HWR MKII

all i know on the star destroyer thing is that the super star destroyer will be in it. look at the photo archives on the special features disc from the OT box set. nice big pic of the SSD EXECUTOR bridge saying that it had been rebuilt for use in the film. that new jedi starfighter looks "neat" and i can see where lucas is trying to match the mechanical look of the 2 trilogies but i think that the old fighter from epi2 was just fine. hes doing the usual adding a new vehicle or character into the film with every new movie bit. general grevious is the perfect example of that. cool big badass but essentially he seems useless to the movement of the story. we didnt see him in the other movies so why now. a character thats touted as being as important as he is should have been included in some way into epi2 at least to show us whats in store.

i cant wait to see the super star destroyer in all its factory fresh glory. on the features dvd there is a pic of te bridge with a caption saying that it had been recreated for epi3.

another shot of the guns and thats it for today time for some thanksgiving turkey.

the overall back and rear leg detail is excellent. i decided not to convert the detail on the rearof the feet since the age of the plastic was causing it to fracture and shatter.

i love how the feet look. they have a nice heavy feel you dont often get in mecha kits

the gun detail pops really well with the dry brushing. i drybrush with the base color mixed with tamiya XF-60 dark yellow to lighten it a little then i drybrush again with pure dark yellow for a final highlight

heres the base wash and drybrush session. the wash is a 50/50 mix of gloss and flat black enamel thinned to the ratios i like. i use a mixed black because sometimes flat black can gray out when it dries and the gloss mixed in helps preserve the color depth.

and the white/gray makrs on the legs

since the kit didnt come with decals i had to hand paint the markings

i think they are the 1/200 nichimo regults. she found them on ebay. just do a search under macross/all categories and sift through it all. my wife actually finds all my macross kits she just searches online when shes bored or waiting to download something. i only own 2 valk kits myself i like the more obscure subjects . dont get me wrong WMcheng does excellent work and is a credit to model builders the world over but i can only see so many valks before they start to blurr together.

your welcome. i have a pretty wide range of models from german tanks both large1/16 scale and small 1/35 scale to a 1/9 scale ED-209 from robocop. im just now getting a good collection of macross subjects. on my side bench are a hikaru skull 11, mac+ YF-19, and the VF-0S. acft tend to take me a little longer to build since i work on them all day i dont want to touch them when i get home sometimes. if anyone wants to see pics of my other stuff ill post some in the other scifi anime area.

thats all for today. cant wait till christmas though. i have a 4pack of regult pods on the way and a 1/72 GBP armor and other various models on the way. i had to show my wife a good collection of items and she picked out of those based on my reactions.the decals didnt come with the kit so its time to go and make masks for the ones i need to airbrush on.

the camera washes out the color a bit but it does have a nice golden brown to it.

here it is after a coat of tamiya XF-49 khaki. its the closest match to the color used in the animation.

the white paint on the valk didnt turn out how i like so im going to strip it down and repaint it if i cant do some weathering to incorporate the flaws.

ignore the 1/48 VF-1S strike behind the defender.

nice details on the back exauhst vent

the model is literally straight out of the box

time for some paint process pics. i left some seams in to simulate access hatches and how pieces would split apart to service the guns and actuators in the legs. so again i bust out the rusttough primer.

without

well heres the side view with and wthout the VF-0

ill try posting tomorrow. ill compare it to the VF 0.

well my wife suprised me and gave me the defender early. it was pre started. the feet, hips,guns and shoulders had been assembled. i assembled the rest of it and compared to the line art is mostly accurate. the only real flaw is that the 3 depressions on the back of the rear "toes" are represented as raised blocks. im going to shave those off and reconstruct the depressions by layering a piece of sheet plastic on with the holes cut for the depressions. ill post some pics of the painting process this week. jipe you were right the foot and leg system is good. its tight too even without needing polycaps.

my wife found the 1/72 scale model for me. jipe what are the legs like and do you have any good pics ?

as the title says. is it decent for an early 80s kit? i have one in the house but i cant touch it until december 25th. go figure. oh the agony of macross christmas presents.