SteveTheFish

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.

More progress on my Eva girl sofubi set. Unfortunately, I cannot do justice to the original character designs by Sadamoto with a paintbrush, but I guess this effort is acceptable. No eyebrows yet and the hair color you see is merely preshading. But I suppose the eyes for Rei and Asuka are done, with the finishing touch being the light pools in their eyes.

There isn't an acquisitions thread as far as I can see, so I guess I'll post it here. New kits! I don't usually have much interest in Gundam kits, but these old Sentinel kits are real cool. My friend in the UK sent this old Imai Macross kit to me!

Wow, that's amazing!

Yes, I built that kit when I was in high school. I hand-painted it all with Testors enamel paints and it more or less didn't look too bad. It came with the Ferengi ship and the big Romulan ship too. So this is what I put together last night. I've never bought any Frame Arms Girls kits or anything like that. On a whim, I bought a Bandai 30 Minutes Sisters kit with a pretty dark complexion. I also bought some option parts to give her black pigtails and sexy tits. I'm on vacation at the in-laws' place this week. We have our room here with a TV and such, and I have a modeling table with various modeling supplies I keep here to work on models whenever we stay here. What I need to do is pop the parts apart and sand down the gates better. When I get home, I plan to do a flat coat on the flesh parts. I can use a Faber Castel pencil to do some shading on her butt cheeks and underboobs, then give it another flat coat to seal it in. I think I'll also do a wash of Tamiya panel line accent color on her hair to give it more life, then do a flat coat on that too. Maybe do a semigloss finish on her outfit. After sanding work, I may need to use some plastic polish to smooth it, or just very high grit sanding sponges. After a clear coat, it should have a painted look.

Thanks! She's only 12cm tall. I only wish I had added some flat base to her hair as it's a bit shiny. I painted her eyes with Delta Ceramcoat acrylics, but the rest is V-Color paints. The emblem on her chest was hand-painted with V-Color paints mixed with retarder. It could've turned out better, but my original plan was to mask it off and airbrush the black and white. The detail was a bit too soft to accomplish that, so I hand-painted it. The gold trim was airbrushed though. Hi-Q Parts makes circle masks that made it possible.

Here's something else I recently completed. An SD sofubi figure of Devil Hunter Yohko by Falchion. I used V-Color vinyl paints. Here is a photoset of this build: https://stevethefishdotnet.tumblr.com/post/768754345306112000/falchion-sd-devil-hunter-yohko-sofubi-figure-build

I've had this done for a while now, but I didn't get around to taking proper photos of it until recently. This is Arii's 1:100 scale Regult Recon Pod with some aftermarket customization parts. Namely Wave's H-Eyes lens parts to replace the molded detail I filed off. Here is a photoset of the kit with a description of the build: https://stevethefishdotnet.tumblr.com/post/768755550031921152/arii-1100-macross-regult-scout-type-battlepod

Wow. A plastic deodorant stick, repurposed as a space destroyer. I found this on Pinterest. https://jp.pinterest.com/pin/1548181162268568/

That's a wild design. Geometric patterns in loud colors... It reminds me of some design you'd see on a Trapper Keeper from 1991 or something.

It's cool to see the 1:100 Destroids happening. Several years ago, I built Arii's Defender and Imai's Phalanx. Arii has better surface detail, decals, and they employed polycaps, however Imai's overall proportions and fit are superior. Imai didn't do a good job with providing locator pins on a lot of their parts though. I've no idea why. Imai provided decals to represent the "Ichijou molds" on their UN Spacy mecha and decals for the sensors on Regults, whereas Arii would have that surface detail molded. Arii provided the cool "nose art" for their Destroid kits too. It's just a shame that their stuff looks a bit awkward when built.

My friend took this pic at the show. Looks like Plamax is getting into the S-Valks. It's new to me. I probably haven't been following this as closely as you guys.

These are pics my friend took at the event today.

Today begins the All-Japan Model Hobby Show in Tokyo. I was unable to save up money to attend like I could last year. My daughter is in high school now and it's so expensive. (Yet Japanese politicians wring their hands and wonder why the birth rate is plummeting...) My friend who works for Hobby Japan will probably be there and he's a huge Macross fan too, but I don't know when/if he would be free to take a look around. My other friend who'll be there is Brian from Beaver (you may know him from the HLJ videos), but he's not into Macross, so he wouldn't know what's what really. He's big on Godzilla stuff and not really any anime. I really hope we may see a prototype Glaug that's been 3D printed or something. Or something new from Crusher Jor or Dirty Pair...

@MechTech I'd say black on the blue and dark gray on the light gray would look better, assuming you have dark gray panel line color. @wm cheng Brilliant recovery!

Looks like GoLion's sword, but I wouldn't know if it was the Bandai kit or the new Moderoid kit. Personally, I'm holding out for a Dairugger XV Moderoid. I'd be all over that.