wm cheng

Sorry been out of it for a while, but a question. Is there two types of Ghost offered, the stand-alone Ghost with the Grey/Blue camo pattern and the Ghost packaged with the VF-0A that is Light Grey/Grey scheme? I must say I like the Light Grey on Grey scheme much better on the VF-0A! But I see pictures of the Grey/Blue camo pattern also on the VF-0A - which is which?

Sorry guys... took a little vacation down south to the Caribbean with our daughter - then it was back to work... I got another job (much sooner than I anticipated). Its pretty crazy starting up again... so the booster is on the back burner, but its NEXT! Its pretty much assembled, only decalling and paint touchups. Come on all, lets see your Boosters! Inspire ME! ;-)

I pretty close to being finished. I may add a light dusting of light grey - kind of like post shading to tie it together a little more, plus do a small amount of silver dry-brushing to simulate some chipped paint. Lastly, I need to do a dark oil wash on all the missles - its a very labour intensive task, so I am leaving this till after the vacation (I'm leaving for a 1wk family vacation this Friday!) As you can see, the VF-1J beneath is completely naked (that will be another time!) - but I'm happy for now.

I next thinned some black down, and did a very light misting over some of the white stencils, to tone them down a bit to a grey. I also used this opportunity to do some blast charring from the missles, the rear thrusters and do a general panel post shading to tie it all together. The toughest part was trying to guage darkness on the glossy finish (as the glossy finish is always dark and will lighten considerably when you apply the matte finish over the whole thing). Once I thought I've toned down the screaming white stencils, I shot the entire thing with ModelMaster Acryl Matte/Flat Clear Coat to get my desired final finish. I liked doing the Fast Packs and any Valkyrie add-ons in flat finish, it gives a more scale sense and makes it look less toyish. Additionally, it makes it look more like armour and brings out the original lighter dry-brushing All the previous work with the future was to create a glossy under-surface for the decals to lay flat upon, so the carrier film between the various white lines become invisible. One must alway take care when doing a flat finish with a dark background, these two factors really tend to bring out any silvering that may occur with the decal carrier films (no matter what type of water-slide decal or how thin they are). NOTE: Becareful when applying a flat clear coat over the glossy future - I got a crackling / splitting texture in some areas, kind of like desert clay crackling - I suspect I may have sprayed too heavy/wet a coat of flat/matte clear coat over the glossy surface. Its fine in thinner even coats, and the crackling disappears after a few more coats over it - however if it was worst, I suspect I would have to strip it down to start over.

Ah... so good to hear these great decals are available again!! YAY! Thanks David, yeah, I know what the remove before flight tags are, but on the GBP sticker sheet, they seem to be warning stencils, with red & white hazard striping on either side. Its probably the Japanese, not know what "remove before flight" really means, and just stuck some "Engrish" in there. Anyways, once all the Yamato instructions were followed, there are so many more decals that are not specifically located - I then just kind of chose the ones I liked and tucked them here and there - I error on the side of not enough rather than too much - but I think it really adds a lot more to the toy! Here is a shot of the completed decalled parts. I added another thick coat of future over the decals to seal them in and smooth out the carrier film edges.

Yep, I'll have to decal up the VF-1J too, but that will be after I finish the Atmospheric Booster, this decalling project is being done now to get me back into the swing of things. There are a lot of decals (but I love all the stencilling!) but the toughest part is probably trying to cut all the carrier film off around the white markings as close to the marking as possible without cutting through the paper and damaging my light table. I have also decided to substitute some of the markings with ones from a smaller scale from and old WAVE option decal sheet, it seems to be sized for 1/72 destroids, but I thought the yellow triangular marking looked too toyish when it was so big. Now I need some help, there seems to be a bunch of other decals (both on the original Yamato sheet, and faithfully reproduced by Anasazi) that I can't seem to find where they go. Although I seem to have remembered seeing some of them applied somewhere. Specifically, they are numbers; 93, 95, 96, 85 - 93. I also remember seeing someone apply the red "remove before flight" stencil no.93 onto the armor somewhere - if anyone has any good pictures of any other completed GBP-01 Armor - please post them in this thread as well, I can really use the reference! p.s. the glossyness from the Future really makes it toyish and hard to photograph - can't wait to dull it all down again!!

I took all the amoured parts off the VF-1J and sprayed them with future - am I letting that dry for a bit. For those of you lucky enough to have gotten a set of Anasazi's GPB decals - you may have noticed that its pretty hard to see the white printing against the white paper background. Photographed below is a light table (this is a smaller portable one used for viewing photographic slides or tracing) once you put the decal over the light, you will see the white printed graphics more easily which will allow you to trim as closely as possible to the carrier film. You can also just tape the decal up to a window and let the daylight do the same thing (its just a more awkward cutting position.

