wm cheng

Wow! Is that a decal he made from scans of the original poster or did he freehand paint that all in?!?!

Thanks Shawn!!! You're the best. I can't believe I've e-known you since the early 2000s - I gotta buy you a drink someday if you're in Toronto!

Hi @Shawn my mailbox has gone silent again, did you turn off the email notifications again? Just wondering if you were aware that the threads I'm following are not receiving email notifications once again. I guess its only old timers like me that use the email notifications to followed threads nowadays LOL 😛 Hope all is well with you.

THANK YOU @Angesdad so much!!! Is there an English version of that site that lists other manuals?

Hey has anyone come across the Bandai Transformation PDF Manuals to these AX toys? They used to put out PDF of their transformation PDF manuals for the other toys, but that link had been down for a while now and I'd like to have the PDFs so I don't have to crack open my paper manuals every so often. I know I can just scan them myself - but thought I should ask first before going through the trouble - or maybe someone has already archived a files section for these things? TIA.

@derex3592 Beautiful cockpit and weathering on the sub - did you find something to clear-coat or protect that without affecting it?

@derex3592 I also found that the weathering pastels work best on matte/flat surfaces and a light dusting of matte/flat clearcoat works best over top of what you've weathered - any gloss coat really diminishes the effect and doing the matte coat over top of the gloss coat doesn't seem to bring it back - I've done this mistake too and you live and learn. Yes, I love these new 3D printed cockpit decals (had to piece together ones for my F-4J in 1/72 as they didn't have ones for it at the time) but I've found Quinta to really be the best of all the brands trying to provide these upgrades. Finally finished the Nu-Galactica - not the greatest of kits (I've been spoiled with Japanese kits that just goes together!). Lots of huge gaps, internal sprue gates to cut off and shaved an entire deck off the nose and ground away so much plastic just to the head to align correctly with the body. The Admiralty turret guns were a highlight to use, but the string of dollar store LED lights were too dim to see in the daylight (you get what you paid for) afterwards. The Acreation Models decal set were great and added a lot of depth to the ribbed areas, however there was a variation in darkness between the 3 sheets and lots of areas were left missing without decals - I had to scrounge up and not use decal that where in hard to see places to piece up missing decals in more hero areas. There were hundreds of ribs to cut out individually that my neck is so sore now from the days/weeks I spent hunched over in my magnifying glasses cutting and applying the decal strips. Funny, I always had this deep metallic finish in mind when I first watched the show, and the model turned out similar to what I had in mind, but upon reviewing the references now afterwards, its much more matte and bluish grey. I did do an overall dry-brushing of bluish grey filter and hand painted matte clearcoat between the ribs over the decals and spot matte/flat coated the paneling to create more variation in the sheen especially when viewed from certain angles.

That's amazing @derex3592 - never even knew these tiny compressors existed! Love to hear more user experience from them. 12-15psi is all I ever shoot at anyways. Alclad are shot at that 12-15 and I hardly ever go above 20psi. I have a giant SilAir from Italy the 80's that's like 30-40lbs and the size of a mid-sized computer tower (although half of it is a storage tank) - so this is crazy miniaturization. Unfortunately my Iwata HP-BC just bit the dust from 1986 - the price is the same then as it is today?!?! I guess its time for a new one.

@derex3592 that turned out amazing!!! Congrats. Did you go with the pearlescent over top in the end? What a beauty. @Chas amazing kit-bash, really captures the era's design language. I can see the Zeta Gundam backpacks too what an ingenious use - can't wait to see you finish this gorgeous design!!! So much work showed here! Amazing. I'm still in decal hell...

Thanks! I always thought it was quite metallic while watching the show - there seemed to be a lot of specular highlights in the episodes, its just the still renders that seem to render it flatter/greyer which wasn't what I had experienced when I saw it on TV. I am going to tone it down a bit with a bluish grey drybushing afterwards and I think I'll paint/clearcoat the darker areas between the ribs matte/flat over the decals which will lighten them up a bit. I'm a bit disappointed that the decals darkened the armored sections up so much that there's less contrast now between the armored and ribbed sections. I started a little dark wash on the underside (I always experiment with the underside first) in the middle of the trench to see how the dark wash fills in between the ribs where there were no decals - it seems like its going to work out fine.

I thought they were experimenting with non-moveable control surfaces (no more ailerons or flaps) - I can't remember what that was called? Would make future modeling and weathering a lot more simple and boring 😛

@electric indigo is that Tutor going to be in the red & white snowbirds scheme? @MechTech I like the sheen, but I'm not sure if it will dull down too much if I matte coat it - not sure what I'm going to do yet, still got a lot of decals to go. Might hand brush matte/flat just in between the ribs. Thinking of doing a bluish/grey drybrush overtop to give it a slightly bluier hue. @Rock is that a fancy shiny new spray booth? If so I'd like to learn more, I have a kitchen exhaust fan installed in the ceiling, but being 4ft-5ft away seems to be too far away and I have a bad case of the dried dust/overspray all over my workbench and would like something I can hook up to my exhaust fan that can capture more of the overspray on my bench.

What about hitting it with a pearlescent white afterwards? I was thinking of doing that after the aztec decals whenever I finally get to the Enterprise/Reliant duo. Yeah, the 1/350 Enterprise refit would be my ultimate "holy-grail" but it's in the $1K range just to get all the aftermarket stuff and lighting components and the multi-color pearlescent aztec just seems so daunting - so it will be after I "actually" retire.

Why not make it a Christmas pair with DX YF-21?!?!?! (if this goes well, maybe it might make the YF-21 a little bit more of a reality?)

