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Hey MacrossJunkie, I always love the way you've weather your renewal toys (the main reason I got hooked and bit the bullet). Would you do a step by step to explain your process with the amazing results? I'd love to see how you did yours on the dark blue base of the VF-25G in detail.

There's a lot of aftermarket Jolly Rogers F-14/F-18 decals out there, I'm sure we can find some!

Thanks, just pre-ordered it!

Damn you sharpnel!! Those are amazing photos of an amazing pose. I've been strong up to now, but seeing those, I bit the bullet and ordered from Nippon-Yasan, they lowered their price to $216, plus I picked the Eco Air-Mail (with tracking and insurance) so that saved me a bit on shipping too. http://www.nippon-yasan.com/lang-en/macross/2631-macross-f-dx-chogokin-vf-25g-messiah-valkyrie-michael-blanc-custom-renewal-version.html (makes working another weekend overtime a little more palatable)

Which issue? Can we get that from HLJ? Is that 1/144?

+1 I agree.

Woohooo!! That's fantastic news... what a pain my VF-25F was to build - I never transform models anyways (the main reason they've been relegated to the bottom of my model pile). I guess I'll eventually use those Bandais in Battroid mode since I missed out on all the Toy Renewals.

That's going to be tiny!

YES +1

Been so busy with work (overtime) and Canadian Thanksgiving lately that I just got to your thread now - go thing you PM me or I would of never saw it. DO NOT USE THE CLEARCOAT YOU SHOWN ON THE ABOVE PICTURE! It is Lacquer based and lacquers are some of the "hottest" paints and should only be used on itself or under other stuff. By hottest, I mean its the most "reactive" to the undercoat which makes it highly durable, it reacts and "etches" into the plastic to make a very permanent bond, great for durability, but bad for the underlying paint. Acylics on the other hand is almost inert, and merely sits on the plastic surface, I use it because it doesn't smell and its really easy to clean up - but it can scratch off easily if not properly protected. Lacquers create a horrible fume/smell, its highly toxic when breathed and requires powerful thinners and solvents to clean. With everything its a trade off! Lacquer thinner will just about eat through any paint! including the Tamiya acrylic undercoat that you're clear coating. I use the ModelMaster Acryl Clear Coat (its acrylic based, but its fomulations are just different enough from the Tamiya stuff that its respective thinners don't interact with each other). I shoot between 25-35psi depending on what I'm painting, how thin I mix it, what effect I want to achieve (ie: I shoot 15-psi for the Alclad lacquer metalizer stuff but 35psi for the really thinned down post shading) - there's no real hard and fast rules, its something that you need to just experiment to see what works for you. I find that with a higher air pressure and thinner mixture, I can get finer pencil lines with my airbrush with minimal splattering - however some paints don't like to be shot so high and tend to dry when it hits the plastic creating a pebbling sand paper surface. Its mostly through lots of mistakes that I learn what works best, and every situation seems to be different - sorry I can't be more specific. Good luck though! Oh, I don't pre-shade as I find it takes too much paint to cover up the dark areas especially when you're using white. If you do too many coats, I find that it tends to obscure the fine engraved details, which I why I post shade, I use much less paint this way and the "dirt" looks like its on top of the paint as opposed to the paint being translucent showing the shading underneath. Plus if you clear-coat the undercoat of paint properly, then if you make a mistake and go too heavy with the post shade, you just wipe it off leaving a factory painted finish plane and start again - much harder to do that when you pre-shade.

It's here on the 2nd page of my thread #39 http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=34450&view=findpost&p=895337 Mid way through, you will see a picture on the left (which is Yamato way) and the picture on the right is the flipped way that allows the full range of motion.

Hey great work so far! Did you know about reversing the shoulder antennas? We think that they put them on backwards since in the original configuration, the antennas can't be swung so that they are forward and parallel with the rest of the SDF-1. However, if you reversed the antennas, then they have full range of motion - it was one of the first corrections I did with my toy (and its even easier if you have the kit since you didn't have to disassemble anything). Just wanted to let you know before you got too far along. Good luck!

You know I was being facetious right?! I'm still pissed at Bandai for this fiasco.

They're waiting to announce the Christmas Box set of all four of them, its the only way to get the RVF-25. Muuhaha... how else can we screw with Macross lovers... oh, yeah, they will be Ultra-exclusive, limited to a production run of ONE!

