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Ok, no real new progress... but when I took the photo of the template for Gabe, I couldn't resist just putting the Valkyrie onto the booster to take a look at! With the modifications I made to the Booster, the Valkyrie is now removeable (which I suggest all to do since it make painting so much easier later on) the fit is rather tight and snug though (thanks to the Captain's precision sculpt!). The Valk isn't all the way in... its a really tight fit, so its in partially for now so I can easily take it out again. Can't wait to pin and glue the engine bells (maybe this weekend!) (p.s. I switched back to my old Nikon 990 camera - I just leave it collecting dust now that I have my Nikon D80 DSLR which is so much better as can be seen by the earlier pictures, the colour of the previous shots are so much more true to life - but the Nikon 990 still has better Macro and close focusing capabilities)

No probs Gabe, How's this... I can't even remember when I bought it.

Once all the decals were down and allowed to dry (very important to not futz with it when there is MicroSOL on top of the decals - I've ruined tons of good decals by playing with the model and touching or holding it in the wrong place!). I left it overnight to make sure. I then took a relatively soft mechanical pencil (lead 2B) and lightly drew in some additional panel lines, access hatches and details over the decals. I got this great photo-etched scribing template from Verlinden - its mostly WWII aircraft access hatch shapes - like losenges, but its useful. I haven't got up the nerve to use it as a scribing template yet - I will someday. Using the airbrush again took a few tries at getting used to it again. Being away for more than a year really made me feel un-easy about the whole process. I had to redo a lot of the fine spraying (ie; I sprayed some sky-grey and medium blue over areas so that they didn't look so flat, and accentuated some of the panel lines while tying in some of the lighter decal stenciling so that they look more painted in and didn't stand out with so much contrast. I then clear-coated the entire thing in ModelMaster Acryl flat/matte finish. This protects the decals somewhat, protects the pencil details from smudging, and blends in the decal finish so it looks like the rest of the model. It also has an effect of lightening the overall finish of the booster (which is good since it mates up with a somewhat white plane). I established this matte booster on semi-gloss plane before with my other Super-Valkyries - so I wanted to follow suit - since they will be displayed together. The matte finish makes it more utilitarian IMHO. Once the flat finish had dried, I took a bit of flat white and did a light overall dry-brushing hitting the highlights of the model - paying close attention to the serrated grey hatches above and below. Together with the previous dark oil wash, and this lighter dry-brushing, I think it adds a lot more depth t othe model (oven though the shape of the model is relatively flat on the sides). Overall I am very happy with the way it has turned out now. I spent way too much time and effort on those 3-slotted vents that I don't think it pays off in the end. You can hardly see the engine details I put inside the mesh (if I chose a larger holed mesh, then it would look out of scale). Now I think if I can get away for a hour in the next few days - I can't wait to attach the engine bells!

Thanks for the tip - I ended up just picking at it some more until I was totally frustrated - then I wanted to move on to decaling! I tried to do a dark / flat black wash over the mesh, so that any remaining blue masking residue became black or dark grey, it also toned down the bright reflective quality of the steel mesh and gave it a more scaled appearance. I used some of Anasazi's great decals - the correct size for the Space Kite symbol appears to be the 1/48 Yamato fastpacks kite. Along with tons of stencilling from my decal spares. The UN Spacy letters on the black stripes were from the extra grey ones Hasegawa provided with the YF-21 kit in grey - I then re-sprayed a light coat of flat black over the decals to further tone them down to a dark grey so they blended into the black stripe a bit more - I didn't want them to stand out so much. Before I decalled, I made sure that there was a semi-gloss clearcoat base for the decals to adhere too. Since this is a relatively dark base with the end result being a flat or matte finish - this is a prime candidate for the silvering of the carrier film to show through. To minimize this possible end result, I used a smooth semi-gloss base coat (a glossy one would be better, but it may attract fingerprints), then I applied liberally the MicroSET solution to the surface of the model to be decalled. I trimmed as much of the excess carrier film as possible, when I slid the decal onto the model surface, I pressed them down with a wet paper tower to remove any possible air bubble underneath. Once in place I painted MicroSOL over the all the decals to get them to lie flatter against the model.

Hey Grayson, whats NM?

Thanks so much Electric Indigo! I actually ordered the magazine now. Did you know there's another Yamato modellng manual - I got it off HLJ a little while ago. Now if there's some kind soul that can translate Japanese for me?! ;-) I'd be set! Painting those figures are simply crazy!! I don't think in my wildest dreams I can do anything approaching what these people can do - for those of you who don't have the kit, the little scaled figures are literally 1/8" - 3/16" tall! but they hold tremendous detail, right down to their shoulder stripes. It goes to prove what kind of molding technology they have.

