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I always try to plan ahead a few steps so I can work in paint drying times so by the time I finish a certain task, I can get back to whatever has been left drying and work on that, kind of leap-frogging steps. Here's some shots of the Photo-etched parts glued on with crazy glue onto the bridge. Note here, I forgot that I needed to modify the internal tab a bit (make it smaller) to allow the clear piece of the bridge to fit a little snugger in towards the bridge superstructure (to minimize the gap on the top) - I went ahead and started gluing the PE parts (if I were to do it again, I would cut down that internal tab and test fit the clear piece first before gluing all the PE parts. Anyways, curious to see how it all goes together, I mixed a bit of Tamiya sky grey, neutral grey and bit of medum blue (15:5:1 ratio rough estimate)to get close to the main body colour - again, I don't think it has to match exactly as I will end up with a lot of shades of greys, but they are all on the blue side of the spectrum.

So I took a little break knowing that I want to leave time for the airbrush paint to dry, I decided to paint all the dark grey sprue attachment pieces a Tamiya dark grey, knowing full well the greys won't match, I thought it would be nice to add yet another grey into the mix.

Sorry for the delay... I'm back at work - boo!! (gotta pay for this beast though) So my 2 days are over and I didn't get very far, I did spend a few hours cleaning up my workspace since there was a layer of dust over every surface and tool (tip... airbrush and dust don't like each other ;-) and a few years of neglect (and being a Dad). However, I love this toy so much that I can't keep my hands off of it! I'll try to get some more done in small drips and drabs over the next few weeks, but it will be a very slow build from here on in. Please feel free if anyone else is starting on their own 1/3000 SDF-1 to hijack/contribute this thread as I would love to learn a thing or two and mooch ideas off of too (the reason I post is that it should be a collaborative effort!). A special thanks needs to go out to vf_1s as I've downloaded all his photos and reference scans of his amazing 1/2000 custom and I am using it as reference for my own paint-up. mslz22 - please post pictures of your SDF-1. I'd love to see how it turned out with the pencil lines! danbickell - ah, gone down that dark path before... I did a resin Enterprise in 1/1400 scale way back in the day (almost 15yrs ago) before aztek masks or decals, and CAD drafted out and painstakingly hand-cutout that pattern and it just about killed me (and I was young then!). At 1/3000 scale I can't imagine how much smaller the panels will have to be! It's just too much work for me to cover the entire ship in that kind of pattern times several, since you need at least 3 or more shades to make it really work. The pencil lines will still have an undercoat of a few larger rectangles and irregular shapes rotated and reused in a few different orientations that I will spray on that will serve as the background. But if anyone here is will to try that approach, I'd love to see the results! OK, down to business! I was thinking since I was nearing the end my "window of opportunity", what could I get down so I can still have a decent toy sitting on my desk for all the days I can't work on it, I can't just leave it laying in pieces on my workbench. So I decided to tackle the bridge. I sanded down all the excess putty and Mr. Surfacer and decided that this was a good opportunity to add a little more detail to the bridge. It's a hard call between a toy and model, I wanted to completely re-build the antenna arrays, but after playing around with it, and transforming it a few times, I found I really liked the robust transformation and playability of this toy so I opted for the safer approach and used the existing toy antennas and just augmented them as I feel they are studier and more flexible than anything I would build. Next was to find something thin enough to not over power the tiny scale of the bridge. All my styrene stock was just too thick. I ended up finding a bunch of unused photo-etched parts I had laying around (the advantages of being a pack rat, I never throw anything out!) and started playing around with the tinest of parts to see where they could fit.

Hey everybody! I just started my thread on modifying/painting up this beauty! I just got 2 unexpected days off - so lets see what I can do in the two days!! http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=34450&st=0&gopid=889724entry889724

