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Hi, I managed to score a discounted armor set, but it was discount because it's missing the replacement plates that the shoulder missiles mount to. From my eyeball examination, it looks similar enough to the VF super mount, but does anyone own both and would be willing to confirm for me? Is that ball socket exactly the same? If they're the same, I'm going to try to 3D print or resin cast off of my super parts. If not... I suppose I could always design my own way of mounting...

Hi, I'm hoping to try to make a heatshield that can stick onto the clear canopy rather than having a parts swap (i'll figure out how to hide it in the fighter later!) I was about to start sanding/cutting/milling away at my heat shield, but then I thought, I'm sure there's a way to do this with a two part mold so that I can get a perfectly conforming heatshield rather than me trying to guess! Does anyone have any advice on how I would go about this project? I'm thinking if I make a mold of the heat shield and then use the clear canopy as the other side of the resin mold, I'd be able to make a heatshield just right.

Hi Jason, I'm a mechanical engineer who works with injection molded parts. If there is enough demand, may I suggest trying proto-mold? 3D printing is a great technology, but as soon as you hit 10+ samples doing a low-run an aluminum mold or RIM mold might be more efficient (not to mention a heck of a lot stronger!!!!) Feel free to PM me if you have more questions: this is an awesome project and I'd love to help in any way I can!

Many thanks to the open-hearted MW'ers here who were willing to post the information: I managed to secure a preorder at HLJ for my very first non-secondary market Macross purchase: feels kinda good, but kinda sad too since not all of us got one I used my iphone at HLJ and while it took a long time, I didn't get any load errors or anything (maybe there's a more forgiving timeout on the phone?)- by the time I checked out 15 minutes had passed! It's still in my orders bucket as of today (crossing fingers).

Sorry for the newb question... How does one exactly participate in pre-order madness? Do you just got to all the shops hitting refresh until something happens? (And this is supposed to be 4pm 8/1 Japan time?) I've never actually purchased a non-used macross fig...I'd kinda like to know that that's like

Thank you!!!! I'm going to try the hobby base 1/144 hands. The scale of my project is whatever scale the hi-metal R's are in. I don't mind if the hands are a little too big either, as the hi-metal has some popeye arms that might look ok with those anyways. The main thing is if I can cram them into the housing for non-swapping.

I considered low temp, but I've warped some of my other toys before trying to use stuff like cerakote (though if you have an all-metal toy, cerakote and gunkote are definitely more scratch resistant, though also more prone to big chips when the finish finally does wear off: though it probably took me like 1000 draws from my kydex holster for that to happen!) I couldn't help myself and started transforming it recently, since I knew I'd need to do a touch up on some areas anyways: even at 2 days cure, the finish is hard enough that it won't wear off, though the dull did change to shiny on a few parts that rub. Once it's fully cured, I'm going to transform a bunch of times, locate problem areas, and abrade those areas for better paint adhesion. When these firearm type paints dry, it becomes like a layer of ceramic and so is very, very much tougher than acrylic, which is essentially a thin coating of plastic. Again, even with the partial cure, none of the tabs is showing any paint coming off after putting it through Bat/Ger/Fighter several times. PS: I started a VF-25A that I'll post pics of soon as well

Hi folks, I know a lot of people on this board overlap hobbies with Gundam and Transformers. I'm hoping to do some custom work on my low-vis VF-1 and am hoping to use some third party fully articulated hands: would anyone know which brand makes the smallest? I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to cut some plastic up, but the smaller the hands are to start the easier it will be for me. I know of Kotobukiya's MG 1/100 offerings and KFC's offerings: not sure which would make the better project base. If you even could just take a picture of the hi-metal R hands next to some stock Gundam 1/100 mg hands or some transformer masterpiece hands, that would help me avoid buying superfluous robot hands that are beyond hope in size. Thanks!

P.S.: I could really use some advice on teh super/strike parts color!! I know I want them to be some kind of neutral gray, but I can't decide on whether to go darker than the valk's color or brighter. I'm thinking dark gray (like panzer schwarzgrau ish) might be cool, but I somehow feel the "almost whitish" color packs some modelers use just feels a tad more military. Or, I could just lather on the light blue love, but I think that might not look so great as it would probably start looking like a blob. Help me choose?!

I sure know how to get distracted! Cleaning up the weathering before a final top coat... thought I'd post latest progress (and supers!) I like to use water-based weathering so I can adjust it. Problem is, I keep adjusting it... I'm never happy. Oh well. Updating first post with most recent pics:

Hi, wondering if anyone has his/her hands on that ever-elusive VF-25G renewal and could cad up a Dragunov for us plebes who can't plop down $300 just to get the rifle