I don't think I have just pure ammonia. I've tried windex with ammonia, and it doesn't seem to do much with the liquid mask - however, its a great solvent for Tamiya paints though, that's what I use to clean out the airbrush.

Thanks, because I've tried all my stuff; alcohol, Mr. Color thinner, Tamiya thinner, Metalizer thinner, ModelMaster Acyl thinner/solvent, Varsol, Acetone, & Nail polish remover - but still no go. Gawd! what is this stuff made of?! Where do I get cellulose thinner? Is it a hardware thing? Paint solvent?

Thanks Recon for that bit instructions - it helped. I still have a problem with a droppy nose from the darker grey heat shield forward when I'm zooming it around the room, its fine when the gears are deployed and it sits on the ground, the weight of the plane on the front nose gears closes up the gap in the heat shield. That's why we don't see it in pictures since everyone shots it with the gears deployed sitting on the ground. Here's my two cents worth after having the two for a week. Its a wonderful looking toy! One of the best sculpts and I love the grey on grey scheme. Visually its one of the best Yamato has come up with. As a toy per se, it doesn't have the playability of the 1/48 VF-1. I've transformed it into all three modes, and its one of the most difficult finicky transformations ever, I am always afraid to stress the parts, it feels flimsy and the hinges seem too thin to take the stress (I have white stress marks on the dark grey over the shoulder double hinges already only after a few transforms - these should have been metal too). Its a bad combination of some parts being too way too tight (such as step 07 when you push the nose forward to release the heatshield or the second hinge in the tailfin section to flip up) and other parts just being too flimsy and flopping open (such as the inovative side doors to the head underneath falling open or the head flipping down in Gerwalk). I love how the forward fuselage retracts into the chest shield to reduce the torso length - great design here. Its a great instant "model" - it LOOKS fantastic, but I wouldn't want to transform it often. In the end, I think its worth it for me, since I don't have time to build any models at the moment, its instant gratification. Its something more to be left in one mode and looked at or occasionally picked up and zoomed around. And really, after the "newness" of all my other Yamato birds wear off, it usually ends up on my shelf in one mode or another to be looked at and occasionally picked up. Because it's sure purdy!! Can't wait to panel-line, weather and hopefully Anasazi or someone will provide us with some waterslide decals for this baby!!

Thanks! The colour scheme was to match my other VF-1 Valks with the Fastpacks, its a very similar blue/grey, I thought that this Booster was just another REALLY REALLY big fastpack type of equipment add-on for the Valks. Yeah... believe me, I thought about doing something to cover them up and call it a day. But if you remember, I spent all that time hollowing out the inside of the resin cast so I could fit engine mechanical details behind the screen. What a waste of time that was! You can hardly see anything behind the screen now - I think the screen is a bit too reflective and the mesh too fine. I may dull it down or tone down the silver so we can see into the engine compartment a bit more, but only after I figure out a way of getting all the tiny bits of blue liquid mask out of all the tiny mesh holes first. Solvent is the way to go I think, if I can find the right stuff.

ARGH!!! The nightmare begins! Ok, tip to any that care... do not let liquid mask dry out on your model!! Of course this doesn't happen overnight or in months, but over a year it can - especially in dry Canadian winters when you're workspace is beside the furnace. What should of been a 5 minute job and the joy of revealing work underneath (I've always love peeling liquid mask - it signals a stage where something that was hidden is finally revealed in all its glory, its quite cathartic - except in this case!) is now a 3 hour ordeal! The cracked bits of dried liquid mask flaked off in tiny bits, gumming up the fine mesh underneath. Also the dried mask intensified its pull on the painted vent edges underneath and pulled flakes of paint off with it as it came out. I basically surgically had to use a x-acto blade and needle-nosed tweezers to slowly pick at this stuff while trying to minimize the damage to the surrounding edges. Unbeknown to me, some of the liquid mask got underneath the masking tape over the mesh and seeped into all the tiny holes of the mesh - its what you see as some blue marks on the mesh, its not overspray, its the remnants of the liquid mask. Anyone know of a solvent for Microscale Blue Liquid Mask that won't also desolve my paint around the vents? So the tedious task of removing all this crap now befalls me, it took 3 hrs to do these three vents, there are 12 in total - so I thought I would attack one each night for the next twelve nights. And thats all I got in my 7 hours of Father's Day bliss! Hopefully I can sneek a little here and there, cause I really want to finish this up before more damage occurs on it while just sitting on my bench! Its the best part left which is all the decaling and weathering.