Here's a shot of the ARMDs with the painted metallic thruster nozzles in place - I think it adds a bit of colour relief from the monotone grey. I think anything to add more shades of grey will be a good thing for this scheme. Ok, I tried to take apart the leg to see if I can access the City. I noticed 3 obvious screws (ones that I didn't cover up with the provided panels yet) and thought I'd take them apart thinking that if I can separate the two halves vertically, it should expose the city attached to the bottom piece with the top piece removed. Well, I took apart the 3 screws and the front section (near the knee) separated, but the back section seems locked in by the tan coloured engine blocks, I couldn't free it the two halves. After breaking the bridge screw piece, I thought I'd better not try to force this one (in case I screw up the knee joint or break something) - so I chickened out. If anyone here wants to take a crack at getting the City out to paint, please let me know how you did it! For know I'll concentrate on the outside. I just couldn't wait any longer, I had to do an oil wash on this toy to pick out the details! I usually would do it after painting some differnt greys and panels, but I wanted to see all the amazing surface details first, then decide what extra panels I would airbrush/spray on afterwards but before the pencilwork. As I did the oil wash, I couldn't believe how much detail I had to put the paint on! There was detail on every surface, hidden everywhere! It took quite a few hours to apply all the paint and a few more hours to wipe it down! Why is it lumping each reply into a single reply? I just did three separate entries and the text and attachment appears in the same reply - hmm, it might be a bit confusing as I want to separate them by attached images. Oh well, I almost forgot about the ARMDs - they are loaded with details, models in themselves! You really start to see all the molding effort Yamato put in once you do an oil wash. I just used black oil paint with varying thinness or dilution of low odour varsol, really thin for the panel lines and contours and really thick and black for the vents and thrusters and mechanicals. Here it is after hours of wiping down the excess oil paint! Pretty good and I haven't even gotten to the paint or dry brush yet. Argh, it lumped the last post back into the previous reply - why? It didn't do it when I started off this thread! Lastly these pictures show the ARMDs with the oil wash applied, it really shows that there is literally details on every surface of the ships, they are amazing little gems in themselves! Well that's it for today! Must get some sleep for the second day of fun!

The seam on the bridge really bugs me. So I thought I'd "pop" off the bridge to work on it separately, also I thought it was a good idea since its fragile and I'd be handling the SDF-1 a lot in subsequent phases that anything small, fragile and breakable should be removed (or it will accidentally break off and get lost!). Well, it looked like it would just pop off, it was much harder than I though. I took a jeweller's screwdriver to wedge myself under the bridge and twist, but it would come off. After a little more twisting, it finally came off. It wasn't just glue that was holding it down, there seems to be some plastic tube with a metal screw holding it down screwed in from the top of the bridge to the top plate of the SFD-1. As you can see, I pried so hard that I snapped the tube with the metal screw in it clean off. Luckily this will be hidden when I re-glue it back on, its nice that its a mechanical connection (stronger) but I can't see how I can access the screw without damaging the fine details on top of the bridge. Now in hindsight I see the scew access panel on the top, but I still don't think I can pry it off without damaging the delicate surface detail. At leas the twist marks that damaged the plastic are under the bridge and can't be seen once the bridge is back in place. The clear bridge pieces just pops off now, its actually all clear with the lower chin painted. Yes, I have a bit of a seam on the top part of the clear piece too as most people have complained. I think I will load a little ink into the clear piece inside portion which they hollowed out the different levels as bridge detail and sand the top part a little down for a tighter fit when I re-assemble. The rear antenna mask was just crazy glued onto the main bridge and broke off while handling it - which was just as well as it would get in the way of sanding it. I added putty to the two sides and Mr. Surfacer 500 to the front and top of the bridge themselves. Upon closer examination of the reference material. there is actually a horizontal seam detail/reveal that runs for and aft of the main circular dish - so I left those seam intact.

I started to look at all the thrusters for the ARMDs first. I thought that since most of them were separate, I'd take the opportunity to paint them metallic without having to mask the toy - it would further add another shade of grey to the scheme. First I looked carefully and identified the thrusters that has sprue attachement points that will be exposed on the final toy, I separated those out with a sharp x-acto knife and sanded the sprue nub off and laid them out on the cardboard. The remaining pieces will have their sprue connection hidden in the toy after attachment - so I left them attached to the sprue trees so that they can be more easily handled for airbrushing. I decided to airbrush them with Alclad metallizer Steel as its a middle tone metallic. I set the airbrush on the finest spray line and tried to color the edges without spraying too much into the black centers = I was lazy, I should mask the black insides, but if you're careful, a steady hand on the finest pencil line should do. In the end, I touched up some overspray of the inside with a black gundam marker. I started to attach all the screw hole covers. I used a dab of white glue to make sure they held in place, but is not permanent in case I ever had to take it apart to fix a joint or something. The panels are really well designed IMHO, they really work with the surface detail and are in pretty ideal locations. I really had to hunt and partially transform the toy to find this access panel which can only be seen during partial transformation.

