. but I got so many left over waterslide decals from other Valks, I'll just use them.

Been tinkering around on my VF-9 again. Getting the gunpod size right hard. I've been trying around and checking with reference material, but I think the size it good now. Also decided on the basic shape of the back landing gear of the VF-9. I tried the F-18 one, with the "bend knees" but it looked horrible. So this is mostly like the standard stuff one would find in a F-14, F-22 or F-35. Any better recommendations are welcome.

Some work on the VF-22. canopy masking is fun, especially with canopies this round. Good I got that humbrol liquid mask Prime Time! some shading (or better, lighting)

@pengbuzz@Thom & @MechTech Thanks for the nice words. I hope everything will come out nice in the end. Some more work on the F-14 today. Water slide decals are for babies and communists. Look at this cockpit. Went on the darker grey here, because in Macross Zero the cockpit is dark grey as well, compared to the light grey F-14s usually have.

Update on today's progress. Tinted the canopies of the VF-19A and the VF-22. Light smoke for the VF-19A and yellow for the VF-22. And some progress on the F-14D. Airbrushed the cockpit and the panels, as well as the engine exhausts.

Oh yes, the new Academy one. I wasn't able to find one for a decent price in Germany. I remember the old Academy F-14 to look super bulky with huge panel line, but the new one looks really good. Oh yeah. I went on an F-14 forum once and all they did was complaining "Nah, what the #?@! is that? Is that supposed to be an F-14? Blargh Blargh Blargh". It is fun hahaha Oh - advise from the master himself. The original F-14 from Hasewaga (the 1970s mold with the rised panel lines) is from a dimensions point of view really good. It just needs a lot of love and work to make it look awesome. And yeah ... saw a ton of extra pieces for the GWH one, but I think it'll do like this at the moment. So many little pieces on this I tell you. Panels as big as 2x2mm that need to be glued to the nose somewhere. The GWH will be closed panels with gears out and missiles added. I am not coming up with much. The creative work has been done by the Macross Zero team XD But yeah, can't wait to see how it comes out myself. Here is what I got together yesterday evening while watching Another Life on netflix. I didn't glue the nose yet, just sticket together so I can paint the cockpit and so on. Was easier to take care of those tiny panels with my saussage fingers.

Okay ... aside from the crazy things I do and have on my workbench, I am always on the hunt for "the perfect F-14 Tomcat". I know there are some F-14 purists on the board as well, and getting a proper F-14 is just crazy. One could get an original 1970s Hasegawa F-14, remove the rised panel lines and engrave new panel lines, or look around what else we got in our hobby stores. We got the new tool F-14 from hasegawa. Give or take, this might be a valid option, but needs much work as well. There are a lot of resin kit add ons ... you get the idea. Getting a new mold Revell F-14, it looks okay, is cheap but the panel lines are super wrong and look like someone encarved them with a chainsaw. So now let's look at the two best kits out there (from my perspective). The Fine Molds F-14, and the GWH F-14. I know, there is a Hobby Boss F-14 out in the wild, but I am unable to get a hold of one. Boxart: contents as you As you can see, the GWH F-14 has a bunch more runners. But this won't say much about the quality. Have a look at the fine molds nose: Versus GWH: On both kits the panel lines are super fine and detailed, but the interior of the Fine Molds F-14 is giving away way more features. The GWH has a lot more wing configurations. The panel lines on the GWH F-14 are detailed, but there are annoying inaccuracies. The panel lines on the Fine Molds F-14 are almost perfect. I want to use one of these for my new Macross Zero F-14, and I think I will go with the GWH one, as the F-14D version is fitting more the visuals of what we see in Macross Zero. On the down side, I have to use a limited Edition F-14D for that, because I wasn't able to get a normal F-14D from GHW here. I wish there was a Fine Molds F-14D available (apart from the limited and super rare Model Graphix Magazine edition). So far the Fine Molds kit has really impressed me. But, even though there are mine inaccuracies in the GWH kit, it is looks super fun to build. It will be on my workbench now. Updates to follow tomorrow