In the meanwhile, whenever I had to wait for anything, such as the black stripes to dry, I started to decal the VF-1 Valkyrie, I started by doing all the large black stripes on it too! Best technique I've found is to trim as closely any excess carrier film from the decals. Wet the area on the plane with MicroSET setting solution (normally this just breaks the surface tension in the water and minimizes bubbles - but for some reason it actually attacked some of the Hasegawa decals - I don't know why, MicroSET is usually pretty harmless). I slide the decal onto the model with lots of water, and position it to where I want it. Then I use a wet paper tower folder over a few times and press down hard on the decal careful to not slide it out of place. This forces the decal down and onto the surface of the model and into all the contours, panel lines and rivet details. Once you see all that amazing detail show through (I still think the original VF-1 is still one of Hasegawa's best molded detailed kits ever!) the decals, I would then dab a little (very little) MicroSET solution only over the areas that have the most details - this softens the decals up and allow it to conform to all the little nooks and crannies. Becareful with MicroSET, this is powerful stuff on decals and the decals should never be moved after MicroSET is applied, the decals will become extremely fragile and may pucker or wrinkle a bit, but don't worry, if allowed to dried undisturbed, the decals will eventually flatten out and look like they were painted right on the surface will all the fine molding intact. After all the decals are done, I would do a very light panel line oil wash over just the decaled areas (ie; light grey over the black decals and dark grey over the light decals) to make the panel lines look uninterrupted over the decals.

I spray lightly (in thin coats), especially when you want a crisp masked edge, its better to go light and build up in layers. Always spray from the masking side in towards the model, never spray against the masked edge - you don't want to drive paint under the tape. The airbrush took a bit getting used to after all this time. But I'm pretty happy with the results. If you notice the 3 vent slots are filled in with liquid mask from over a year ago - if you look closely, you will see that it has completely dried out and cracked so that it looks like the surface of the desert. This is my next nightmare to follow!! In fact these 3 vent details have been a thorn in my side for the entire process of this Booster kit. I decided it was time to remove the masking and expose the grill and engine detail work so that if there was any touch up to the edges of the vents that needed to be done during the masking removal, I could do it now before I get any of the decals down.

Well, my first Father's Day! and the best-est present was 7 uninterrupted hours of modeling! Weird feeling getting back into the saddle. There were actual cobwebs in my workstation. I had to spend some time vacuuming the surfaces (didn't want the airbrush kicking up dust and debris) and finding all my stuff first. Then it was figuring where I left off and planning what steps to take to finish. I never took such a long break while in the middle of a model before. First thing was that I decided to mask and paint the black markings; the triangular patch near the front, the longitudinal stripe and the front intake slots. I used a circle template to get the size of the UN Spacy Kite symbol and masked that off so the black stripe didn't show through underneath (even thought the decal is white backed - black is a hard colour to opaque out). I then drew the triangular pattern on a piece of paper and cut it out to use as a template so that I can flip it to get the other side symmetrically the same. Then I used the good Tamiya masking tape to do the actual paint edge, followed by cheaper regular masking tape that I stuck first to my paints to remove some of the stickiness.

Yay! a build-up - that's great, I haven't built a Battroid before. Thanks so much! I'll be watching for sure.

Yay! a step-by-step... I'll be watching to get my fix Since I don't have time to do it myself, I can live through you guys... that's great, I haven't built a Battroid before. Thanks so much!!

No I didn't! What issue of Model Graphix is it? Anyone know where I could get scans of it online? (or is willing to scan some pages for me?) I would love to see it! Thanks for the heads up. Yep, the computer is there, but not working yet. Its leftover components from my desktop upgrade upstairs - the theory is so I can have my iTunes and references close at hand. But I have yet had the time to hook it up, it has a TV card in it so I can watch TV too - great place to use a old spare monitor and tower.

Happy Father's Day to all!! My "best-est" present was 7hrs of uninterrupted modelling! The first time I've sat down here since Alex was born. I had to literally clean off cobwebs and vacuum the entire workspace since so much dust had accumulated, my airbrush compressor oil had settled too! You can see I got the Bandai Yamato - this will be my next treat as soon as I get a real opportunity. For now, I'd be happy to finally finish my long overdue Atmospheric Booster. Unfortnately I did not get it done, but did get a good start on finishing it. I had to spend a bit of time trying to orient myself again to remember where I left off last. I'll post some works in progress to the step-by-step thread later. After this booster, I think I'll take a bit of a break from Macross, with the Bandai Yamato and the Fine Molds Millennium Falcon battling it out for who gets my next attention (if Alex allows me some more time in the summer).

