Noyhauser

#1: A lot of people do wash the sprues as a first step. I do not... and have not yet had a problem with any of my kits. Its more required for very old kits and resin kits (though there you need a brush to ensure the mold release agent has been removed. #2 Really depends what your base coat is: enamel on enamel can cause a problem because it can react with the base coat and make a mess. Most people put a gloss coat down (often, but not always Future floor wax) then do their enamel wash. #3 there are several builds on the forum you should look for. WM Cheng's at the top of this sub-forum would be a good one.

What's funny is that this is basically the plot of every Japanese historical movie save for the Taiga dramas. The Japanese have no problem whatsoever raping their history for plot fodder. I'm reminded of a recent Destroy All Podcasts discussion of Shogun Assassin, which I'm paraphrasing: "It like if John Adams and George Washington hired a bunch of elite assassins to kill each other."

HAHAHAH best explanation yet. So I guess by that reasoning, Bandai thinks landing gears must be built like real men?

you might be right about the legs.... notice how they aren't kinked to accommodate fastpacks in fighter as in the hasegawa version has... they are straight back.

Awesome, awesome execution. Probably the best "scene from the anime" dio I've ever seen.

I'd be interested to see what the actual japanese reaction to this is (sans Bandai marketing effort).

Jefuemon First off, I did a small write up that touches on this in the newbie thread that might help: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=38794&p=1047280 I've used it on about every model I've built in the past five years, and at least 20+ pure NMF aircraft. Its the best NMF product with two possible exceptions (I'll get to them later). The paint is awesome, but to get the most out of it you should probably get about four different shades: Duraluminum, White aluminum, Stainless steel, Jet exhaust. With those four you can basically do everything you need to. Duraluminum and white aluminum allow you to do panel variations (and you can mix the two.) Jet exhaust allows you to do engines... but it can be mixed with other paints to give a pale burnt appearance. Stainless steel is good for really shiny aircraft, like the century series. If you want a fifth one, get the dull aluminum... it has a very different appearance to the other paints that can't be replicated. You can also buff it with Tamiya fine compound or a cotton rag to give different appearances. As the bottle suggests, 17 PSI is ideal... I try to do it in one or two passes, rather than three or more. It goes on extremely easily, its really the preparation phase that requires the most attention. For basic application its best to purchase Tamiya TS-14 Gloss black from the rattle can as your base. You can decant it and spray it out of the AB if needed, or just go straight out of the can. I use different base colours though... my recent favorite one is Model Master british racing green. Whatever you do, do not buy the alclad gloss black base... its crap. Another option would be to mix Mr Surfacer with gloss Mr Color black. Ensure that if you use enamels as your base that the paint has fully cured before applying alclad; usually a day to a week depending on the paint. The only two products that might be as good or better are SNJ's products.... and Mr Super Metallic series. SNJ is a bit academic because its harder to get than Alclad... but Super Metallic might be as good, I've just never tried spraying it over a large surface. I really try to hoard it and only use it for small details because I only have three bottles and I had someone bring it via airplane from Japan.

Please don't put words in my mouth. There is a significant difference between traditional and gunpla modeling; its just ignorant to suggest they are the same. Gunpla are designed for a younger market, with less modeling skills, and an interest to handle them. You can build one with a nice set of clippers, a modellng knife and gundam marker. That's very different from traditional modelers, who tend to be older, able bring advanced modeling skills and are interested in display and accuracy. And I should note that there are many people who produce awesome works applying traditional approaches to gunpla and producing stunning works. Does it make any group less legitimate? Not at all. Its just a different interest and market. And I can appreciate both sides. I'll let you in on a little secret. I've got maybe a dozen HGUC kits and I often pose them. Ooops I guess I've lost my street cred... maybe I should start posting in toys. Okay I jest. In reality I can fully understand why people like this kit. However as someone who is primarily interested in traditional modeling I and others here have views and desires... which the bandai kit does not fulfill. Its not a slight against gunpla builders to say that we think this kit sucks. If you take that as a personal slight... well... there isn't much I can say about that. I'm not lumping you in. In many ways you're probably smack dab in the market segment that bandai envisions for this kit. Bandai wanted to make a kit that is accessible to more casual modelers. I'll be honest, the hasegawa kit is actually a fairly difficult kit to construct (particularly the strike version). In relative terms to other injection kits I'd put it in the upper 70% due to the need to align the legs properly with the arms, the wing swing mechanism that makes fuselage joining difficult, alot of small details like antennas and the strike packs. With most models you construct/assemble and paint. With Hasegawa you need to construct, paint, assemble. That's actually pretty difficult, and is out of the reach of most casual modelers.

