SteveTheFish

@Papa Rat Very nice work! That reminds me of one of the flaws on the ARII Valks. The UN Spacy insignia on the fastpaks needs to have a support put in. There shouldn't be that bad gap. When the time comes when I build my ARII S-Valk, I'll want to putty that detail in so that the decal can sit flush. I can imagine it was a nightmare getting the decal to conform to those deep contours.

If you are interested, here is how I went about weathering my Blackbird. I have the old 48th scale Testors/Italeri Blackbird model in my closet, but if I was to build it, I'd have no place to put it.

Your Blackbird is looking great! I used Tamiya XF-69, NATO Black. I've built two so far: an Italeri one and a Hasegawa one. Oh yes, and a Hasegawa Eggplane one. Yours is an Academy by the looks of it, am I right? What you're doing is great. My advice from my experience is to mask off corners of the panels with some sticky notes, then shoot the corner very quickly and lightly with some medium or light gray paint. I actually used chalk, but the lighter-colored chalk seemed to disappear after the clear coat went down. If I was to do it again, I'd use some gray paint in an airbrush instead since it won't disappear on me.

Thanks! I went ahead and soaked the parts in IPA as you said, then washed them off with water. That did the trick! They are no longer tacky. So should all 3D printed parts be washed off with IPA, or just prime them as-is?

@Papa Rat You're coming along very well. I'm still tempted to think you're a phony when you say that you've only been modeling for about a year or so, like you're having us all on. You demonstrate skill that people who've been doing models for a long time do not have. Heck, I know one young man online who has been building models for a long time. He slathers unthinned paint all over his models and lays down expensive aftermarket decals, then sends me pictures and asks me how I feel about them. He has no self-awareness. You, on the other hand, are doing a fantastic job with your model kits. OK, so I have a question for people who do 3D resin printing. I had a guy print out a figure of Rei from Evangelion for me and some of the parts have a waxy feel to them, as if maybe the UV curing process was cut short. The figure's body and head parts are fine, but the limbs have a weird texture to them. Do these parts need to air dry, sit under UV lamps a bit longer, or do they need to be washed off with alcohol or something?

Yes, I saw that Minmay China dress figure too! Unless I'm mistaken, that's from Mikimoto's Macross manga which essentially took the story of the TV show and matched it with the visuals of the movie. "Macross the First" I think it's called. I have all the books in Japanese, but it'd be great if it could be published in English.

Hey, I just checked again and I take it back. I just saw a lack of a figure and didn't read it. However, it says specifically TV版ミリアフィギュア in the advertising graphic. D'oh! Additionally, in the product description it says: ミリア・ファリーナのフィギュア原型は太郎もちこみ 氏が担当。/ The Millia Farina figure prototype was created by Taro Mochikomi. In the graphic the Japanese says that it only features the upper half of Millia's body is included, but the kit we already got is like that anyway. I actually bought mine in July when a seller on Rakuten had it on a killer sale, with free shipping. I only paid something like 3800 yen with free shipping. I couldn't refuse! So scratch out my theory that there may be some licensing clause which prevents them from doing non-DYRL stuff. So if that's the case, why did they recreate a great cockpit for the Glaug but no Kamjin figure? Has anyone made an STL file Kamjin for 3D printing?

No, I guess what they are going for is for when Hikaru and Misa were exploring Earth. Here is the product listing: http://www.hasegawa-model.co.jp/product/65896/ So Super parts = Minmay, bare-bones Valk = Misa. It says that it includes the Minmay figure so you can use it with the Super Ostrich. Here is a quick paste of the description in English, ran through Goolag Translate: The kit is composed of parts that allow you to choose between the Gerwalk Fighter and the Gerwalk. The prototypes for the three new plastic figures were created by Taro Mochikomi. Ichijo Hikaru (in ship's uniform) and Hayase Misa (in undersuit) can be placed in the cockpit. As a bonus part, it comes with Lynn Minmay (rear seat seat, wearing a simple space suit, with or without helmet), which can be used with the separately sold VT-1 Super Ostrich. The included display stand allows you to display it in a hovering position. A new plastic attachment for the Gerwalk Fighter is included. The package illustration is by Morishita Naochika.

I'm guessing that the reasons why we aren't seeing figures of Kamjin for the Glaug or TOS Millia for this new Q-Rau is the result of the truce established between Big West and hissy-fit Harmony Gold. DYRL was proven in court to not belong to Harmony Gold's fraudulent claims to international licensing, so figures from the movie are fair game. I'm just guessing. I know the guy who helped broker the deal to between the two companies to help make Macross available internationally. The smoking gun is that he was following one court case and HG was passing off DYRL Valk designs as belonging to their TOS license, and that's how we finally claimed victory over HG. I should ask him if my hunch is correct.

Haven't you heard? Round 2 has announced plans to re-release the old MPC Black Hole kits. Intention was announced to modify the Cygnus's length to make it more appropriate. I've heard that two kits are necessary to elongate the middle segment to make it more appropriate. Perhaps that's what they have in mind? I managed to get the old V.I.N.CENT kit here in Japan on YAJ for about 8,000 yen several years ago. Now they will re-release the old kit.

Oh yes! You did a good job. That's what I will need to do.

I am surprised. The bottoms of the feet segments of the old Imai Glaug kit are hollow. I was looking for pieces that would fit on the bottoms, but there are no such pieces. I'm compelled to cut some Tamiya Pla-Plate to make my own bottoms of those pieces. I've built other Imai Macross models and they all had proper bottoms, complete with molded detail. This is weird.

I'm on vacation at the in-laws' place, and in our room here I have a modeling workbench set up. I took the old Imai Glaug kit with me to work on, repopped by Bandai for the 25th Macross anniversary. I paid only 1,020 yen for this back in the day. I think maybe I bought this around 2013 or so. I've filed down those red sensors and will replace them with Wave's H-Eyes 3.5mm lenses. Since I need so many of them however, I've decided to just create molds of one with Oyumaru and cast them with clear UV resin. No sense buying 3 more of those H-Eyes sets just to get 2 pieces from each!

@pengbuzz Check this out. Good things I made friends with a 3D printing madman who doesn't mind printing lots of crap for me. I'm gonna get him a model kit to send him in exchange someday. I'm heading to America next week, so I've arranged to have him send this stuff to my dad's place while I stay there. Here is the bridge to the 537 K'Tinga. Too bad I couldn't have gotten to you earlier. This looks fantastic. It also has improved engines, so I can slice the molded ones off and place the improved ones onto the kit instead. It comes with clear inserts too. The only thing I'll have to do is try to make the bulb part look decent somehow, plus scratchbuild the disruptors on the underside of the wings. And I also had him print this Rei from Evangelion. She looks great!

@pengbuzz I already typed this yesterday, but I must have clicked away from the tab before sending it and lost it. Great story, and I have to chime in with praise for your wife. Actually, my wife is the reason why I got back into this hobby about 26 years ago. She came home from work with an AMT Star Wars AT-AT plastic model from the hobby store on the corner where her bus stop is. She asked me, "You know how to build models, right? You've built them before. Build a doggy horse for me!" (That's what she always called Imperial Walkers and they were her favorite part of Star Wars. She even has a Kenner AT-AT toy.) So I built it with only minimal painting, just leaving the gray plastic as-is and wiped some enamel on it for a bit of weathering. Since then, I've grown modeling experience from there. I'm glad she bought that for me, because I then remembered how enjoyable the hobby is. It's good to have a wife who's supportive of your hobbies. So is that Cat's Eye a resin kit?