Thanks Recon, You wouldn't happen to have a photo with arrows or areas circled would ya? Good to know that it isn't just me that the fighter mode is slightly more flimsy than the older VF-1s. p.s. is anyone else's rear gears hard to take out and deploy? - I guess I need to grow my fingernails out (eew!)

Well, I just got this puppy yesterday - and I must admit, the sculpt is amazing! However, this is my first VF-0, so I'm not too familiar with it, but did notice straight out of the box that it was looser or flimsier than the VF-1. My older VF-1 all lock up so tightly in fighter mode, but this is a bit loose. Same here that my left leg doesn't hold very well in fighter mode and the intake shield falls out rather easily. Upon a semi-transformation, I noticed that the "thigh" or intake part of the leg was split down the seam, I can only hope the screw is loose and just needs to be tightened and the threads aren't stripped. I'll let you know later. Wierd kinda flimsy or loose in some areas (nose portion of the fuselage, left leg against the backpacks, tail fins, two face shield pieces under the fuselage by the head keeps floppy out) and really tight in some (I still can't get the rear gears deployed without a screwdriver on both the VF-0 and Ghost nor the secondary hinge - smaller one in the backpack). A newby transformation question - what happens to the front nose probe during transformation (I looked at the instructions and it just disappears from one step to another? Hey is there a transformation video or guide somewhere or can someone help me though this. I'm pretty good at the VF-1, but the combination of loose and really tight joints have me scratching my head. In step 07 of the instructions, I can't seem to separate the forward nose from the blast shield - there is a gap between the blast shield and the chest piece, but the seam between the forward nose and blast shield is tight - where do I press?

I got mine too today!! - yay! first Macross thing since our baby!!! - this thread forced me to get one... I couldn't help it. Its also the first Yamato toy I've bought that I don't have Anasazi's amazing decals for yet - I hope that sorts itself out soon - cause I can't wait to do this baby up!! Amazingly fast service, got the shipping notice June 7th, and it arrived at my door today June 13th (4-5 working days from Japan to Canada?!). Customs did ding me $40cdn for taxes and handling fee, and I was charged $60cdn from HLJ shipping - so it all cost $100 in just shipping & handling?! (Ok, I got a few other small books) Kinda steep.

Wow! fantastic work on all the models... So is the VF-2 a modification of the Bandai kit? That green canopy seems to say so , but it looks too good to be the plastic kit. Fantastic!

Thanks, I do like the Cariburn (or whatever) nice lines - I hope they make kits of it. I wouldn't mind a Ace Combat for PS2 with more futuristic fighters too - but they'd probably be concentrating on the PS3 by now (too bad). I love sleek lines!

WOW! Electric Indigo... what's Ace Combat X? I love the aircraft designs!! Any models of those exists? What are they? I have Ace Combat 5 and I've never seen anything like those! Must have Hasegawa make those designs!

Hi everyone, I just wanted to add my comments (sorry been out of the loop for the past few months - but I love my baby girl, she's 10 months now!) I am so sorry to hear about this Night Stalker - some people can be so rude and don't realize that this is a community based on the generosity of others. For all those people out there that were less than kind to NS, all I can say is "Grow UP!" - its only $10-20 dollars, thats nothing to get rude over, even $100 or more, whats the price for our civility? I mean don't get me wrong, there are definite scammers out there in the wild internet, but with our MW community here - they may get away with it once or twice initially, but then are usually shut out. I feel I must also express my appreciation to Anasazi's hard work for creating these graphics and initially providing the service (all my Yamato Valks bear his work!). To this day I will not even buy a Yamato Valk if I didn't have his decals for them ready. Actually thats one of the reasons I'm holding off on the VF-0 with Ghost. So selfishly... - I am hoping that he would create the graphics for the new VF-0 with Ghost and that NS will eventually provide the services to print these graphics and continue to contribute to this fine community. It really would be a shame to have all this end due to a few loudmouths. Its all a Karmic chain, no more decals, no more Yamato Valks for me, and eventually no more postings from me either. Maybe the decal service should be a bit more selective to who it sells too, if NS deems you to be rude, then maybe bite the bullet, refund their few bucks, call it a loss and refuse to service them. Or check out how long they have been members here (membership should have its privileges ;-))