Damn sleep! Middle of the night again. That was fast. ;-(

I've gotta thank Manji from these forums here once again. He provided me his un-used photo-etched extras from his Yamato kit - and actually gave me the boost I needed to start this project. Thanks so much, I really owe you one! So now I finally get to the little 1/3000 scale valkyries. They look so good on the PE part, but are such a B^&$h to work with. I think I'm just getting old and my eyesight isn't what it used to be, but damn they're small! Unfortunately after I cut out the launch arms, I promptly lost 2 of them - I've searched for 3hrs on my hands and knees and only found 2 of the four that were there. I guess 2 will have to do (unless some other kind soul would like to send me theirs ;-). Note to all DO NOT CUT THEM OUT until you are ready to work with them, they are small and WILL BE LOST! Another note, Tamiya acrylics suck adhering to metal photo-etched parts! They scrap off even just looking at them wrong. I've painted and re-painted these tiny Valks white about 4 times due to various bits scraping off, or the airbrush spray was just too heavy to obscure the tiny etched line details on them. In the end, I suggest doing a black oil wash on them first to fill into the etched lines (very shallow), then a very light coat of white over it but still allowing the black lines to show through, afterwards, handling it with kid glooves till you clear coat protect it. The launch arms are really tough to bend correctly, especially the tiny folds on either side of the long part of the arm, there just isn't much material to grab onto. The trickiest thing is to bend it into a U-shape - the first bend into an L-shape is easy, but when you go to the other side to do the U, you tend to flatten out the first bend. It took a lot of practice and trail and error - plus headaches because my eyes don't seem to focus down to something this small anymore. I've got to find one of those large magnifying glass on a gooseneck stand that will ship to Canada (checked out some cool ones at Amazon.com, but they don't ship to Canada - argh). Note to self: paint after you bend them! These are the fast packs - note they even have ones for the port side and different ones for the starboard side (strike cannons!) So while I'm letting the painted and re-painted photo-etched parts to dry, I've decided to decal and lightly weather/panel line my recent HLJ sale acquires; the VF-11 & VF-1D (the old VT-1 in the back was just for decal placement) Here's to how the PE valkyries look after you oil wash them - quite a lot of detail for something so small! I just wished they were already in white photo-etched as a lot of this detail gets obscured when you paint them white - argh! Maybe that's why I haven't seen anyone who has used these PE Valkyries on their kit yet - hmm.... That's it for now until they dry and I try to assemble the valks with their fast packs. (I do love the macro capabilities of my 11yr old Nikon Collpix 990! - nothing else I have can get so close and clear to these tiny parts)

Thanks for the kudos everyone. I had a few hours and thought I'd try to finish this thing after a long hiatus. I decided to just paint with Tamiya Clear Red over some of the engine thrusters on the bottom, it already had a metallic under coat and created a darker red rimmed effect that I wanted for my more muted version of the SDF-1

I'm liking the really light grey! Easier to make the FB2012 version...

OMG! That Yamato build is EPIC - I can't believe that's 1/1000 scale - the handrails... I am so humbled. I love that metallic scheme. Truely amazing, thanks so much for the link. Now my 1/350 Bandai seems so plain ;-( Yep, I liked the other earth federation capital ships too.

Slightly off topic here (but I couldn't seem to find a thread dedicated to this) - did anyone see the live action Yamato film 2yrs ago? I loved it, I take it the reaction from Japan or here on these boards was not so favourable - I don't see any discussion of it. Anyways, does anyone know if any models were ever made of the interpretations of that film?

Wow! Fantastic work Derex - beautiful paint job and the weathering is just perfect! What was the base white/grey did you use on that? I have the same photoetched grills and resin fans - it looks great in your photos because you can just make out the fan underneath and it gives great depth. What did you mean by it wasn't worth it? What was the hardest part about fitting those in? Did you paint the interior fan black first, then the grills the light grey and weather over the entire thing with the burnt streaks? I think this is my retirement project ;-) or at least I won't come around to it for another 4yrs (unless I get laid off!)

Same here! Thanks to these forums here (although if it weren't for these forums here, I probably wouldn't know about this release and my baby would have diamond shoes! ;-)

I just checked my pre-order summary and it still says the old price even though their site says "Customers who ordered with the old price will have automatically the new price when sending invoices." I've e-mailed them now about it and await their response. Thanks for the heads up!

What about those SRB boosters? I guess it will be another release to milk the molds eh...

I wish! I haven't had time for models since my daughter was born. I've only had a little time here and there to paint up a toy now and then, but I look forward to the day I can start one of these beauties. For now I'm just a box collector... living vicariously through some of the other master modellers here on these forums. ...some day soon I hope...