mslz22

Continued from "It Lives" over at the model forum. I am calling this 1/32nd but in reality it's a bit larger, like so much of this stuff I felt as though these were depicted larger in the show than the "official" stats indicate. I watched a few key sequences along with some of the art (like the invasion art from ep 1 fighting the tanks) and felt that this is within the margin of error, coming in slightly taller than 1/2 the size of a soldier mode beast. I know that will not gel with everyone but i always feel that the enemy stuff needs to be intimidating, and adding a little size helps with that. I got inspired to rush this thru ahead of a couple of other things, 1 reason is in anticipation of the last installment and the fact that last week was a steambath here weather wise, tried casting, no good, tried painting, no good, so tried my luck at some scratchbuilding. Still have a few odds and ends to take care of but really this is almost ready for molds, i want at least 3 for myself and may offer up a few if you guys who have the Capts beast and may want one. I am can tell you that this is stylized quite a bit, ref on this is hard to come by, at least consistent ref. Also it's a mash up of a few of my favorite views, little from column a, little from b. I've been thru 3 versions of how the body transitions into the eye at the front and i am still not sure if i am sold on it, may still mod that a bit. I have 2 options for the eye, one as just the ball and the other with a smaller ball and the shroud around the eye, the close up of the eye and the way it appears on the wide view tend to look quite different. Shoulder cannon is almost done but not in pic. thanks mike UPDATED pics, fixed the eye area and the chin, much happier with this.... Thanks mike

Thanks guys, even at my estimated 1/32 its much smaller than most stuff i do so cost will not be much, as usual with this stuff i want a few for myself and like to share with you guys if possible. Since posting the pics I've really noticed a few things that i want to change, one of the advantages of posting pics is taking it 2d seems to help me resolve some of the final shapes. I've been trimming the chin down, it's a bit too long, I am also making it a bit more shallow. I also had an Ah Ha moment looking at the eye, I was going for the round "eyeball" and not paying attention to the fact that the inner eye is a ball but the outer shell is much more like an elongated circle, all being fixed. Since there is not much in true ortho views on this it is one that you kind of need to just dig in and get scupting, working it out as you go. thanks mike

So i got the Capt's OK to share this here since it's really an "add on" that is intended for this 1/32nd scale beast only. I am calling this 1/32nd but in reality it's a bit larger, like so much of this stuff I felt as though these were depicted larger in the show than the "official" stats indicate. I watched a few key sequences along with some of the art (like the invasion art from ep 1 fighting the tanks) and felt that this is within the margin of error, coming in slightly taller than 1/2 the size of a soldier mode beast. I know that will not gel with everyone but i always feel that the enemy stuff needs to be intimidating, and adding a little size helps with that. I got inspired to rush this thru ahead of a couple of other things, 1 reason is in anticipation of the last installment and the fact that last week was a steambath here weather wise, tried casting, no good, tried painting, no good, so tried my luck at some scratchbuilding. Still have a few odds and ends to take care of but really this is almost ready for molds, i want at least 3 for myself and may offer up a few if you guys who have the Capts beast and may want one. I am can tell you that this is stylized quite a bit, ref on this is hard to come by, at least consistent ref. Also it's a mash up of a few of my favorite views, little from column a, little from b. I've been thru 3 versions of how the body transitions into the eye at the front and i am still not sure if i am sold on it, may still mod that a bit. I have 2 options for the eye, one as just the ball and the other with a smaller ball and the shroud around the eye, the close up of the eye and the way it appears on the wide view tend to look quite different. Shoulder cannon is almost done but not in pic. thanks mike

All the molds are done and I started a test build right before my vacation, I'm back now and just getting back into the swing of things today. I have a few odds and ends on other casting work to finish up then i will be able to really devote some time to getting this off the ground. Still waiting on some pics from the sculptor on the pilot figure, it's a bit overdue at this point. thanks mike

There is nothing of mine in there, it looks like they are modding the old WF kit from years ago.......

