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Oh, I live close to Danforth and Coxwell - I would love to know of a store closer to me than Anime Extreme! Any other info about it? Is it this place? https://www.navitoworld.com/

Thanks @Thom I'll have to try that out.

Beautiful work @Thom!!! The belts are PE? What did you use to fill in the gap at the wing roots? So perfect that its only in the gap and no where else outside?!?! I hate filling and sanding and often sand off a lot of fine details that I have to go back and put back in afterwards

Absolutely gorgeous @joscasle!!! Love the burnt metal on the engines. Did you freehand the camo pattern? The soft edges are perfect!

Beautifully done @joscasle - are the aircrafts 1/48? Is the Tomcat the Tamiya kit?

@Thom what F-4 is that? Is that the new F-4 1/72 from FineMolds? I just got my kit (next one maybe next year) and waiting on aftermarket to get their acts together to get some detail sets for it. It helps if you primer the entire plane. I use Alclad grey primer, but I only spray the areas where I glued or filled or sanded to see any mistakes or need for further sanding - I usually don't primer the entire plane because I'm afraid that sometimes the finer engraved detail might get lost. It seemed to only lift in areas where the AK was on top of bare plastic. However I did primer the canopy and it lifted both the AK paints and primer from the canopy frames - don't know what happened there.

Woohoo!!! Calling this puppy done. After so much went wrong on it, I'm just happy I actually finished it. Sorry about all the dust on the canopy, at 1/72 scale, it looked clean to my old eyes until the photos magnified the dust. Love the Photo-etched canopy details, but can't recommend the AK paints, they don't seem to adhere very well (lifts with Tamiya masking tape) and a tad on the dark side compared to the FS color fandeck. Highly recommend the Eduard Photo-etched set and KA 3d Printed exhaust nozzles though.

No it came with the booklet, but I always scan all the instructions into my computer and access it on the screen, because I usually keep the instructions sealed in their baggies inside their boxes stacked away. This one was only two sides, so I scanned it anyways.

Does Bandai have a PDF of the Armored Parts Set instructions out for download anywhere? I thought I should ask first since the last time I scanned the instruction booklets in, I found out the next day there were all already done from Bandai's site already (that URL no longer works now).

I'd actually prefer EMS shipping (for us in Canada) it usually comes directly to my door from our Postal Service and I rarely get customs & duty and there isn't the Carrier Brokerage Fees. I don't see it spelled out anywhere on LunaPark - it just says shipping. I just hope its properly packed in a box and not in a DHL bag.

Try over 50+ - argh I'm old!!! 🤣 (but thought I was young enough to try it this morning). I got charged 5,000Y from LunaPark - it doesn't say exactly what the method is, I'm assuming its DHL? (that's another additional $20-$25cdn for brokerage & customs)

Did everyone receive what they pre-ordered from LunaPark (I'm trying them for the first time on this) - it was just a bit of an initial growing pains with poor packaging on the first round of shipping? I'm getting your frustration @Mommar - totally understand. Had to get up at 3am here, took forever to get back to sleep on a work day - argh. I'm too old for this crap too! I wonder how long will it take them to get their legal gears together for international distribution of these toys - its gotta be at least a year away. The worst part is that they might not make any more of these toys initially to gauge demand, it will just be more people fighting over the same number of toys initially maybe?

Saw the pre-order at AmiAmi, but got login error even through I logged in, got cart jacked at HLJ, ended buying it from LunaPark so I ended up paying more AND getting up at 3am in the morning for this but at least I got one from LunaPark - should have just paid the extra in the beginning and slept (but some asian part of me thought I'd take the chance and see... I saw, I lost...) Hope some of you had better luck.

Argh cart jacked at HLJ and can't login to Ami Ami even though I was already logged in...

@peter Easy, just use Alclad Metallic Laquers, its pre-thinned and easy - just have to prep the surface and make sure its smooth first. @CrossAir Thanks. I hate doing anything twice through.

So I ended up re-painting my bird after decaling because the gloss coat really darkened the panel wash and weathering too much. Luckily I still had my paper masks for the pattern, so I re-applied a light thinned mixture of the paints overall to lighten up the panel details so they are more subtle. You can hardly even see that there were 60-70 tiny data stencil decals applied over 2 days. Don't like AK paints, they don't stick well (without primer) - a few spots lifted with Tamiya paint and canopy frame had some spots that lifted (never happens with Tamiya acrylic or Mr. Color) Finally after carefully repainting the entire thing to lighten the weathering and panel lines... I get to a less cartoony version of the Eagle. Must say USAF do keep their birds cleaner than Navy. Hate re-doing stuff I've already done. Next time, don't use G.W.H. decals - they are either incorrectly sized or wrong hues/grey. Tried a little metal/burnt tarnishing with metallic pencil crayons (blue, purple and yellow) - looking at Flankers for too long 😛

Very happy to receive my GBP Armored Parts today delivered to my door from NY (after a lot of worry from the stories around here) - they haven't failed me yet in at least 10 or more yrs. I'll try to post some pictures to compare against my old weathered decaled up (thanks to @Anasazi37) Yamato 1/48 GBP-1.