That's so cool @Chronocidal - love the see the whole cockpit when you get it together! (sorry don't know what plane its from but looks old like 70s but I do know its not an F-14) Some more progress on the decals - so many tiny strips to cut out and place but it's coming along pretty nicely. Already can see that there's going to be a lot of little spots that the decal sheets missed or the pattern is incorrect or too short that I'll have to repair later on. Can't wait to do a dark wash over it to pick out the recesses and a bluish grey tint/dry brush to tone down the metallic sheen and pick out the highlights - but that's a while away...

Looking great @derex3592! I'm getting the hang of these wallpaper decals too with my Galactica build... Might I suggest toning down the blue of the front of the warp nacelles - it looks really bright, I think its paler and less saturated, more like a robins egg blue with light grey. I think that raised bit at the top of the neck where it joins to the primary saucer is also this light robin's egg blue/grey.

Nope, that was scripted. I think they didn't want to design a new ship and just wanted to re-use the old asset (alot cheaper), but I convinced them the Disco language is so foreign to SNW universe and I wanted to get a chance to design something special for the show. They had offered me work on Discovery when it first came to Toronto, but I had turned it down because of the crew they got (and I had warned them about the problems but they weren't going to listen to me) and I knew to stay away from it ever since. Thanks @Dobber for the YouTube link!

Thanks! There's going to be a few more of my ships coming in this season (look for the Macross stuff I've snuck into the designs😜) Looks like others are liking this design as well! https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/did-star-trek-just-fix-discoverys-biggest-mistake.html

This is what I've been up to the last few months. I've finally started on the Moebius Nu-Galactica. Luckily I've been able to collect some upgrade parts and the Acreation paneling decals which will cover the entire model. Wow, what a crap kit, I've been spoiled by modern Japanese toolings and forgot what building US plastic was like. So many huge gaps at are 2-3mm that won't close up (landing bay wells) as well as horrible mis-aligned neck/forward section where I had to shave away 2mm of plastic and an entire deck to make it fit with a straight back. I forgot about how much puttying I had to do and subsequently how much sanding both of which are the parts of modeling I absolutely hate. I love painting, weathering and decaling. The kit is so poorly designed that no one paid any attention to build order and how to compartmentalize pieces to allow access to sand and paint afterwards. The problem compounded itself by my stupid idea of trying to light this model up so I had to throw the useless instructions out the window and do what makes sense for wiring as well. The landing bays were done first and sealed up to protect the interior runway decal. I'm no wiring expert, so I cut apart a cheap dollar store string of LED lights and re-soldered them in assemblies that allowed me to assemble the model and close it up for painting. You can see how much filling and sanding that gap was, I started to add some spare photo-etched parts to the engine greebling before priming. Horribly stupid places to put sprue gates?!?! (more sanding, filing and repairs) Lighting test before closing her up! Finally primed (it shouldn't take months to get to this!) You can tell I'm not very patient... gloss black undercoat for the Alclad metalizer. I should have sprayed the darker Steel colour first and then masked for the lighter armored panels - but I didn't think it through first and sprayed the lighter Stainless Steel Alcad on first which makes masking all the armor panels a huge pain. So I decided to try to free-hand spray the darker Steel in the engine areas and ribs around the armored panels which turned out ok. It would have been better if I did break my IWATA HP-BC dual action airbrush (its been with me for 37yrs!) and just fell apart while cleaning. I ended up having to do this on my old 40yr old single action Badger 200IL. I don't think it has to be too crisp as the entire thing gets decaled over both the ribs and armor plating - the metalizers would only show through the transparency of the decals underneath. Well here's where I am today. I'm ready for the decals, but the time I cut up each and every piece between the ribs, it will be hundreds of decals to apply so this should be the next most time consuming part of the build. Wish me luck!

Well, yesterday I realize a childhood dream of mine with the premier of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Ever since grade 2 I've always wanted to design a Federation Starship and see it on screen when I first saw Star Trek TOS. I finally got my chance with the season 2 opening last night. I wanted to re-design the Enterprise as a kid, but it was shooting the Enterprise and got destroyed by it - ah close enough! They stuck pretty close to my design SketchUp model and even the establisher was pretty close to my concept art too (just they did it too dark as always!). I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did! This is what I'm doing when I can't build Macross models 😛

Finally!!! I've been waiting for the updates to the Disco Enterprise to turn it into the SNW Enterprise - however the saucer edge windows still aren't correct - I guess they simplified them?! I assume they would be molded in clear for their lighting kit with bussard collector motors?

Thanks Shawn, its nice to be back

Hi @Shawn Yay! I got back on!!! Thanks @arbit for your help. I started getting emails to the new address last night around 1am. I started getting all the email verification requests as well. I guess when the thread email notifications got turned off, it also turned off any email verification requests too so I couldn't log in after I switched email addresses thinking there was something wrong with my email. Everything is back now. Thanks!

Hi all, I usually get a lot of email notifications in my mailbox on threads/topics that I've been following or PMs but lately I noticed its radio silence from MacrossWorld. Did something change or a setting that I didn't know about? I checked my email server to make sure it wasn't going into SPAM/Junk mail, but I didn't see anything. I've checked here to make sure I am still following the threads and its still checked off. Has anyone else encountered this? What could be my problem? Thanks.

EMS is now more expensive than FedEx/DHL but the difference is still less than FedEx/DHL brokerage/customs/duty fees (which are $25-30 minimum and the duties/taxes on top of that in Canada) where as EMS is often delivered to the door without customs catching on (at least in my experience in Canada). I paid Nin-Nin 3,900Y for EMS and they just asked for 1,300Y more so I guess I'll end up paying 5,200Y EMS which is totally excessive, but seems in line with most stores in Japan.