SteveTheFish

Nice! I love the YF-23. For a while, the Japanese government was considering resurrecting the YF-23 and adopt it as their stealth fighters to eventually replace the Mitsubishi F-2 (their bigger, beefed-up version of the F-16). I was excited at this prospect, but they ultimately decided to instead invest in an all-new design rather than resurrecting a 20+ year old fighter. I bought the old Dragon 1:72 scale YF-23 kit. It's not as accurate, but it's cheap. I ended up not using the decal sheet at all, and instead used a bunch of spare decals to instead build mine as a hypothetical JASDF F-23 as though Japan had gone ahead and adopted it into Japan's air force. Here is my build. I did a meticulous digital camo scheme from scratch. https://stevethefishdotnet.tumblr.com/post/691120707641507841/dragon-172-yf-23-hypothetical-jasdf-plastic-model

Me too, and yes, I see the same thing.

They're apparently not fond of capitalizing proper nouns these days...

I believe I've seen that one before. Several years ago I had one of Minmay and a Valk, but unfortunately it broke. The Kanteidan store I found it at had a ton of them. I should have bought a second one!

Welcome to the forum. It's nice to see another YouTube modeler. I just subscribed to your channel.

Nice!

I've had this DYRL T-shirt since high school in the early '90s. Bought it at Atomic Comics in Phoenix, AZ. This Valkyrie hoodie sweatshirt I bought last year on Aliexpress, along with a T-shirt version too: This Minmay shirt is a recent acquisition, also from Aliexpress:

Yeah, the best thing about Tamiya's acrylics is the smell. It's almost kind of sweet smelling.

I always use it with lacquer thinner as it helps make it sturdier. But to do a high gloss finish, I spray it on in thin coats to build it up, then go on heavy at the end...

I find that Tamiya gloss acrylics do not dry very hard. Even letting it set for days, it is still easy for a fingerprint to cook into the surface. Modeling friends of mine say the same thing, and the one time I ever used Tamiya gloss acrylics to paint a car model will likely be my last. Tamiya masking tape will also disturb the surface. But someone on another forum says that this never happens to him. I dunno... I'm not impressed with Tamiya. The color spectrum is not good for anything but Tamiya WWII models, etc. Future dries hard though. Although it may be difficult to get in North America and elsewhere, Mr. Hobby Aqueous acrylics dry very hard. Even using sticky, gummy box tape won't ruin the surface. You can't easily scratch it off with your fingernail, either. Very sturdy. The only downside is that painting lighter colors atop darker colors doesn't work so well and may require a base coat of white over the darker surface.

I dip canopies in Future Floor Polish, but I imagine that might not be available in Germany. It isn't available here in Japan, so I asked my friend in America to bring me a bottle once when he came to visit me. That bottle has lasted a long time.

I think I am done articulating my Imai Armorded Valk. I've used ball joints by Yellow Submarine and Wave. For inside the body, I first used poly putty (the yellow stuff) and then reinforced the crap out of that with epoxy putty. I'd hate for these to bust loose once I try to pop the balls into the sockets.

Oh wow. The old Macross Shmup. This was the first game I bought for the Saturn, back in '98. That's quite an undertaking with voice actors and all! I can't remember this game really needing any language understanding to play. It's a fun game, but I was disappointed that the Super Strike Valkyrie's beam cannons don't seem to do much damage at all for whatever reason.

Oh, that's great. I'm new to this forum, and, and fairly new to this thread. I am not familiar with what your custom build is and I'd have to navigate back to see what exactly you're building. M3 is that Sega Dreamcast game, right? I was living in Japan at the time that game came out and I was excited in anticipation, but then I saw on IGN and other websites that the game was crappy and the best part about it is its anime intro and cutscenes. Being a Macross fan and a Dreamcast fan (I'm wearing my Dreamcast jacket today even), I really wanted this game to be great but I gave it a pass. I've never once played it myself, but I think my friend probably has it. He'll buy even bad games, especially if they are Macross. OK, I just found the anime intro to the game. I suppose the suits are a little bit different from the movie, especially the helmet pattern is a bit different. That daughter in the game... is that supposed to be Komilia who was in the PC Engine games? I once saw a YT video of a guy using Bondo to try to fill in the faux aztec panel lines on a Starship Enterprise Refit and he made a mess of it. In my experience, I find it best to just buy stuff that is specifically made for the modeling hobby. Buying something at an automotive store might be cheaper in bulk, but it would go to waste since it's not something I'd use constantly and it'll take more space in my room. I don't use automotive paints on model cars like some people do. I just stick to hobby supplies made specifically for the hobby. Plus people don't realize I live in Japan and this stuff is cheaper for me than for them. Well, I used a bit more poly putty last night. The hardener I bought will arrive Monday night. I'll take pictures of my Armored Valk project tonight.

Thank you! Thanks to you, I now know what they call it and I managed to buy a tube on Joshin Web. It's actually made by a company called Work, but Wave sells it. It may be discontinued? I did find a tube of the individually-sold Tamiya poly putty hardener, but I do not know if it is compatible. I ended up paying more for the Morimori hardener than I had hoped to, but at least it looks like a larger tube and should last me.

