DeltaE27

I’m back! After mentioning I had a Tomahawk in the works in my phalanx post and then proceeding to do nothing with it for months, I can finally show it off. The Tomahawk has always been my favorite of the non-transforming stompy Macross designs ever since I was young. This may explain why I have wound up with multiple. In my defense, I started an ARII kit (we’ll get to that later!) long before I knew the Wave kits were even a thing. But that got set aside for a long while, and then I found the Wave kits. I really like the Wave kit, even if some of the gimmicks come out a bit too tight once paint is applied. I think in total it’s something I can be happy to have on my shelf. And I appreciate the face has a lot of detail. Hi ho, Kermit the Frog here But as mentioned, I did have an ARII tomahawk, and after finishing the Wave design I thought I’d finish up that gray-blue menace and compare the two. Presenting, my ARII tomahawk. Honestly it holds up great for an old kit. The two are very comparable. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re- Oh. Yes, I’ve deceived you (which you hopefully realized when you read the title of the post). As it turns out I have not two tomahawks but THREE. the ARII design is saddened by the deception. When all I had was the ARII kit I decided to paint it closer to the show I knew. It wasn’t 100% the same but I wanted something like that tan design I thought I remembered from the show, even if it was basically a color swap of the ARII manual. So I repainted it. I ALSO swapped the legs on the IMAI defender kit I was working on simultaneously with the ARII legs because I liked them better and, as previously mentioned, the Tomahawk has always been my favorite. I got it all together, ready for detailing…and then stopped. And then found the Wave designs. I built a wonderful new tomahawk. And then I got a bundle deal for a defender and another Wave tomahawk. It was the cheapest option I could find for a defender somehow. So, inspired by the ARII art and the decals I still hadn’t applied, I wound up with a blue Wave tomahawk. I styled it as an early variant since the art had a red visor and I found a Mecha index tidbit stating that earlier variants were deployed with red visors. Then I decided to style it as a Marines unit like the VF-0C Hasegawa made, deployed to the Prometheus. All the UN MARINES logos were individually assembled from third party decal letters, while the numbers were individually assembled from numbers that Wave at least included as optional decals. Fun times. Meanwhile, the decals I stole from the ARII kit were old and very much disintegrating on me. Even more fun times as I tried to fix those with paint. Still, I like the result. You’d almost never know the “VAM” in the leg art is hand drawn from fragments of decal that were still available and paint marker. By the time I was decalling and panel-line-ing the ARII design I already had one wonderful completed Wave kit. So I didn’t use as much care as I could’ve to finish it. That, plus decals that I decided not to fix meant the end product is much more rough. But hey, better a kit I decided to quickly finish than one I never finished at all! Anyway, this post is way too long now, so from all three of my tomahawks, farewell and thanks for reading!

One final design for this adventure, and it printed successfully. Now I wait for it to cure, then I’ll start painting everything. I’ve also been working on the official zentradi ARII kits that inspired these, but that seems like a separate project given it’s nature. presenting the Zentradi picket:

Honestly the stand size is intentional and almost necessary. those stands are about an inch or two tall, I’d guesstimate. Not really that big, just in comparison with what they’re holding, they are. I wanted something I could easily grab without risking damage to the ship, something that would be easily visible, and most importantly something that wouldn’t risk snapping when I printed it, something I could anchor the support points to as well so I don’t have much scarring on the ship itself. are these models too small to really be practical, to the point I need to compensate with a large stand? Yes. But I’m having fun with them anyway

Well, after adding some stands to the design, I actually have real world results! Printed and primed: I printed some with and some without stands, but the ARMD are the only ones that really are large enough that I don’t worry I’ll lose them without stands. Also note the two ARMD in the rear with connectors for the 1/20000 Macross, and the part on the far left that’s the lower hull of the Zentradi flagship (whose name starts with N but I cannot ever spell without looking it up) at the same scale. Really shows the difference compared to an ARMD or even a poor Oberth class. close ups of the Oberth and Quel-Quallie. I’m happy so many details are even slightly visible at this size. Now how in the world do I even try to paint these…

Still finding it a lot easier to be motivated to design vs printing right now, so here’s an ARMD. I think before I try printing anything I need to include a stand or space for a stand. I’ll probably work on that next, then the Picket ship, and that should be everything I want to design at this scale. Oh! This reminds me I wanted to add a mounting point compatible with the 1/20000 SDF-1 to the ARMD. I’ll tackle that next.