So enter an anxiety inducing moment in the build, self tapping screws, counter sunk to go thru the top fuselage, bottom fuselage and even into the unseen parts of the legs. I knew this was a possibility, even though i was not happy about it, I knew it was the right thing to do to really secure the thing together.... A little apoxy sculpt and some wet sanding and the fuselage is back in order, pre painting all of this is still the way to go, one quick shot of primer and a little strategic painting should have this looking good in no time....then i can beat it up to make it look like the pilot of this CF does not quite get out of jams as easy as our heros. And finally for today, 4 superbright LED's mounted all the way back on the foot, replaced the part that comes with the kit with a flat and diffused plexi plate. It gives the illusion of the engaged thrusters better than using the afterburner plate i included with the kit.

Ok, so here we go with some more progress, pic of the rats nest of fiber optics, led's and power wires for inside. I had to dremmel out just a little bit more space to get all this to fit. Got the wings and top all together, but wound up not feeling like the top and the bottom were really secured together.....

Nothing to show today but wanted to post that this pattern is done, and the last of the molds have just been poured.....hopefully they will all work. It's a big relief to get those done! I got held up a little bit with another round of Probe Droid casting, those are done , I have a couple of standard pods to ship out this week then i should be able to concentrate for a few days to build the first kit... mike

Are you guys talking about this one? http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models/arii/ar308-9-box.jpg

The base coats were acrylics, but, at least the Montana Gold, did not react with the Iso, at least not quickly. From what i understand some of the old ILM painters like Grant McCune would use this technique and count on the base coat "melting" a bit with the accent. There is a video of him painting a space shuttle where you see him blasting an accent panel with a bunch of thinner after putting on some dots of paint. It all kind of melts together to add depth to the model.

Thanks, did not make it to WF this year, hopefully next. The weathering is still in progress but I did use a filter/wash and some additional detailing using both Tamiya paints and some oil detailing. I employed some of the techniques I've seen a lot of the armor and MAK guys doing. Like with the Tamiya paints i would pick an interesting color that compliments the base color (i used Montana Gold Marble for the "white") like depot buff, dab that one in tiny little dots, then use a clean brush with some Iso alcohol on it and brush it almost all away. What you are left with is a "ghost" of the depot buff. It's a really cool effect that you don't even see in the pics all that much but really gives it a real world quality, while at the same time giving it a quality that mimics some of the old box art. For the other weathering i use some of the more traditional streaking with oils. I've been using charcoal oil instead of black as it has a more interesting look to it and compliments the white nicely. thanks mike

Thanks guys, the dash is looking better now, used a sharpie pen to "draw" in the frame...keep it simple right... Anyway, got the legs detailed up a bit, some preliminary weathering, decals on etc. This is where all that planning ahead paid off, legs bolted up to the bottom plate, no glue, no mess, solid connection. Got it mounted up to a temp stand, wires starting to pile up as the parts start to come together, just wait for the mess that the cockpit fiber optics will bring...top half painted up but not weathered yet, just temp popped on for pic. thanks mike

This looks much better in person, extreme close up shows every light leak and flaw, under normal conditions this looks pretty cool will still fix the light leaks around the frame. I have a single 3mm white LED in the clear part, anything bigger may blow out the instrument panel too much. mike

Thanks, the Africa mustard changes a bit after a wash/filter. I think it gets closer to DYRL than the TV colors. It's pretty close to the 1/60 Yamato toys r us CF, the V1 from years ago, that was one of my first 1/60's, I have such a great memory of coming home, opening it up and feeling the magic after so many years with no VF-1's, sometimes i think we take it for granted how many are available these days. mike

Back at this a little bit. I've jumped ahead here a bit but basically i cut the trenches to run the fiber optics, 3 each wing, and 1 each tail wing. Filling them in with apoxysculpt, a bit of a pain, harder than just doing bondo but apoxysculpt tends to be durable over time. The fiber optics will be trimmed once the paint is done and the clear parts will go over the "lens" You can make a nice little lens at the end of a fiberoptic by melting it a bit with a soldering iron. Keeping everything built in a way that stuff could be painted unassembled was a bit tricky but pays off, especially with the cannon fodder. I picked Testors Model Master Africa mustard for the brown. I know it's not 100% cannon color but i don't like the CF on the "peach" spectrum, i perfer it to look a little tougher than that. thanks mike