Hi all, As most of you may know, my wife and I had our wonderful Alex last July, and I have dropped off the map... with working and all. Well, Alex has finally reached that magical age of 6 months when the baby world has agreed to let the parents who passed a little breather... before they start crawling and getting into stuff. The stars have aligned, and ACTRA has chose to strike in Canada, so the film business has just tanked! So I have a week (before we head off down to the Caribbean for 1 wk) to get back into the groove again... My first priority is to finish up that Atmospheric Booster resin kit - but being rusty and lacking confidence, I decided to fix up my Yamato GPB-01 Amour first using Anasazi's amazing set of decals. Its a real lost to the Macross community that he no longer provides his invaluable service (in fact, I have given much more thought and consideration to the upcomming Yamato Macross toy offerings since I can not longer obtain his beautiful works for my toys) Luckily, I got one of his very first batch of GPB-01 decals! As with all my Yamato toys, they are for playing with (as opposed to my models) so I usually just panel line them, decal them and seal them in with an appropriate finish (semi-gloss or matte). I don't usually go to the bother of repainting them or eliminating the seam lines. Similarly to my earlier Fast Packs, I wanted to finish the GPB in a matte flat finish similar to tanks and artillery. However, after learning from the Fast Packs I realized that there is a slight pebbly finish to the Yamato toys which if you decalled directly over it, and sprayed a flat finish over that, it tends to silver the decal carrier film slightly. So to try to smooth out the plastic undersurface for the decals, I am going to spray future floor polish to give the plastic a smoother glossy surface for the decals to lay on. I hope this works. Below are some photos of what I am starting with. Over last few months, I had 5 or 10mins here and there where I did a black oil wash over the toy and wiped the excess off to pick out the recesses of the molding. After that was dried, I did a light sky grey dry brush to hit the highlights of the molding. The combination of the dark wash and light dry brush brings out more of the details. I will continue this process after the decals as well, but I just wanted to get an idea of the undercoat before I started to decal. (hint, its easier to dry brush on a matte/flat surface). p.s. I got a new DSLR for X-Mas, so these photos are hopefully better than my last, they are from a Nikon D80 under Tungsten WhiteBalance - then reduced before attaching.

I hope to be finishing up this model soon!! The baby is finally just over 6 months old (and she is fantastic!) - and the parents can now catch a breath!! I hope to be returning to this soon. I thought I'd get practiced with a Yamato 1/48 GBP-01 toy first, then move back onto this later in the week.

Thanks so much for all your contributions Devin! Congrats on the marriage... having a new little around the house really eats into my time - I too think my hobby days are going to be on hold for a few years - so I totally understand your lack of time. Beware its only a matter of time when you come to know what having no time really is!! I would just like to thank you for all your hard work over the years, I personally couldn't of done so much of my toys and models without your help and your wonderful decals. I hope to finish off the Atmospheric Booster and the Yamato GBP-01 with your decals this winter and post it as a homage to your work and dedication. I hope we stay in touch, and maybe... someday... we can return to the fray... Best of luck. Wm

A big congrats! on such a beautiful girl. Hope the Mom is doing well to. My best wishes!

Hey David, Just get the cheapest oils from a local art supply store - you're not doing a painting. I only got white, black and brown, and I mix everything in between. It shouldn't cost you more than $5 a tube - and that lasts me a while (in fact I'm still on my first tubes ever).

I would not use the Gundam Marker, its just too thick and dark - unless you are going for the anime style... Pencil is a good idea - the grey will look good and its easy to erase. If you want something a little more permanent, I use thinned down oil paints, it has a slow drying time, so you can have lots of time to wipe off the excess. It mixes well, so you can have white (or light grey) lines in the black areas and different shades in the white areas. You can wipe away the excess with just a paper towel - or if you leave it too long, you can dip it with varsol (low odour is less strong) and wipe - it didn't harm the paint.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Future! http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html

The best (proper) way is to spray on a heavy coat of future to seal in the decals (the future blends in the edge of the decal to the paint surface) - then spray on your final finish (I use a acryl semi-gloss by ModelMaster) over the whole thing. That being said, the decals should of been applied over a glossy (future clear coat) surface in the first place. Never apply decals over a flat/matte based surface - thats a sure way to get the silvering that can occur in the carrier film. Also it may look fine at first, but if you apply a flat clear coat over a decal that was applied over a flat/matte surface, the silvering will appear or become worst. I said "proper" because I often skip the future spray (unless the decals are quite thick). The Hasegawa decals are fine, not too thick, but if you trimed really close to the carrier film, and you applied decal softener, then you should be fine in just spraying your final finish clear coat over the entire model. I often dust the plane down in a very light thinned sky grey in the direction of airflow to darken up some of the white surfaces and lighten up some of the darker decals to help blend them into the overall paint scheme so they do not catch the eye as being too constrasty or jarring. Then protect this light mist with a clear coat of the desired finish (again I usually choose a semi-gloss for the fuselage and a flat clear for the fast packs) Good luck!