You would think I would either try printing something, or designing something simpler and larger next. You would be wrong. 1/20000 Quel-Quallie: this will be very small, around 2/3rds of a cm, so the landing legs will be very thin. I’ve got that block in between them in one version of the design to add a bit of strength. We’ll see how that turns out

I spent the last two days working on an Oberth-Class destroyer design for 3D printing, shown below. now, I’m pretty happy with it. You may be thinking though, that it’s honestly pretty rough. Details are lacking, shapes seem to be slightly thicker than they really should be, that sort of thing. Why would I do that? Because a 200-meter long Oberth at 1/2000 scale is a centimeter long. So I’m trying to get what details I can in there without things breaking 😄 (And I basically gave up on the radar, as much as I like it. Too spindly) 1cm will put it in scale with the ARII zentradi capital ships and SDF-1 that I recently started acquiring. If it goes well I might try to design an ARMD (perhaps even a version I can swap in as docked to the Macross, after all I have a few…), a Zentradi picket ship, or if I’m crazy enough a simplified Quel-Quallie. I’ll document any of that here. But for now, time to start trying to print this Oberth.

I can’t pretend to know too much about transformers (blame Zoids for bringing this to my attention, the fan communities I’m part of we’re having a lot of fun with this), so I’m happy people more invested and knowledgeable than I are able to weigh in. I had to post, though, because the 2-second whiplash of watching a transformers video and thinking “oh, look, an animation of a transforming- wait, that’s the other transforming mecha animation I know!” Was something else.

This is a screenshot from a Tomy T-Spark announcement trailer I was just watching. The video is full of teasers for new collab projects at various stages of development, this came right after a few seconds showing the VF-19 fire Valkyrie in action and right before showing off a silhouette. It looks like a Macross 7/Transformers collab is in the works! I don’t know the policy for posting links, so let me know if I need to remove this, but if you want to watch yourself (it’s a lot of transformers stuff if you like that), here it is: https://youtu.be/CUWB2iakKcA?si=m4MuGHuQ76W-W2YJ

Thank you! Since I posted this I did actually finish the Tomahawk too, and I’m pretty pleased with it, but I want to wrap up a related project before I post it…so, stay tuned I guess?

Thank you both! That all absolutely makes sense, and the comparison to US Marine assault ships does help. I was mainly wondering because I was having a hard time visualizing the Daedalus’ upper hull as a flight deck, but I forgot just how long that ship is.

The description (and decals) of the Hasegawa VF-0C state these valkyries were assigned to the SLV-111 Daedalus (the same that would eventually become the SDF-1’s punching arm full of destroids) before being phased out. My understanding is the Daedalus is an assault ship, not an aircraft carrier. I’d assume a model kit’s description isn’t exactly primary canon, but it does have me curious. Does the Daedalus have the ability to launch non-helicopter aircraft? Did the VF-0C pilots just always use GERWALK to take off or something?

It’s a good warning! …and sadly a little late. Both of mine had the tip snap off in roughly the same place when I cut them out, so mine just has slightly shorter antennae. Then I accidentally brushed against one of them that I couldn’t see in the painting booth and snapped it again…minor surgery has occurred there, you can see a slight bulge of superglue around the middle of the left hand antenna. Wire or spring is a good idea, honestly

Thank you! Yeah, I’m no good at weathering and honestly kind of like it when a kit looks minimally used. Maybe one day I’ll figure that out though. As for the zentradi pod, that may have been another addition to my backlog… what can I say, I like the background machines!

Hello everyone! First time posting here after stumbling across the forum while in a Google search. Coincidentally this is only my second or so ever model kit from Macross after getting a lot of them from a friend downsizing their backlog (kits which now stare at me from my backlog, because this Wave destroid and others are in fact additions I made to the pile rather than projects I finished…) I have a good amount of experience with other models (looking at you, Bandai) but am slowly working my way to the full paint and glue requirements of most of my Hasegawa kits, so the Wave destroids, in addition to being good depictions of some of my favorite machines, are a good middle ground. Not to mention they’re more proportionally accurate than the IMAI/ARII defender/Tomahawk and not nearly as intimidating as the Moscato Phalanx that are all also in that pile. Ultimately I’m happy with how the Phalanx came out and looking forward to the Tomahawk that’s next. And since this is my first time posting, if I’ve done anything wrong or weird with the post format, please let me know!