1/60 not sure on the size, the issue with 1/60 seems to be some lack of interest because it's not really a model making scale for macross, there are some cross over guys like me that collect the toys and do models as well, but not sure how many. I really want to tackle this in 1/48 at some point, especially if THOR gets his destroids rolling in 1/48. There was someone else here who wanted to it in 1/48 so i will yield to him, if he decides not to do it I will take a hard look at it. It would be a long time before looking at this in 1/48, but now that i have a rotocast machine (and a good one at that) I can say that it's in the possible category. Unfortunately the issue with all the kits i want to do here is that "paying" casting jobs always get bumped to the top of my list. Like many of the guys here on the board i do these because i love the subjects and I am happy if i break even and get a little more for the next projects supplies..... mike

Got the first rough in pics for the standing pilot from the sculptor, need some smoothing over but he's getting there. I hope to finish up the last little bits on the actual boss pod today and get them in rubber this week. The pilot will be available as an add on when it makes it's way to me. thanks mike

Mindreader.....all on the wishlist! mike

I did make some serious strides in finishing up the new pattern and I am pretty happy with the new look. I will try to get some pics up soon after i smooth over a few parts and get some nice primer on it. I still do not know when i will get to the molding/casting part on this. I am finishing up a couple of casting projects for other peoples kits (the way i actually make $). Then i want to finish up the 1/48 "boss pod" since i am soooo close on that. I also may throw in something small for a change in between, a bit of a 1/32nd scale "accessory", for the Captains "beast", something in purple. I've already checked and he has no plans for a purple accessory and i need a couple for my beast kit. thanks mike

I really don't know what the PD scale is, it's studio scale for whatever that is worth, I would guess like between 1/3 and 1/2 scale. It's way to big to be 1/4.

Thanks guys, just an update, I've started to mold up the last bits today, still a week or so of probe droid castings for Dave over at RPF then i will be doing the test build on this. That probe droid makes this thing look tiny! mike

I'm sure that there are scattered discussions about scale throughout the modeling section, but as it pertains to this MechTech hit it right on the nose, Kamjin would not fit into a glaug at the official size for a glaug, so the glaug needs to be bigger than the official #'s. Capt. America did that when he did his 1/72nd and I did that with the 1/48. If i have this right Kamjin would be about 9.75 inches tall at 1/48, even as big as i did the 1/48 it would be a tight fit to get a 9.75 inch figure into that pod. All that being said, I personally approach the scale issue within macross fairly loosely, it allows for a bit of artistic freedom and imagination. Since i was a kid the zentrans have always been HUGE in my imagination, it may have been more the narrative about them rather than the animation. The bigger the enemy the more intimidating an enemy is, and the challenge is bigger for the hero. If i was scratch-building a f-14 or a tank there would be little wiggle room for that type of freedom, both scale wise and in interpretation. I personally do not like that type of restriction within building, I have a tremendous respect for the people who do, it's just not for me, which is why i have gravitated to these subjects. It does not hurt that macross models were my introduction into model making when i was a kid. So after my long winded response......my advice is to do what feels right to you, and most of all have fun doing it... mike

I think it would be a safe bet to say that if the 1:100 glaug is too small in relation to the tomahawk that the old plastic 1/72 kit is going to look as right as you can get to "real" 1:100. I got a handful of the bandai release of the 1/72 regult and to my eye they look like they would go good with 1/100 valks and destroids, in fact using them for a 1/100 dio was what i had in mind....which I will get to after i am done scratchbuilding everything in 1/48, so about 15 years from now:) Unless you scratch a full new kit to get it exactly where you want it, using the 1/72nds as 1/100's may be the way to go. mike

Ordered...Heck i want it mostly for the box art....

I have someone working on the pilot for this in 1/48, a real figure sculptor, I can do robots but not figures. He is a little overdue right now but i am hoping for July. It's fixed pose, moveable stuff looks a little too "action figureish" for me with the need for ball joints etc, this will be more like a statue. I don't have a problem with action figures, just not what i wanted to go along with these models. After that I will try to buckle down and finish that 1/72nd monster. I have actually made a lot of progress that i have not posted up yet, I am much, much happier with the new monster pattern than the first one i did...not that the first one was terrible, just happier with this one. thanks mike