Yep, pin friction alone holds them in - but always have two (or more) pins to hold something in, its the "inaccuracies" in trying to get both pins to line up exactly that creates the friction for the piece to stay on (if you can get my poor discription of the process). The farther the pins are apart, the better the hold. Yes, I try to locate the pin holes so that they appear as detail instead of being too distracting. When you get your kit, you can compare and locate where my pin holes are. I had my friend vac-form the canopy for me (he used to own a plastics shop) but no longer has that ability. Try some local hobby shops or contact your local chapter of IMPS - they will know who can do this for ya. Good luck.

Unfortunately I no longer have the write-up (it was lost with the old boards) but I do have a few of the in-progress pictures... Unfortunately none of the beginning stages of the build. Pretty boring though, just a lot of sanding, priming, epoxing pins (paperclips) to re-inforce some of the smaller contact points. I basically used a pin vise to drill a small hole for the paperclip pins, then applied some market to the ends and touched them to the other half to be joined - then the mark created I drilled out for the pin to seat into. I epoxy one end to the part and leave the other end a hole.

What an awesome wife!! Yep, mine was from Hobbyfan way back when and I got a useless foggy translucent canopy which I had vacformed. The kit is excellent though, very crisp line and great shape. It takes a little work to get the fast packs removeable - but its definitely worth the effort (I just used paperclip pins) Here are some shots of mine built 5 or 6 years ago - please excuse the way too heavy panel lining and post shading - but this is the model that got me back into Macross building!!

Willdo! John is a great guy - that's where I got my FMMF from.

I can't wait for this puppy!! But it may be a while before I can sink my teeth into it...

Nice build up so far Spatula... A few suggestions, great idea about the gun vents, a faster way maybe to drill out the vents with a pinvise which is much smaller than the rectangular opening. Then, use a fine needle flat file to work the sides flat and sharpen the inside corners of the vents. You can pick up a set of fine needle flat files at a hobby store or hardware store for cheap (especially the made in china stuff) - you don't need the expensive ones since its only soft plastic that is being filed. Secondly, you could paint the wheel well in a few different shades of grey or metals, picking out some details of the pipes or tubes in a different colour. You don't have to be really neat to stay within the lines, since the dark oil wash will fill in the transitions between all the colours. Finally, do a white colour dry brush on it to lighten it back up and pick out all the raised details - this is a great part for it, lots of raised details to catch the dry brushing. Good luck.

Yay! another build up for me to live vicariously through! Great work... one little comment though (not sure if you want to hear this ) but I got caught up in detailing too and made the same mistake as you. The VF-1D was a TV series Valk, and in the canon lineart, all the TV series valks don't have controls on the side panels, they have these green rectangular pillowy cushions for the arms (an armrest!). Oh well, I still think it looks better (more realistic) with side consoles. Keep up the great work.

Thanks for all the warm wishes and creative comments (my wife really loves those!) Congratulations to you too Brian! p.s. I've already been caught with overspray a few times - and I don't mean with an airbrush! ;-)

Hi all! I am very happy to announce my greatest creation - a 1:1 scale fully variable (although the neck joint is a little floppy ) future Macross fanantic! Our "kit" was delivered on July 11 at 1:56am weighing in at 7lb 6oz (customs and duty didn't like the big box she came in ) Mom is doing very well and actually approves of this "purchase". This new project may take some time away from other Macross endeavours for the immediate future (until she starts building her own kits). Just wanted to share the good news with my online family - I didn't know where to post this appropriately, but thought the most people that knew me would be in this thread. Thanks, with step-by-step updates to follow. Wm

Yep, it looks really thick - the idea is to thin it down so much that the capillary action of the liquid draws itself into the recess lines. There should only be little dabs where your brush touched the line to clean up afterwards (the rest of the line shouldn't need clean up). Just becareful you're not wiping too much - it may eat into the protection layer beneath. I specifically use oils for their slow drying time, it gives me more time to weather and wipe away the excess. You don't want to let it dry completely before you wipe away the excess (especially seeing how heavy you laid it on). Use as little of the mineral spirits as required. Below is a shot of my oil wash process (and this one is really messy compared to what I usually do) - however the YF-19's lines are rather shallow.