Hi all, I was so excited to get my Yamato 1/3000 SDF-1 yesterday! It is absolutely fantastic, I haven't been this excited about a toy since my first 1/48 VF-1, I just can't get over it, the more I look/work on it, the more I'm amazed. This is IMHO, Yamato's finest work thus far. Unexpected, I got another 2 days of holidays from work, so this thread will outline what I can do to this toy in 2 days, then it will be a very slow trickle as I find time to work on it once my "paying" job starts up again. I'd initially laid out all the attachment parts on their sprues and went through the instructions to familiarize myself as to where the parts go. I for one (I know I'm in the minority here!) am very glad that Yamato chose to have these parts as attachments. Yes it would be nice if they did it in the factory (I know it is a toy!) but how many times do they do a half-assed job there, either twisting the part of the sprues so there's a large chunk missing or left behind and gluing it on crooked only to have us rip it apart and re-attach it properly. Otherwise, like many other toys, they could of left off the screw panels and just exposed the ugly screws (afterall it IS a toy!). I am very happy they included the pieces, in fact upon examination, they have gone through the trouble of putting the screws in hide-away places, then creating panels and pieces that for the most part, the sprue attachment will be hidden in the end. Of course it isn't the case everywhere, but it's clear they thought about sprue placement and how that tiny nub will appear in the final toy. Lastly, I like that some of the detail were separate such as the turrets or thrusters as it allows for sharper delineations between the attach part and body, allows for undercuts and a deeper draw for the plastic than would be possible if it was just a molded on detail. Ok, I also dug out my reference materials. There aren't a lot of colour exterior references for the DRYL SFD-1 - if any of you have anything I don't have, please feel free to post it here for all of us to use! I also included two Star Wars books; Star Wars Chronicles (equivalent to the Star Wars Gold Book) and Sculpting the Galaxy for the Star Destroyer surface detail references, they were able to achieve a sense of scale without engraved panel lines, they just varied the shade of grey and drew lines on the surface with a mechanical pencil (which I was thinking of trying out for this toy).

Wanna take it apart for me and show me where the screws are? ;-)

Woohoo! I just received mine at the door this afternoon in Toronto, Canada. Luckily most of us still had a day off in lieu of New Years being on a Saturday! Just some info for anyone in Canada considering this wonderful toy; I was charged $50.66 ($8 Canada Post handling fee + $42.66 GST/HST tax on $328.18cdn value - thanks government for nothing!) at the door on top of the shipping of 4840Y already paid to AmiAmi. So overall, the total price came up to $446.06cdn (including paypal/creditcard conversions) - which I am always interested in when purchasing something like this. I am not happy with the fact that I paid over $100 for shipping/brokerage/taxes which hurts on an already expensive purchase. The toy is definitely worth over $350cdn, but $450 is pushing it and depends on how fanatical you are - I absolutely LOVE IT! A few thoughts I'd like to share; AmiAmi packed it in bubblewrap and in another cardboard box that was a perfect fit only slightly larger - it arrived in pristine condition. I love the styrofoam packing, it was very tight and couldn't be pulled out from one side only, I had to open both sides of the box and push out from the other end to avoid damaging the styro tray or lid. It was initially puzzling how to attached the ARMDs - it isn't clear anywhere. After examining the parts closely, you can see that it snaps onto the rails and that it just takes a bit of pressure to "snap" them into place onto the rails (the magnets don't seem to do anything IMHO). I like the stand, very robust and helps align all the parts so they are square, but I wished it lifted the SDF-1 a bit higher to clear the pretty massive stand. Maybe a clear block of acrylic would be more elegant. Molding and surface details are excellent! I love all the details in the recesses and the part seams for the most part are very well engineered to "work" with the overall design. That being said, I can only identify a few seams which I would putty over and repaint to eleminate them, the bridge (I hope it is just glued and just "pops" off) needs to have its vertical seam and horizontal seam removed. The front top main body has a vertical seam under the main turret that could be filled and underneath as well. Overall, I would say 5-6 seams needs to be removed, but that's pretty amazing in my books! I'd like the seam at the arms where they connect to the ARMD to be removed too, but it seems to get quite a bit of movement when the ARMDs are swivelled horizontally - I'm afraid they'd just crack and open up again on first swivel. A bit of warning, those main "antenna" like things from the shoulder do NOT swing all the way around to face the front "parallel" with the body of the SFD-1 when in cruiser mode. They aways have a slight angle outward to them which I find odd as the slot seems to indicate they'd move farther forward, but if you look careful, the track in which they slide on ends short of the front of the slots in the shoulders - don't force it. It's unclear how to remove the leg cover plate to expose the city. After a lot of gentle prying, I figure that you can get your fingernails under the front portion closes to the knee joints and pop that loose, then slide the entire plate forward as there are 2 tabs holding them in place at the rear - do not pull out perpendicular to the length of the SFD-1, pop the front and pull forward. It looks like the leg is assembled in a top and bottom half and the city is attached to the bottom half, so if we could dissassemble the leg vertically, we should have the city exposed for painting. There are likely screws top and bottom either under the top plate with rear gun turret or bottom thrusters - this is where I wished they didn't apply all the panels and turrets to expose the screws to make taking apart more obvious. It would be great if there was a brave soul here that would do a walkthough to taking apart the leg for me to follow ;-) 2 questions for Graham... if you could ask Yamato, can I just pop off the bridge (pry it straight out) and where are the screws holding the top and bottom of the leg halves for access to the city? Any enterprising Photo-etched artists out there? The antenna array on the bridge is just begging to be replaced by an aftermarket Photo-Etched piece with the little vertical antenna "strings" running between the main horizontal masks. This is one serious replica! Definitely the crown on my toy collection. I don't think it needs much to turn it into a masterpiece, I was planning on doing a few obvious seam filling and sanding, painting a few areas (maybe 30-50%) with more mottled greys in a panelled pattern that I can then post-shade, panel line/oil wash, draw in cross-hatching lines like ILM did on the star destroyers to give it scale, decal bunch of little white, red and yellow strips all over it to simulate the lights in DRYL and do a light colour dry brush on top of a matte/flat clear-coat. All I can say is WOW! If you can afford it, it is definitely recommended!!