I think that's the case for sure indigo, and I'm guilty of that too. However to go to MW's observation, alot of the heat coming out of this thread is the result of two different communities interacting. I see a lot of traditional modelers coming into this thread (in the subforum they generally post the most in), see the kit and go "that's not for me." Then there are a lot of casual modelers who don't really frequent this area (and have different interests, such as toys) get angry because they can't understand why people would be so negative. Both sides take it as a bit of a personal slight... which reflects a clash of cultures.

I think you'll be surprised by just how ignorant that statement is. No, the problem with the model is that its really not a model. Its a gunpla... I wouldn't go as far as calling it an unassembled toy as shaorin stated, but its not a classical model either. I don't know if you're aware of this or not (I think you might be), but MW actually has a lot of very highly skilled modellers. Its skewed well above the average from what you see in a modelling forum. Look at Cool8or's destroid he just posted. (hope he doesn't mind) That's a largely fixed posed model. Outside of this thread almost every kit someone posts in MW's modeller forum is of the fixed display type. Its not a type that gets handled at all. As I've stated in this thread, the modelling techniques and others here use will not be able to withstand repeated handling by human skin (most flat coats can't). The reason why hasegawa has done so well is because they produced traditional, high quality models of various Macross VFs. They weren't transformable, because they were intended to be displayed beside their traditional 1/72 aircraft lines (The one that has over 3,000 models in its catalogue). They had realistic panel lines (not exactly canon, but stuff you'd expect on a real fighter), and box art by famed illustrator Hidetaka Tenjin. That is fundamentally different from what Bandai produces, and has produced here. That's the reason why Hasegawa is releasing a VF-25 despite bandai's initial offering; traditional modelers want something different. Look at how people in that thread (most of whom are very skilled modelers are already gushing without even seeing a mold.) Why? Because hasegawa builds products designed for their interests. So that's the source of dislike. For a lot of the traditional modellers here transformation is engineering is really something we will never use or care about. Model accuracy is my main concern, as well as ease of construction. I personally spend about an hour or two a day building. I spent about five hours last week building flap covers in 1/72 scale for hornets from aluminum... because I wanted to make it look as accurate as possible. I know others here have done the same. To put it another way, I spent more time on one small detail on a 1/72 model than a lot of the people in this thread will spend building the entire bandai VF-1 model. The transformation sequence creates issues that make it less appealing for me because it makes the kit less accurate in scale. Most of us only care about how it will look in one mode. Lets take battroid... and the legs. In order to make them operable in fighter mode the landing gear bay doors needs to have a bit of a gap. To me that's unsightly. This is an F-15 that I recently built that was for an in flight display: No gaps, thin panel line as you would expect in a real aircraft. Now compare that to the legs in mimorem's post: That's a problem and to "correct" it that isn't easy. It requires a backing piece, thin glue, puttying, and rescribing. That's about a day's session for me, for something that isn't a problem on a hasegawa battroid. And honestly, I like the proportions of the hasegawa battroid better... mostly because it looks more like what I see in the anime and line art. getting it to transform into three modes requires compromises. It is a different interpretation, but not for stylistic reasons... its the compromises from lineart that are required to get it to transform. I'm sure at that meeting with Kawamori Bandai engineers said "we had to make the head larger here and the legs had to swivel here to make it work" and he said okay I approve. Just like 13 years ago Hasegawa engineers said; we made it 100% accurate to the lineart and added some more details and Kawamori approved it then. That's not to look down on why people want to buy the bandai model; I'm interested in display models and others are interested in a gunpla. That's great. I'd love if more people got into classical modeling as a result of building this model. And there are some classical modellers who will want to build it as well. But for a lot of us, the choice between a hasegawa kit and the bandai one is that the latter costs over double, requires more work and has worse proportions. So please, keep that in mind when you think we're just ignorant haters. A lot of us have invested thousands of hours into this craft. When you see a lot of the people who are very skilled at this hobby voicing our concerns its because it doesn't fit your views, that's because we are particular about what we look for and need... not because we just throw hate at things irrationally.

Mr Surfacer is your friend.

Very well done, as always. Can you tell us more about the weathering technique?

Double post.

Whatcha going to do with it Cool8or? OOB or custom scheme?

