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Hi all,

After a few months, I finally got a chance to finish up decaling/penciling/weathering/clearcoats my recent VF-1S aquired from #recon (thank so much!) to make my own "Premium Version"

You can see it next to my original Yamato version with the rainbow canopy, its so much brighter and makes my older Valk looked yellowed even though it isn't

I tried to tone down the brightness/pink with a more heavy shading with smudging mechanical pencil shavings to "grey" up the white a bit and it worked for the most part.

Piecing together white data stenciling was the hardest part and set me back weeks trying to get the right thing, in the end, I just scrounged around my spare decals to find what I could even though the actual fastpack armament numbers aren't exactly right (and I was too cheap to buy a 1/72 Hasegawa VF-1S Strike kit just for its decals) - so much for accuracy!

At least its finally done!  You can see the pink tinge on the big missiles as I hadn't touched those with the pencil shading.

Is it me or does it look like the canopy is actually tinted yellow and not that crappy silver metallic paint?!?!?

Just got shipping notice for Canada!!!  Woohoo.  Nice panel lining there too Lolicon!

Well, Canada reporting in... I got a "Preparation in progress" e-mail - have my fingers crossed!

Ordered mine from NY on 2017-10-06 22:32:28  and still no news yet... argh did they just skip over me?!?!

Beautiful!!!!  Turned out great.  Wish I had an extra Hasegawa sheet lying around.  I'm just piecing "close is good enough" stuff from my spares

Well it exactly as I had expected (I'll wait for the video) when they took the production away from us in Toronto (we did the first PR) down to Sydney and changed the production staff.  It's for a much younger audience and unfortunately we all getting older and older

On a brighter note, this Hong Kong thing looks like it would be worth a look (they definitely liked Pac Rim but fully embraced the Japanmation aesthetic)

Got it!  Thanks for the HLJ links guys.  Good night and good luck to everyone.  Too bad HLJ didn't have any discounts.

Yeah, 2am EST is 4pm Tokyo time right?

13 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

I wonder who among here who said before they're not going to buy Arad's DX 31S because of its coloring and style only to be swayed upon now by that Silpheed-Stampede Armor look?  

 

Yep that would be me.  I never liked the colour combination, but I love that bulky mess of a Armored Missile monstrosity and figured that it hides all that colour scheme anyways.  I don't want anything to hide Chuck's radome, so I guess I got "Bandaied" ;P

I do like the Armored, but not the Arad's scheme.  Does this armor appear on any other scheme?

2 hours ago, jenius said:

Yamato was proud of their very thin panel lines. I think it was because they were trying to stay true to scale. In real life the lines wouldn't be very deep so on a 1/60 toy they should be barely perceptible. 

Then why aren't they consistent?  There's no reason why it should start off deep and go light have way though.  Bad molding or old dies or too much paint - I don't know but I don't buy they were entirely intentional.

That's just stupid... they made a mistake and won't own up to it.  I've found that if I used a really sharp mechanical pencil, I can "draw" in the lines of the really shallow panels lightly.  The problem is sometimes there is no consistency in the panel line depth, it can go from ok to really shallow in the same line.

Beautiful Noel!!! Glad it worked out so well.  All you gotta do is a light panel line on that beauty!

Damnit!!  Originally not a fan of Arad's Teal & Grey scheme - was gonna skip it, but now I gotta get it - sucker for all the extra add-ons even if it seems like overkill.  At least you don't see much of the Teal & Grey scheme (hidden under all that!), but unfortunately now I have to try to get one to dress the armour on (it would be nice to get a bundle set, but I doubt it).

1 hour ago, no3Ljm said:

Quick question, is there any markings besides the U.N.SPACY for the leg's conformal tanks?

 

Yeah I think off the top of my head, there's the arrow near the front, red "DANGER" near all the nozzles, "BEWARE OF BLAST" at the end near the foot and one of those yellow warning data rectangles on the back calf as well as one of those Hasegawa fast pack designations; white "NP-FP-01" I believe.

Gorgeous!!!  Turned out so well.  Can't wait to see the paneled version.

Come on VF-4!!!

On 1/27/2018 at 7:55 AM, Lolicon said:

Finally had some time to fix up the VF-2SS SAP a bit so they didn't look so plain. It's the best VF-2SS toy around so I wanted it to not look so out of place next to my 1/60s. 

 

Amazing!!!  Fabulous work, congrats on the best looking VF-2SS I've seen from Bandai HM-R line.

My favourite design, but there's just something not right about it... hard to put my finger on it.  The proportions just seem a little "off" here and there and it all adds up to something that's close, but just doesn't "do it" for me.  It seems a little "awkward" to me - maybe bad camera lenses chosen in the photos.  I think the nose needs to be a little sleeker and the back end seems a bit too wide and not thick enough and the wings outside of the engine pylons seem to have too much surface area.  I think the Yamato/Acadia 1/60 seems closer to the lineart or feeling of the design.  I just wished Hasegawa did their interpretation of this beautiful bird!

1 hour ago, derex3592 said:

Make sure you practice your method with some older decals on an older scrap kit if you have one, all decals are not the same and depending on the thickness, it can be tricky using the decal solutions properly, especially over contoured or raised surfaces. Just my .02 

Excellent advice, I've always found decals different from every manufacturer.  However, Bandai decals seem indestructible yet brittle, they seem impervious to MicroSET/SOL and Mr. Set/Softer - at least the old VF-25 kits were that way.

OMG!!!  I want that Cosmo tiger booster/missle pack!!!

I ended up buying it in store before Christmas when I literally, knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who worked at a Lego store and he heavily hinted that there was a shipment of 36 boxes the next day.  I got there at 11am (they opened at 10am) and 20 were sold already and they had already gone through their reserved list (I couldn't get on the reserved list at the store because I called the next day after they were available on Sep 15 instead of the 14th when I was busy online with their servers crashing on me and after spending 2 hours to get through on the phone!).  Argh!  They are the Danish Bandai!!!  Yeah, I wished there was a take a number reservation, my online VIP reservations were supposed to email me when they became available online, I only got an email last week about that.  Try calling your local Lego Store, you might have better luck there than online.

I have actually seen a quite a few Saturn V sets at the lego stores in stock - highly recommend that as its the best build experience I've ever had with lego - I think its the perfect size/length and it displays so well.  The UCS Milf is a little too long/complex and you can't really swoosh it around as much as its heavy and fragile - great for display, but even that its a little too big. 

42 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

Armored up the VF-2SS and put the effect part on the gun.

Great stand!!!  Which one is that?  Wished they included it with the toy.

WooohooO!!!  I missed it last time, didn't know it was a limited release thing.  Hoping for the Minmay figure to be included too.

22 hours ago, Lolicon said:

Reassembled my VF-2SS and took a few quick pictures. Man, that heat shield gap...

Will get some fighter pics later; going to see TLJ right now.

Great job on the decals!!!  Congrats.  I find that if you tilt his crotch forward a bit, like doing a crunch, it closes up the gap considerably - and it looks good for the pose too.