David Hingtgen

Remember---it's merchandise sales that really support anime, not how many people watch it. If you want PG and non-transforming kits in the future, then buy the DVDs and kits that are out now.

The vast majority of "single-seat" fighter jets have room for a second seat inherent to their design, it's just filled with "extra" electronics in most cases. (Fuel in the case of a Hornet) Take that stuff out, put a seat in the spot and you have the trainer version. , The YF-19 is the most realistic of the "convertible" valks. The two-seat version of most real planes do NOT have a longer nose/fuselage, unlike say the VF-1 and VF-0. (the canopy is often longer, but that's simply because it needs to taper down further back to clear the 2nd person's head---the two-seat F-15 canopy is like 2 inches longer, that's it---it's mainly just "taller" for headroom) Here's a good shot of a single-seat F-15, you can see all the "extra room" behind the pilot:

Yeah, but Alto goes through several different (yet identically painted) valks in the series...

Gah, I just noticed something: Going by the pics at M3 and checking with the anime, every VF-25 has different color feet. I would take that as meaning they are PAINTED, and not merely "bare heat-burnished metal". However, they are all in the "possible jet engine exhaust hues" category. Alto's is brownish, Ozma's is dark steel grey, Michaels is medium grey, Luca's is light grey. So I'm wondering if painting the engine nozzles metallic, might actually be quite wrong. (Basic "olive drab" paint is darn close to the molded color in the Alto kit) However---the Super and Armor pack booster nozzles of all 4 valks seem to match Alto's feet. I doubt the booster nozzles are painted, but then why are the battroid feet of Ozma etc so clearly a different color than Alto's? And why don't Ozma's booster nozzles match his valk's nozzles? And of course--why have Alto's feet a "weird" color, and not red or black or something, if they're painted? But then even if they are "bare metal"--why are they so different from the other 3 -25's?

Forget stats, I want lineart, and tons of it. We REALLY need a new SK Design Works book, covering Zero and Frontier.

Honestly I've never painted a *toy* either. May want to ask the customizer guys, versus "model" guys. IMHO, grey primer is awesome stuff, it's my first/last/only coat most of the time I use it. (like my VF-25 landing gear)

The pic is DEFINITELY the Quarter's bridge/head. The question is whether it's a "random background pic" or a hint at what's coming. You're looking at it from above, it's facing right/down. The "clear orange" part would be below the E or X, probably right behind the stand.

I *rarely* airbrush--and haven't airbrushed Pollyscale. Pollyscale is the best IMHO because of how it hand-brushes. However, there's no way I'd hand-brush something THAT big. For, frankly, a big cheap toy (as opposed to a big expensive toy), I'd just get a can of generic grey spraypaint and go at it. Or, spend a bit more and get some of Tamiya's spray paint---their spray is the best by far. And they sell many "authentic US jet camo colors" in their spray line. (surprisingly, they don't have those colors in their regular line---while Testors has those colors in the regular line but not for sprays)

If you want the actual F-22 paint scheme, here's how to do it, hope you're skilled with an airbrush: http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/tnt1...ting/tnt151.htm For painting---my fave is Pollyscale *railroad* paints. Not only the best acrylic, but the best paint period IMHO. The military line is different though, or at least has been since Testors took it over. You won't find "F-15 grey" in the railroad line, but you will find plenty of shades of grey to choose from.

Will a normal plain inkjet work? The only decal paper I can get around here is that Testor's decal-making kit. (though I may have a sheet of Microscale white trim film---can that be printed on?)

Never done waterslide? I'd go with the stickers. And if you've NEVER done a model at all, I'd get a cheap Gundam or something first to experiment on. If nothing else, try to do a decent amount of "internal" parts first to get a feel for cutting the parts off, etc. (since the nosecone is the very first thing built, and will be fairly obvious if you do a bad job--that is NOT a piece you want for one of the first times you ever remove a part from the sprue) As for reading Japanese---can't hurt, but frankly won't help much---almost all model kit instructions are pretty much like Lego instructions----just follow the pictures. ::edit:: Well, if it's your first kit it'll help by explaining the symbols they use.

I still think they could have designed a trailer WITHOUT the BFG. I mean, Magnus' trailer is supposed to be an OPEN car carrier. It can be incredibly hollow/spindly--see the RiD version, which IMHO is the best Magnus trailer, and most realistic. And they could have just included a normal gun like that. But they made a pretty solid trailer, which is both un-Magnus-y and makes half of it transform into giant gun kibble.

Does anyone here know of something we could do to get some instrument panels printed up? I mean, there's no way to paint one like this--there aren't even any gauges molded on to drybrush or anything, it's just a bunch of green flat-panel displays in the anime. And bandai just gave us a featureless grey slab. Here's the best pic I could find of a "normal" VF-25 instrument display:

The Tuvix story could have been done better in TNG or DS9 though. Crusher+Troi, or Kira+Dax, etc.

Wow, xacto for painting thin lines. Never thought of that. Will have to try it--maybe for the red parts on Alto (his suit, not his valk). I always use xacto blades to apply both stickers and decals.

The episode(s) of "Enterprise" with the Defiant showed the perfect way to do a new interpretation of TOS-era bridge displays It looked awesome. However, it did follow the original design EXACTLY for buttons/controls. If you allow for some (SOME) movie re-imagining, it could be stunning while still pretty closely resembling TOS. As opposed to making something completely unlike the original. White and blue were NOT the colors of the original bridge.

Well, most of the mods are over at the 1/72 thread drooling at the new pics there and we're too busy to update this thread... Also, when we're getting dozens of new pics a day it's hard to pick and choose and upload. Personally, I am not going to upload every single new pic to the first post.

That is part of the Super Pack armor. Both the Super Pack and Full Armor have "codpiece armor"--and it's different for each one. The DX seems to completely ignore this fact. It's basically plain grey for all valks with the Super Pack, and it's "the main accent color" for full armor--all yellow for Ozma, all red for Alto. Here's a good view of Michael's with the Super Pack:

Annoying that Ozma gets green parts. (Hey, merchandise spellings aren't canon IMHO--look at all the "Galdo" and "New Edwars" stuff out there) The Ozma canopy is clear, not purple though, you can see it if you know where to look.

More importantly---1/72 Ghost?!? PS to wolfx: Regarding: http://macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?s=&a...st&p=670492 I only just now realized you meant the upper intake and not the auxiliary intake. For that, I plan to try to mask with 1mm wide strips of Tamiya tape, and/or "scrape" the excess paint off with a toothpick. Acrylics don't stick to bare plastic (or even primer) that well, and if it's less than a day old, can often be removed "perfectly" just using a toothpick to scrape without damaging the plastic. Scraping off acrylic paint is my big "cheat".

True Trek-geek nitpick: What's with the preceding 0 in the reg number? NCC-0514? That's just wrong/weird. There's many canon ships with numbers less than 1000, and they don't have preceding zeroes. I mean, they don't do NCC-01701. It should simply be NCC-514.

I don't really need *removable* full armor, so long as it's still transformable. I will not buy a battroid-only full-armor Ozma. Though at this point I need a green VF-27 even more. (Green=Grace)

3 LR44? That's the YF-19 fold booster.

<--still annoyed no one's cosplayed Grace yet. Easy costume, too.

Just a little note, since I don't think I've seen anyone paint it yet, even Bandai doesn't mention it: The little "camera pod" on top of the head? The front has a green lens: (ep 25 cap, but I first noticed it in ep 12)