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Where did you order those decals? Name, Manufacturer? HLJ?

WOW! Simply stunning... all your hard work and effort really, really paid off. It looks simply amazing. I know its a long process, but its totally worth it and you've raised the bar that I hope to get close to - damn you! I guess I can't just slap a few layers of paint and call it a day! Truely inspirational, now my finished SDF-1 seems that much farther away ;-) What is this micro decal sheet you speak off? They look great, I would think any decals would not be scale appropriate, but you're look really good together. Congrats, can't wait to see it all together!

Wow! KyeKye, simply amazing... keep up the great work. Don't rush it, its a masterpiece - it would be a shame to rush and have to go back a few steps to corrected it (been there, done that!). Love the red details around the chest nozzles, I was contemplating that since its in so much of the colour references, but I was worried it would be too much for the toy, but your dark red looks great! The city looks fantastic too! Way to go on the lighting!!

Wow! Fantastic work cool8or!! How could I have missed your step-by-step thread. Really love the subtle colourations & weathing within the green and solid areas of the colour scheme - beautifully finished. Loved the cockpit display screen BTW! Congrats on a beautiful piece to add to your collection.

Thanks Prime, yes, I got it from HMV for the same price and shipping too. Much better than Amazon.jp and have pre-ordered everything from now on from HLJ to avoid missing out again ;-)

It's looking great KyeKye! What didn't work out about the aztecing panels? It's looks great. So does that leg bottom top cover just pop off without any screws? Is it just two pegs?

Oh man! I see PE launch arms and Valkyries!! (upper center) - the Valkryies seem to have a top plan and two sides that slot into the top plan to form the 2 legs and fast-packs... What about the bridge antenna array, seems like a natural for PE parts? Come on Graham - any news from your friends at Yamato as to whether this will be a separate upgrade option to be sold? I can't think what the resin parts will be. Photo Etched parts (PE) are thin (usually brass) sheets that have been acid etched and cut out to form really fine details. One detaches them from the tree and can be bent into assemblies or straight applied (crazy glued) onto a surface for finer details than can be reproduced via traditional injection methods.

Hey, if you don't want your PE parts, I'd gladly take them off your hands! (once I find out if there will be an upgrade option kit sold separately).

Thanks akim! Just pre-ordered it!!

Thanks for the congrats! Might not get to my models for the next year though. I wonder if Guilllermo would be interested in seeing my Macross Collection? I hear he's a pretty avid collector (not necessarily Macross) himself. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/07/110207fa_fact_zalewski#ixzz1CmX0wVvv I just hope people don't think we're copying "The Thing"!

A note of interest to fans of "The Thing" - I've been hired on as the art director for the new upcoming feature "At the Mountains of Madness" - based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft. Guillermo del Toro is directing with James Cameron as executive producer. I guess its back to Antarctica with shape shifting Aliens for me! This is the original story that J.C.'s The Thing was based on, but I'm sure Guillermo will have his own take on this classic. Keep a look out for it!

Ok, going against the general grain here... I am kind of glad they released the toy (at least for me) and that's kind of odd coming from a "model" guy such as myself. Being a very devoted Dad now, I just don't have the time like I had before to devote to the hobby. I like the "instant gratification" of the toy that I can just open up and "play" with - I really can't remember a time since my childhood that I was so happy to open up a toy and marveled at it for days. If it had only come as a kit, I'm sure I would have ordered it too, but it would probably have remained in piles of plastic pieces in the box for ages like my growing piles of un-built model kits that are accumulating in the basement. The toy was so good that it didn't take a lot to add to it to make it into a replica masterpiece. You don't have to totally take it apart to make it respectable (IMHO). I'm glad that they did most of it for me already (the lazy guy in me speaking!). I just hope that they offer up the PE parts & decals as an optional upgrade kit to the early adopters. Please Graham, please say something to the powers that be at Yamato for a chance at offering up these parts to their loyal supporters - better yet, offer them up for free to say "thanks" for the support! But seriously ;-) we are willing to pay for the upgrade kit like their Fast Pack Boosters.

OOOHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!! Argh!! I really didn't see that coming!!! I can only hope maybe they'd sell the PE & decals as an option pack?!

