sketchley

While poking around to try and figure out why the 2025 Blacktron Renegade looks off, I stumbled across the following pictures showing the Cruiser and Renegade clips, and clipped together: Source: Jay Ong's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayong28/p/DDw8DqWPivq/?img_index=1 As for why the Renegade looks off: the overall silhouette (in red) is octagonal, whereas the original was more diamond-shaped. In addition, the 'bulky bits' (in green) are arranged in an H shape on the new one, while the original was a rectangle. As the new Galaxy Explorer is fundamentally the exact same shape as the original—just bigger!—one wonders why the Blacktron Renegade's shape was so drastically changed... Perhaps the Lego group will have much better sales if they didn't market it as the Renegade, but as an entirely new Blacktron ship? 🙄

Yikes! I fully agree! Some things are also meant to be blurry out of artistic choice. The Lucy clip is a good example—clearly depicting those background characters totally changes the focus of the shot from Ricardo onto them (nevermind how poorly it was done)! Fixing animation errors (E.g. adding missing missiles, colour correcting Focker's VF-1S) is one thing, but changing the artist's focus by de-blurring? That's a bridge too far!

Looks like there's plenty of material to try the quicker/easier two techniques! (making sprue goo seems like a rather involved process) Seeing the box-like parts, I'm wondering what the best approach is for welding two chunks together. Thinking out loud: scoring and snapping a section apart to be glued back together will probably introduce stress marks... Perhaps gluing the undamaged bottom edges of two parts of that 'box' together will closest approximate the actual dome? It's a shame that the box isn't quite as clear as the dome. Maybe put a bit of something like masking tape on the clear plastic close to where you're gluing, and once everything is dry, remove it to see if there is any fogging (and how bad it gets) near the glued seam?

That's good that you have some material on hand to try things out first. Hopefully there won't be too much fogging! 🤞

In one of the Japanese hobby magazines I remember reading a tip about how to glue pieces together in a way that gets rid of the seam line, without having to resort to putty and other fillers. If memory serves: 1) Put the solvent glue on the parts of both pieces that are being fused together. 2) wait until the plastic is suitable melted. 3) squish the pieces together until there isn't any gap, and some of the melted plastic is being pushed out. 4) when dry, sand off the excess plastic that was pushed out of the seam. However, I'm not sure how viable that is on a clear plastic piece - as the off gassing will probably cause fogging...

Is there any way you can try out the preferred method on something first? The first thing that comes to mind are pieces of the sprues for the bubble canopy. However, they may be too small to replicate the end goal...

That seam line sucks! But you did an awesome job eliminating it. Mad skills!

Been a while since I updated my models-in-progress. A few months ago, my Rigādo factory was really getting into the swing of things, when I got a bad case of gotta-get-it-done-itis, and ended up nicking my thumb with the Xacto knife. While I was letting it heal, I reverted to the other major project on the workbench: dusting! At one point, I tackled the Death Star II. The big hole in the back is great for letting dust in, but terrible for getting it out. As I didn't glue it together, I was able to tease all the pieces apart: Then I remembered that someone on MW had painted the interior of their Death Star, and realized it was my chance to do the same. The red and silver paint is really obvious. Can you see any of the Burnt Iron paint? Alas, it's basically indistinguishable from the black water colour wash 😭: Regrettably, once assembled, I realized that the outer surface was too plain, and something needed to be added to it: In researching the details, I came across a buildup that essentially said that the 'city sections' on the Death Star's surface are darker than the surrounding areas. The modeller had painted all of the raised panels in a rainbow of darker colours, and then dry brushed a light grey over top to get the desired effect—essentially the opposite of what I had achieved with my wash. That's when I recalled another MW member having used pencil to add Aztec details to their Enterprise kits. As the test panels came out quite nice (bottom right Death Star in the image above), I went gangbusters on the rest of the surface. The results were nothing like I expected, and much too dark for my tastes: I decided to wipe off the pencils and resolved to find another way to achieve the desired finish. And that's when the happy accident happened: the wet-wipes I used didn't take all the graphite off, and I ended up with something extremely close to what I was aiming for: Thankfully, when I was laying on the pencils I had the presence of mind to resist scribbling, and pencilled in the areas with uniform top to bottom strokes. My overall goals were to ① break up the the monotony of the even-thickness layers in the back by drybrushing horizontally to suggest different layer thicknesses, and ② suggest that there is more detail than there really is with strategically placed vertical bits of colour to break up the monotony even further. I think it works—as long as you don't look at it too closely! What do you guys think? Does it look better now compared to when I started? ⇩ The unmodified Death Star

Oh! That's quite different from what I had imagined! Nevertheless, as I said before, it's really effective! Thanks for the confirmation. It's a testament to your research and detailing work that I immediately thought exactly what you're intending to depict. 👍

@pengbuzz That's a very dynamic looking ship! I especially like how visually different it looks from the 3/4 views (front top, rear top, rear bottom, etc.) You've also added an impressive amount of detail—phaser banks, escape pods, station keeping thrusters, etc. The crème de la crème are that the windows aren't just drawn on, but are indented into the hull material. The specular highlights really sells it! Question about the bridge area: is it the smallest dome on top of the top ventral dome? To my eyes, it looks like those forward facing windows on that top ventral dome could be the ship's 'Ten Forward'!

Darn it! It also looks like it would be a lot of 'surgery' to kit-bash replacement parts—even more so if one wants to retain the transformation gimmick of the kit.

Thanks for doing this build up! After seeing the marketing pictures of this, I'm really curious if the Destroid (AKA Gerwalk) and Battroid modes can be built (or transformed) without the VF girl-scale bicycle handlebars exposed.

If memory serves with regards to Macross 2, he was forced to do a style reminiscent of the TV series, etc. So, his character designs in Macross 2 should be considered an outlier. A better progression would be to look at how it changed from SDFM → DYRL → Macross 7 → Macross the First. Nevertheless, I wouldn't describe it as a 'changed' drawing style per se. More like an evolution. Some aspects of his art are a lot more simplified (as in easier and faster to draw), but other parts have hardly changed at all (e.g. the way he draws noses).

That design raises a lot of questions. E.g.: the thrust vectoring plates: why are the top plates jagged (= stealthy), and the bottom plates square (= not stealthy)? And then there is this: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIC_Baidi_Type-B Makes one wonder if the whole thing is a mistranslation of what the aircraft really is—like, as renegadeleader1 said, a movie prop—or we are seeing a masterclass in misdirection.

While it is essentially an impossible question to answer, one way to look at it is the big purchases made by the Earth government. In short: in addition to fully funding the ongoing costs to repair the environmental damages to the Earth, the Earth is able to fund the creation of dozens upon dozens of fleets at the same scale as the 7 and Frontier fleets, at the rate of 1 to 2 per year.