theplasticwerks

Like any good(?) Macross fan, I try to put all of my Transformers into Gerwalk mode at least once. To my pleasant surprise... Reference pics for fighter and battroid: I highly recommend this toy, by the way. A tiny biplane Transformer, what's not to love?

It's really, really slow. If you google up "mchwarrior ares" you'll find a "spy" video of it. Probably. My FLGS has had a dead-tree copy sitting there forever...

Oh, let's not go there... Not actually too ugly, but the tripod is rather funky. But hey, if ugly wins the war, ugly ain't so bad.

The black commandos represent Omega Squad, main characters of the Republic Commando novels. One of their members got a mention in the game as a member of Theta Squad (Omega is made up of last-men-standing). They were packed in with three Mandalorian training sergeants in an Entertainment Earth exclusive; a companion set includes two black ARC trooper captains and a pair of Phase II troopers with Mandalorian deco in addition to another three Mandalorians. The RepCom figure has ball-hinge joints at the elbow and waist, a true ball at the neck, and swivels at the shoulder and hip - not much more articulated than your typical secondary character figure. However, there is a super-posable Republic Commando figure slated for some time in the next two years. They can be fairly easily modified with regular trooper legs (with some minor resculpting).

Well, that's part of the appeal for me. They're fun, quirky, quick builds, and unless you put weeks and weeks of effort into them they'll always look like toys. They're just fun to look at, and meant to be played with a little more than your average Gunpla-style model. Great for kids, too

Not only does 00 parody the Gundam legacy (Mr. Bushido, et al), it's pulled an Evangelion and become a parody of itself!

The key for me was keeping the ink on the canopy as wet as possible in one go - otherwise, it just comes off like whiteboard marker on the second pass. So there was a lot of going back and forth lengthwise down the canopy on the inside only, getting as much of the marker tip on the plastic as possible to avoid lots of streaks (and scrubbing it across very quickly and lightly! You'll want a fresh marker.). I posted a Gundam in the workbench where I did the same thing on a clear part with the same Sharpie, and I was able to get multiple layers of ink on it to deepen the shade. For each pass, you just need to be sure the ink has fully dried, and keep the pressure light, otherwise it'll just scrub off. If I were to do it again, I'd have tried to cut the Sharpie tip a bit to conform more to the curve of the canopy. As I said, it's still a bit streaky, but only upon very close inspection.

I'm working on a pair of Gundams right now in addition to my 1/72 Ozma, which I posted over in the 1/72 thread. They are the Dynames and Cherudim Gundams from 00. These are the first Gundam kits I've purchased in about two years. Between then and now, I'd been doing a lot of BattleTech minis, and I'm in the miniatures-painting habit now, so I'm all about the layers of drybrushing. The Dynames is more WIP than the Cherudim, which is pretty much done, just some touching up left to do. I purposefully overpainted the eye "cavity" and "belly button" a bit to give the sensors a glowing effect. Mimicking a post I saw in Climax F's review of the Cherudim: My official variant names for them are Dynames GS and Cherudim Snipe Master, named for the Zoids that inspired their color schemes and raptor decals (yes, it's a Warhammer decal...): the Gunsniper and its successor/evolution, the Snipe Master.

Well, here's my WIP Ozma, clumsily reassembled and transformed: I'm hand-painting this puppy (hey, I like the brush stroke aesthetic!). The (slightly streaky) canopy was done with this Sharpie:

I hope they hold some kind of Flashback 2012 event. It'd be a nice prelude to the 30th anniversary

With the "face" closed up, it looks like Jar-Jar Binks

I don't see why not - the entire fighter is green. I was thinking as I was building up my Ozma that Bandai had some hand in designing the Valks to make them easy to produce and retool...each Valk is a pretty much a single color and decals make up the rest.

I wonder if the RVF-25 will be able to stand on its own? As far as I remember we've only seen it on a stick display base. Sure, it might just be the brittle resin prototype that they really don't want to break, but I'm a little concerned.

Hell, I try to put any Transformer into GERWALK mode.

Chunky or not, I must recreate that scheme!

Well, maybe it's not cost effective to double-print. And you have to count on the printer getting it perfectly aligned with each layer - even a fraction of a millimeter can throw off an entire print (trust me, I'm a screenprinter). Ever try running the same piece of paper through a printer twice? And how many misaligned newspaper pages have you seen in your life? I'm sure industrial printers can keep things lined up fairly well, but they need to be constantly maintained so they can keep things lined up for double printing.

The fact that fans were willing to pay Yamato's prices from the beginning hasen't helped much

It should be thin enough that you can't see a layer of it if you look from the side. This may be a job for a misting of cooking spray or WD40. If you're heating it, I don't think it will need to cool, especially since you would be brushing it on so thin it'd cool to room temperature immediately anyway.

Tinfoil is a no-no, unless you want to cast the tinfoil itself Whatever you put in the mold will be cast, including your mold release if it's thick enough (so make sure your Vaseline is baby smooth, or you'll have brush strokes on your cast part!). I've used cooking spray to some success. WD-40 does the job as well. My shop supplies a sodium-based spray. As to making the two-piece mold, here's how I do it. Bury the part to be cast halfway in clay, uncured sculpey, something. Pour your mold material over it and scrape down the sides so you have a seam. Once it sets up, remove the clay and create register marks in the first half of the mold - as simple as drilling a shallow hole in every corner. This helps your mold line up. Spray some mold release on it. Once your registers are in and your mold release is on, flip the mold over (with the piece still inside, facing up) and cover the other side in your mold material; scape the sides to maintain visibility of the seam (and you can do the entire process in a leakproof box to avoid scraping things down). Once it's set up, carefully pry your mold open and remove the part. Then, create a hole in the side of the mold that goes into the actual mold itself (the negative of the part) so you can pour your casting material in. Another way to create a two-part mold is to build a leakproof box and stick your piece at the bottom of it with a piece of clay (do your best to minimize the amount of material you'll have to cut off the cast later!), spray with mold release, and pour your mold material over it until the piece is covered entirely. Once set, remove the mold from the box and carefully cut it in half wherever the seam needs to be (hopefully you planned this out before!). While harder to register, it does save a few steps. This method is best used with flexible molding material like rubber or alginate. Do not try this method with anything that sets hard.

You never noticed how red Klan's Q-Rea was? It's too bad we'll never see the Laramia's Quedluun-Well Done. Background characters never get any love...

And how much are these going to cost us? This is probably just a test shot, though - note 25F fuselage (the slots for the head lasers). They might use a different plastic on the final - compare the finishes on the Alto to this. The Alto has a smoother, glossier finish as if it had been painted, where we can clearly see that the Mikhail is bare plastic with some paint ops. Granted, we don't know which is more representative of the final product. If it were a $20 toy, I'm totally cool on the bare plastic (it's not much more than what one would spend on a Gunpla that looks pretty good without paint), but we know that these guys will run about $50 a pop. Bandai should know what a $50 toy should look like, and I think we'll get our money's worth on the final.

Kit, I believe.

Does no one remember Mikhail carrying speakers in Ep. 12?

How about a kabuki reenactment of the entire series?

I agree. Just stripped an old MechWarrior mini a few months ago with Windex - two years' (and several layers') worth of Tamiya, and it took some of the original factory paint off, too! (I was not good about stripping minis back then...)