While I was letting the putty and guns dry, I thought I'd start to cut a mask of little rectangles, squares and random rectilinear shapes for the panelling I want to start. I just used a post-it note and started to cut random shapes. They will then be layered, rotated, mirrored, flipped and reused so create the "plating" detailing on the surface. I rotated the body to get a better angle on the sanding and worked at it till I was almost back down to the plastic. You can see the putty feathered up to the crazy glue seam - I used a bit of putty since I noticed there was a tiny bit of sink in the plastic around the seam that I wanted to fill up. Lastly I started to airbrush very lightly Tamiya Sky Grey which is a shade or two lighter than the plastic of the toy. This is my first coat, as I will do this with several different shades to build up a layering which will become the basecoat for the pencil lines at the end. The first try at the grey panelling was done with various light and heavier sprays and leaving some of the plastic underneath exposed to create a few different grey intensities to give a little more interest. I didn't want to go overboard (always trying to keep subtle) but in the end I can still tone the overall contrast down at the end with some post shading to blend it all in. This is all I got to in the 4hrs. Next time I'll do a few other grey tones with the same stencil (I've found that if I do a very light mist of artist spray mount on the rear of the stencil - it becomes a removeable self adhesive sticker that's easier to handle). The key here is light thin coats, you never want to soak the paper, if you keep it light mistings, then the edges of the paneling pattern remains crisp. Overall I think I want to darken the light greys and lighten the dark grey plastics so the 2 tone greys are more similar and less of a contrast. Wish me some more free time soon!

OK, got 4hrs in on Sunday! Woohoo!! Tackle that seam in the center of the first island on top. I had to pry off that first gun turret, it was pretty stubborn, but it eventually "broke" off. They crazy glued the pegs in the holes so the pegs broke off at the turret - I don't really see any other way around this. I used crazy glue at the seam to fill it up and prevent it from flexing later on during transformation, sanding and handling. I also took the opportunity since the gun turrets were pryed off to paint the front portions of them a grey (I used Tamiya Neutral Grey) to further give a little more variance to the different greys used in the scheme. While I was letting the crazy glue set, I decided to use that idea on the toy thread to swap the rail-gun/antenna top to bottom to allow them to swing all the way forward so they point forward parallel to the body of the SDF-1. If you just got the toy, I suggest doing this right away before inserting the screw covers - but I already inserted the screw covers. I tried to pry off the gun turrets on the shoulders which were easy - but that little forward cover piece was really tough. I couldn't get in underneath without scratching up the surrounding plastic. In the end just un-doing that rear screw underneath the gun turrets is enough to free the rail-guns at the rear to swap them top and bottom. Once I finished doing that, the crazy glue had setup fairly well, I then added Tamiya putty to the left and right of the crazy glue strip so I could feather up to the glue when I sand to eliminate the seam.

You are the crazy master! Wow, I love that you've taken the toy and transformed it into a model - a worthy replica! It looks absolutely fantastic, keep it up and keep going. I wish I had your patience, but all the hard work is really paying off. I love following your thread. Can't wait for the next installment.

Where's the best place to order this book from to be delivered to Canada? HLJ no longer has it in stock and Amazon.jp wants 3,000 yen in just shipping, that's a $70cdn book before customs, taxes and duties! Any place that still has it in stock with reasonable shipping, I don't care about speed, I can wait. Thanks, Wm

I loved the visuals, cinematography AND music! I can forgive a lot if the visuals are compelling enough... after all it is a film to be watched, not a book to be read.

Not at all! It's just a custom, I think they used some ARII or IMAI old 1/48 parts and just stuck them onto the Hasegawa 1/48 scale model. I'm hoping the real Hasegawa offering to be much better than that!

Angels & Airwaves! Just discovered them when I saw this great new trailer;

WoW! KyeKye - YOU ARE THE MASTER! Those Valks look simply amazing. I don't think most of the folks here appreciate just how tiny they are, you need to put them on a penny and photograph them. Hands of a surgeon buddy!

You would print the 01 & 02 onto the white decal paper, but you still have to cut it out? - isn't it a solid white sheet. I'd love to see it when you're done.

That looks great MacrossJunkie! I'm planning on just cutting out lots of different shaped rectangles and odd-shapes like that and do several passes over the whole ship in strategic spots (the idea is to not cover the entire ship and leave various mottling of greys exposed) - probably on post-it note paper as they are relatively low-tact self-adhesive and I can reposition and rotate them as I spray. Finally I will do several once overs of grey to "blend" all the colours in. At least that's the plan before I add the pencil lines. Of course I haven't the time at the moment, so its just all in my head for now - but planning is an important part of modelling. Thanks for the links to the licence plate fonts - but isn't that just a font download? I'm sure we can get artwork or fonts that are close, the real trick is getting it onto white decal as there aren't any printers (other than Alps) that will "print" white. How do you proposed to use those fonts?

Hey, what a great idea! Hmm... procrastination pays off again! Now you really have some personal investment in your toys ;-) Post some shots of your bridge here!

YOU GUYS!! Just pure amazing awesomeness!! Care to cast them and sell them? I feel like such an old man these days as my eyesight sure ain't what it used to be, I have to move things farther away just to focus on them, I remember when I could focus right up to tiny things - argh, I hate getting old... Fantastic work! Now I can live vicariously through you guys.