Thanks all, I guess things have gone up. At least I know its not a total gouge, but just a small profit. I know about the shitty luck with NY - but they've never failed me yet and they are my last resort. Thanks for the feedback. I just got lucky from HLJ for a model that I sent via SAL and it arrived in a week and a half. The problem with UPS or FedEx is that I'm guaranteed another $30-$40 in brokerage, customs & duty in Canada.

How much are people paying UPS shipping to NA/Canada for just the Armored Parts only? NY emailed me saying my preorder is ready for shipping, but because I selected EMS (hoping that it would be ok by now), they want an additional 4,981Y to upgrade my shipping to UPS. But in addition to 2,900Y I already paid for EMS, that's a total of 7,881Y just for shipping to Canada - that seems a bit high doesn't it for just the Armored Parts only not including the VF-1J toy itself?

I just got a SAL from HLJ last week that took 1.5wks to get from Japan to Canada - pretty lucky I guess.

@Ignacio Ocamica Wow that Mospeada is a beast! Loved it when Moscato was starting it up but it was just too big and rich for me - so glad to see someone tackle it and it looks like its in amazing hands!!! Thanks for sharing - can't wait to see the finish beauty. @peter What scale is that Excelsior? That's not the old AMT/Ertl one is it? I love that design and I built that back in my high school days before all the aztec wallpaper decals were around. Its still one of my favourite designs (not the model though!) Looking great! @derex3592 I have that kit too, you're is looking great, I can't wait to see how you finish it up - have you seen that some crazy people actually have it lit up?!?! That's just unreal magical wizardry. @pengbuzz I have that old AMT/Ertl X-Wing as well and I remember how much work it was 20yrs ago to make that look decent. Bravo, I admire your tenacity and its turning out great. You definitely have more patience that I. A little more progress on my F-15C. As with all G.W.H. kits, there are tons of mistakes in the instructions and even pieces but the surface molding is phenomenal! Overall the fit is pretty great, but there were the usual problems around the intakes and forward fuselage to main body seam gaps to deal with. Lots of study with Danny Coreman's book to find the right optional pieces and parts to glue as the instructions were definitely of no help and were all over the place - but to GWH's credit, all the optional bits and pieces were there, you just had to find them and glue them appropriately. Thanks to @David Hingtgen who put me onto these great KA Models (Korean) 3D resin printed engine nozzles, they are quite spectacular in person at this small scale, I might need to do a little more dry brushing to bring some more details out, but when I first saw the kit's nozzles, they are pretty amazing for styrene at this scale, but they don't compare to the aftermarket ones (although with shipping from Korea it wasn't cheap!) I've been thinking about the camo pattern as I've always liked the slightly feathered edge but at 1/72 scale, that feathered edge needs to be pretty sharp, but not masking sharp. When I was younger, I could probably free-hand the airbrush, I used to be able to free-hand an airbrush to look like a pencil line / NOT ANYMORE in my old age. I decided to take the safe route and scan the pattern and scale it to 1/72 scale. Then I cut out the pattern and used some Tamiya tape rolled into a tube and lightly placed it on the model so it was 1-2mm above the surface of the plane. I tried to spray directly down perpendicularly to the mask and that 1-2mm did the trick of softening up the demarcation line (it might be exaggerated at 1/72 scale, but I like it this way that its slightly fuzzy). I'm getting to my favourite part of panel line wash and decaling soon with weathering to follow afterwards.

Yes @Gabe Q & @Urashiman THAT's the one. I didn't know what its called - ah, F-203 Dragon II. Hasegawa does nice planes (not so nice robot hands - what's up with the skinny Armored pack hands?!)

I actually meant VF-X-4 but now that you shown the VF-X - I want that too! and what's that one that didn't transform but looked like an F-15 Eagle?

Please Hasegawa, I'm awaiting your VF-4 more than anything else - even a VF-X would be good and VF-2SS why not?! More planes please.

I see that their banner includes Macross II - so the VF-2SS as a DX Chogokin would be nice! And their banner includes Macross Flashback - so the VF-4 as a DX Chogokin would be amazing. But I want the YF-21 more than anything else at the moment to go with the YF-19.