I second that!! ;-)

Woohoo, just received the same! 4840 EMS shipping to Canada too. Came out to $395.40cdn for interested Canucks! Boy the Yen is high! But from the review, it looks totally worth it. Can't wait to paint this puppy up!!

I love the slight assembly, it will make painting that much easier! Thanks Graham for the wonderful review, I for one am so glad that I pre-ordered this and the review comfirms it! This is definitely one that I will clean up the seams and detail and paint up with tiny panels and details to give it even more scale that such a wonderful toy deserves. Of course I will try to post up a step-by-step thread on these boards as a foray back into this world again - maybe we can make it a group (not necessarily a build) improvement thread! Thanks again, I haven't been this excited about a toy for a few years! AmiAmi hasn't requested payment on the pre-ordering though, has anyone received notice?

Thanks guys! I'm always looking for new-toolings of sleek looking modern combat aircraft. Gotta keep that note the next time I'm at a hobby store. Do post some more pictures when you've got it finished!

Hey anyone know anything about this? http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4797356944/ref=pe_2102_21557332_snp_dp

Italeri and raised panel lines... yuck! It looks like recessed panel lines though... Any good new toolings of this bird around?

Ooh, I love it. Is it 1/72 scale? What make? Is it any good?

I went with; 1/72 Macross VF-4 Lighting (fighter mode only) 1/72 Macross Plus VF-11 Thunderbolt + Boosters (fighter mode only) 1/72 Macross II VF-2SS + non fast pack & SAP (fighter mode only) Crosses my fingers but won't hold my breath!

Yeah, I'm just too anal to accept just a repaint. They are too different to pull that off effectively. They could do that then offer a v2 to suck some people in again like the YF-19?! I would not bite if they just did the re-paint with D & P. I do love the DRYL so much better anyways!

You took the thoughts right out of my brain!! It looks like a wonderful mash-up - the best designs of each. Looking forward to the finished photos.

Hah! so true!! You're already one step ahead of me on the FMMF, I've just been collecting just about every aftermarket PE/resin upgrade I can get my hands on for it.

Nope, not yet... I have it, and look at it every so often... dreaming of the day I get to dig into it. It really is the pinnacle of injection molding technology and engineering. It's really up there on my list of to builds... That Andromeda toy looks pretty awesome too, whats the cheapest place I can pre-order one? It looks like toys are the way to go when you have a little daughter (at least for a while anyways).

Any details on this toy? How big / long is it? Any working gimmicks? Lights? Wonder if Bandai will release a 1/350 scale model of this like the Yamato, they have all the electronics worked out.

Is this Valkyries2 book available for pre-ordering anywhere yet?

My sentiments exactly!! I'm with the captain on this one, the only redeeming quality to these kits is their box artwork. However, I did cut my chops on them back in the day - it was an exercise in frustration. It certainly taught me patience, disappointment and the ability to substantially modify a given thing to make it better myself! (of course in hindsight, it took time away from dating! - argh!!) I built every one of those back in the day... of which I think the little Nichimos and the Monster are the only one's I still have today. That Monster isn't poorly posed, its the only way it can be posed! The guns are non-moveable and the joints on the legs can only swivel in 1 direction! The only good to come out of this is that I hope it will generate enough interest in the original series or Macross in general to warrant new toolings to be produced. Or possibly a new art book that has nice reproductions of the original box art paintings. ;-)