SteveTheFish

The Scout Regult is pretty nice. The ones with missle pods have oversized missle pods, making them look awkward. The scout though is nice. Here's mine. I filed off some detail and replaced them with Wave's H-Eyes lens pieces. https://stevethefishdotnet.tumblr.com/post/768755550031921152/arii-1100-macross-regult-scout-type-battlepod

On Sunday afternoon I laid down the decal patterns on the Enterprise E. The decals slide off after only soaking them for a few seconds, which is nice. However they do not like to slide around and might crack if I am not careful! I took my chances and did not use Micro Decal Bonder because I didn't want them to be too thick. You've just gotta make sure you have them lined up properly. The trickiest were the upper part of the sides of the engineering hull, since they wrap around to cover the top of the back, all the way to the shuttle bay in the very back. Fortunately they didn't rip in the process! I'm having to use Tamiya Mark Fit Super Strong though, since they do not like to conform over concave areas. Oh, and look at the forward tips of the nacelle undersides. They didn't properly taper the decals to fit the surface, so I have to use decal scissors to try to cut them to fit properly. AMT didn't do their math right. I am used to the precision of Japanese models.

Is this the one you are designing yourself? That looks incredible. OK, here you go!

Well, lookie there. Once again, an old Imai kit just happens to accommodate an LED perfectly. The flood lights on the knees don't have holes for LEDs, but I can take care of that.

I think I mentioned before on here that I have resolved to complete the 350 scale Klingon K'tinga by Polar Lights, which I'd had in a box on the floor for 6-7 years. I had done most of the pattern painting for the design on the wings and such, but had yet to paint the main hull green color. Well, I finally painted it and it was time to remove the masking tape and masking solution that's been stuck on the model for all these years. A lot of it did not want to cooperate. Fortunately, none of the Tamiya acrylic paint was lifted off, but a lot of residue remained and the masking solution in particular was extremely stubborn. I've been using Locktite blue tack to lift up the stickiness with great success, and applying Zippo lighter fluid with a swab to slowly loosen up the old masking solution and then using the blue tack is doing the trick. The paint has not been disturbed.

Thanks. I knew about the tape trick. I actually tried that first. There is no clear coat, so I can just apply some Micro Sol to it and try from there. I didn't think about doing so, but that makes sense because it re-loosens the decals a bit. Thanks!

This week I bought myself a birthday present and pre-ordered the upcoming Hasegawa Glaug kit on Hobby Search. I imagine it'll ship around the 1st of April. So does anyone have any recommendations on how to strip decals off a model while leaving the lacquer paint job underneath intact? I had some decals on a Star Trek Enteprise model break apart and I did buy replacements, however I'd already applied the Micro Sol to melt the bad ones onto the pylons. I often use Zippo lighter fluid to remove price tags from cardboard and plastic without ruining the surface. Do you think that would work? It's either that or lightly sanding the decals away with 3000 grit sanding sponges or something. It's been eight years since I gave up on that model, but it would be nice to get back to it. and finally finish it.

Speaking of blacklights, last night I painted the impulse engines on my 1:2500 scale Enterprise E model. Here they look under regular lighting. And here they are under a blacklight. I did something similar for the collector dish. I'm using Gaia Notes' Arpeggio of Blue Steel fluorescent/glow-in-the-dark lacquers. The impulse engines were painted fluorescent red and the collector dish underneath was painted with fluorescent white with a bit of fluorescent blue added. I'll mask these areas off before painting the main color. As for the nacelles, decals are provided for those. I wonder, however, if I cut into the decals, I might be able to use more fluorescent paints... Red for the Bussards, and blue for the flux chillers. Hmmm...

These are not builds, but these are neat model stashes of Japanese modelers I found on Pinterest.

That's the Macross II logo! I want them to revamp their Valkyrie 2 model!

I built that several years back. It looks clunky when built. The Arii kits have better surface detail, better decals, and employ polycaps. Imai kits lack surface detail so they make up for this with decals, and the joints are just plastic on plastic. However, Imai kits have overall better proportions. I like how Arii provides the "nose art" decals for their Destroids. Arii ones are just clunky-looking and are awkwardly-proportioned.

My friend and I went to see the movie at the Toho Cinema in Utsunomiya. My friend was only familiar with Plus and Frontier, but had never seen the original. It was shown on screen 6 and there was this mini poster outside of the entrance in the picture above. It was quite an experience to see this in a theater for the first time. It was fully surround sound, too. In 2020, during the beginning of the madness of the era of Corona-chan when every other theater seat was taped off for the purposes of the "social distancing" nonsense, several Studio Ghibli movies were being shown in theaters to keep them going. I took the opportunity to see Nausicaa at the cinema. It was in stereo only, which wouldn't have been so bad, but only the front two left/right speakers were active. If they would have just had all of the left speakers and all of the right speakers active it wouldn't have been so bad, but only the front two speakers by the screen made sound and it took a while to get used to that. It was a cool experience to see Nausicaa on the big screen, but seeing DYRL really dwarfed that experience. The beginning of the credits with the song "Tenshi no Enogu" featured the animation from Flashback, which has been the standard since the second laserdisc release. The decapitation scenes were not edited, so this was the original movie experience (plus the Flashback concert animation). I'm gonna buy this release. I'm glad my friend could go with me. My daughter calls this the "uaki ("cheating") movie" because she was on Team Minmay when she first saw it, and was offended when Hikaru kissed Misa in the underwater city. I have this same movie poster on my wall, so I guess she was expecting the movie to be a love story between Hikaru and Minmay and got pissed. So whenever I'd play this laserdisc movie, she'd gripe a bit. Now I wanna get it on bluray and make her gripe more.

Looks comfy!

I've dusted off my old, abandoned Klingon K'Tinga kit after I gave up on it because the photoetch and the bad instructions screwed me up. So many mishaps with this, and it's mostly the fault of how badly the photoetch fits over the plastic. The PE band that goes across the bulb is NOT the same size as the plastic pieces its supposed to cover. I really wish I had not bothered with it. First of all, the instructions have some of the parts numbers switched or just plain wrong. Secondly, I guess I'm just used to building Japanese model kits because I am not trained in having to read a friggin' PARAGRAPH detailing the assembly when simple pictures could just suffice (as Japanese kit makers are capable of doing). I started this in December 2018 and I rage quit this project the next year. It's been in this Hasegawa F-14 Tomcat box, collecting dust on the floor for several years. I want my revenge.