OMG it does? Who would have thought! I mean when a guy can build this, he probably doesn't know that decals even exist. Seriously though, decals aren't really helpful in this case because they require glosscoat sealing to prevent damage. I'd rather paint almost everything in order to make it as tough as possible. Sorry, it was my exhuberance for a gerwalk mode that got the best of me.

First off, before anyone gets too uppity, let me say that the engineering itself is pretty awesome. That being said.... Basically yes. Watching that movie makes me think how quickly any paint job I might attempt will get ruined. Just transforming it from fighter to gerwalk involved more handling than I had with my last model after I finished a glosscoat. Three transformations and it would be all for naught. The modes are a mixed bag. Fighter looks terrible. Gerwalk pretty good, and battroid the best... sorta big head aside.

You can always count on a kit you want to come out after spending mega bucks on an inferior version.

Thanks guys for the compliments. Checkmate: the hasegawa kits in 48 are awesome... I wish I could build in that scale because you get so many cool details oob that I have to scratch. I should correct you that these are legacy hornets, not supers. Intakes are generally a bear in all kits... so much so that hasegawa neglects to add them in any of their 72nd version. Post some photos of your builds, and maybe we can give you some tips. I've got a conversion set for the hasegawa YF-21/VF-22 to turn it into a battroid. I'm not sure who made it (I bought it on MW), but you need the hasegawa kit to build it. Do you need it for yours?

I use several different products, but probably the best I've found is Alclad Flat... it gives a dead flat appearance that I really like. Flat base is nice (and its more durable) but hitting that ratio can be hit and miss and become a real pain.

Well time for another update. First the spartan is on hold while I wait for my diorama base to be completed. I don't know if I mentioned this but I'm having an architect build me a futuristic building, which I'll then weather and modify. My five CF-18s are coming along. I'll just post highlights here: First up... modified seats for the hasegawa kits. These are the three Hasegawa kits' cockpits basically completed. Modified intakes made out of miliput: After copious amounts of Mr surfacer and sanding, as well as a coat of black paint... (all it needs now is to spray white paint gradually to create depth) When a Hornet is at rest the hydraulic power bleeds... so they are flap down. I've decided to modify the hasegawa and maybe the fujimi kits this way. It requires me to cut out the flaps. Then using a pop can (just noticed it was canada dry ginger ale... kinda fitting) I cut out a portion which will be the the flap cover. A close up: I also did some work on the Academy kit. Its not my favorite kit... a lot of parts that make it difficult to get right. As you can see in front of the LERX there is a gap and the seam lines are not very pretty. I'll need to do some work to fix that up. So here is an family shot. Oh and I finished these two... hopefully I'll have better photos of them next time. Thanks for looking.

Woah.... that tool fits gunze AND tamiya? I'll have to pick it up at my LHS because I thought it was a gunze only tool. Its much better than my usual approach to use a vice grip. ... now only if it fits alclad lids.

Modelglue: I love the new hasegawa kits like these... post more photos please! Greyrider; nice enterprise. I like your technique for aztek. Few realize how simple changes in the matte sheen can have such a difference. F-2As? AWESOME! I've got one in the stash... but I don't have the right paints yet. I'm going to get the Gunze three set so I can start building it.

The glues will work on it... question is how will it react. I don't have an answer for that TBH. White glue might be the only safe option, though I've never made a model out of it. Revell of Germany makes a canopy glue... never tried it but its supposed to prevent it from going white. Maybe only paint parts of it and scratchbuild the interior? What clear colour is it? Is it the neon ones or pure clear? Neon I can see making it look as if its in Fold space... clear would be cool as a cutaway, as they do now with some aircraft carrier kits. BTW those decals are somewhat valuable.

Model master black or another dark colour works just fine.... which you can get for 2.50. I got mine for 50 cents. I've used it for almost all my NMF Models. Be careful however to let it dry for 24 hours, otherwise you'll get the same problem as WM Cheng did in the other thread. You can also thin the MM with mineral spirits which is pretty cheap. If you want a true primer, go thinned Mr. Surfacer through the AB (basically full of awesome), then MM black.

Come to the dark side exo! One thing I've found is that gunze paints last longer than tamiya because they are thicker. You'll need to buy thinner to get them to AB consistency (the 400ml bottles are a deal) but they are well worth it in the long run. I really like the finish they leave; I can often just decal directly onto the paint because their paints (except the flats) come out a really nice satin.