Where did you find the .STL files for that Milia figure? Has anyone made a female pilot figures wearing the regular pilot suits? I don't have a 3D printer, but my friend in PA does. He says he is gonna print the Hikaru and Minmay figures that are made for Hasegawa's Super Ostrich kit. Can't wait to see those. I only recently learned how hard to find polyester putty is in the States from watching a video by Leona's Workshop on YT. Here in Japan it's just another hobby supply to use. I have a tube of Wave's Morimori poly putty, but unfortunately I'm already running out of the hardening agent! It comes in such a small little plastic vial and there doesn't seem to be enough to go around to use with the rest of the main tube. Tamiya's poly putty comes with the hardening agent in a seemingly larger tube. There is a hobby shop walking distance from where I work and I stopped by there to ask the shop owner if perhaps the hardening agent is sold separately, and he said that he has not seen that. I wonder if the home center "polyester hardener" can be used with my poly putty. It's only about 400 yen, so it's worth a shot. I've been using the poly putty on the Imai Armored Valk kit I'm working on. I've used it to secure the Wave ball joint sockets for the arms and the waist. It sure dries super hard! I wonder if I should still reinforce it with some epoxy putty. I'd hate to have the parts painted up and have the sockets collapse when I try to pop the pieces into place.

Holy crap, that is an excellent idea. Maybe get a Bandai 30 Minute Sisters kit or something for that? I hadn't thought of that. Today I was busy adding ball joints to this old Imai Armored Valkyrie, so I'm gaining valuable experience points with leveling up my customization skills. Have you ever used vinyl paints? Nagashima's V-Color paints are the de-facto sofubi paints here in Japan, but apparently before the end of the year, GSI Creos will come out with their own line of sofubi paints. In North America, there's something called Mad Ape Ninja or something. IIRC, Aoshima once released a Robocop sofubi kit under their Skynet label. I dunno if it was originally from Tsukuda.

I had collected all of those 12th scale figure kits by Imai but I sold them all at Book Off a year or so ago because I realized that I would never get around to ever building them. Proportions aren't very good, the hair looks a bit flat, etc. Hikaru's supposed to have messy cowlick hair but the figure's hair looks pretty tame. I did keep my Bandai Macross Girl. The actual kit doesn't look as nice as the box art, but it's alright, I guess. It's made from that heavy, solid ABS plastic that those early '80s Tsukuda figure kits came in. It's not styrene. Plus it came with stickers. I scanned the sticker sheet and printed them onto clear laser printer decal paper. The engine bells on the fast pack are solid, so instead of trying to hollow them out with my router and make a mess of them, I think I'll just cut them off and use some replacements from Kotobukiya's Modeling Support Goods line. You can see an unboxing of this kit on my Tumblr feed here: https://stevethefishdotnet.tumblr.com/post/166390759684/bandai-112-macross-valkyrie-lady-plamo-unboxing

Oops. They forgot to capitalize Miria.

Thanks! That's good enough. I can print this out, cut it, and send it in. I live in Japan. Hobby Search will provide scans of the instructions, but they intentionally crop out the parts order forms. The crappy part is that it's 1500 yen plus 300 yen, whereas Hasegawa's is just a straight 1,000 yen. Something to consider. I didn't know that the Plamax decals are so expensive. Incidentally, I recently ordered replacement decals from Hasegawa. I'm currently building Macross model #1, which is the VF-1A from DYRL. It has decals for Hikaru, Kakizaki, and Max. Since I am building mine as Kakizaki and my decals are kaput (I left them in the window too long because they kept yellowing on me and I ended up baking them), I ordered replacements. But they no longer make that kit, and instead gave me the decals for the VF-1S/J/A. This has decals for Roy and Hikaru (both DYRL and TV), but no stripes for Kakizaki or Max. It does, however, have the plane numbers and names as decals. I tried scanning the decals and printing them. I used Fine Molds clear decal sheet with the laser printer at work and they did not turn out so well. This is why I'm thinking I may go for replacements from Max Factory. While I could possibly use Hasegawa decals on the Plamax kit, there is an issue with proportions. Are the stripes on the wings too long or too short? I'll first have to cut the damaged decals out closely, lay them on the Plamax parts, and see if they fit or will require modification. In any case, thank you for you help!

I suggested a while back to my Mac friend to give Linux a shot because he was tired of being pushed around too. Recently he migrated to Ubuntu Gnome and he likes it. I had suggested Ubuntu Mate, but I guess he's fine with Gnome. I personally hate Gnome, but he seems comfortable with it.

Since I bought the Max Factory Valkyrie Fighter VF-1A that only comes with stupid stickers by mistake (I actually didn't expect them to do something so stupid), if anyone here has purchased the new version with decals, could I ask a big favor? All I need is just a scan of the order form that shows the prices of replacement parts, decals, etc. Of course it'll be in moon runes, but it should be pretty apparent what it is. I just need a scan of that order form and I'll be able to print it out, send it to Max Factory and pay for the decals that they should have included with this kit initially. Let me know! Thanks.

I still have leftover paint mix for the Hasegawa Armored Valkyrie I'm building, so I got inspired to start something new. Last night I started on a very old Imai 1:100 Armored Valkyrie. I used my Hobby Base ball sockets to create dynamic hip joints and the hamfists will be replaced with Kotobukiya's M.S.G. hands. With the leftover paint for the armored parts I mixed, I may as well build this older, smaller version and use it up. The decals are kaput and I have no confidence that they will work, but I have some aftermarket UN Spacy decals at least that are in-scale with this kit. I saw someone on here had posted an armored Millia Valk they'd found online, so that's what I wanna do.

Yeah, that is magazine quality for sure. Submit it to FSM or something!