Valkyrie

Well, I finally got the kit. And it was well worth the wait. Now, as promised, a bit of a review and project analysis; For the time being, I can't comment much on the parts' fit, transformation, etc, since that would involve cutting up the original quite a bit. And it's my goal to keep it unaltered as much as possible. That'll have to wait until the first set of molds is finished, and I have some of my own casts I can mess around with. First of all, the sculpt looks really good! There's evidence that some of the parts were CNC machined, and based on the all-CG instructions, I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of the kit was, at the very least, roughed out with a CNC machine. That's a very good thing, as it all but guarantees good symmetry. The casting job is better than I expected in some ways, and worse in others. It's better in that most of the flash is nothing too significant. But it's worse in that the molds were obviously damaged in many places. This pic shows the worst of the flash problems. He managed to F something up pretty good there, but i have no idea what... Now, transformable kits like this require you to drill holes in many locations. The parts will have the hole starter holes for you, maybe 1mm deep. Just enough to show you where to start drilling, and keep your hole centered. Now, a little moldmaking background. Those starter holes show up in the molds' surfaces as the exact opposite - small, cylindrical rubber pegs. Raised details like that are the first to get damaged when the molds start deteriorating. The rubber starts becoming brittle, and the details begin breaking off. And whenever a piece of rubber breaks off, solid resin of the same shape will take its place in every casting made from that mold from that point on. That's what happened with a LOT of those starter holes on the kit. And most of them weren’t clean breaks, as the starter holes have been replaced with raised blobs of resin where the holes should be. That makes things hard, because now the center points of those holes aren't as clearly defined. But, of course, I'll be repairing all of them. Here's one example of what I'm talking about: Here, a cavity to house a nut was partially filled in when its mold was damaged A damaged mold royally screwed up the nose in the same way as the starter holes, only much worse. The nose has 8 small vernier nozzles on it, and EVERY ONE of them is filled solid with a mass of resin. There's no good way to repair them. I'll have to drill out the nozzles from their ports and replace them with Wave parts or something. Hopefully I already have the same parts IHP used. In any case, the nose promises to be a huge pain in my ass >_< Lastly, there are quite a few more air bubbles in the casts than I had anticipated. But most of them lie underneath a very thin skin of resin, so I'm hoping that'll minimize how much the little ones show up in molds. But with the bigger ones, they'll be needing a good deal of repair work no matter what. But I did find one thing that's going to make the project a bit easier than I expected. About half of the kit's parts are duplicates. For example, the two feet are the exact same part - they're not mirrored. Because of that, I'll only have to make clean-up molds for ~50 parts instead of ~100. That'll save me some time and money. But I'll have to make two of each of those molds for the final molds. Because if I only made one of each, they would have half the life of the rest of the molds, because I'd have to cast from them twice as often. Here's pics of all the parts I've found so far that are duplicates. With the help of Fulcy, I've found all the screws needed at McMaster-Carr. A couple of them aren't EXACTLY what the instructions call for. But they're pretty damn close, so they should be fine. The cost for one kit's worth of screws looks to be about $10, which is just about what I was anticipating. And yes, they'll be included with the kit for no extra cost. I've got some concerns about the strength of the joints. There are no Wave or Kotobukiya joints used at all. It's just screws. 124 of them by my count, and only 14 nuts. That means the majority of them will be screwing directly into resin. I'm worried that the resin stripping out over time. So I'm toying with a few ideas that'd make it stronger. Among them are switching to a denser resin. Some experimenting will be necessary, but I'll make it as strong as I possibly can. The tentative price remains at $250. It may end up being a bit less, but it definitely won't be more. Well, that's about all I can think of. If you've got any questions about the kit or the project (no questions about ordering details here, please), ask away. I shall begin making molds tonight, and I shall also be opening up pre-orders tonight. I'll probably only be taking 4 or 5 pre-orders, with $100 pre-payment. In return, you'll be guaranteed one of the first kits cast from the molds, plus another special, mystery bonus They'll be first come, first served. So if you wanna get in on it, watch for it!

Very nice, VF-22! Keep em coming! And I'd like to note that the designs don't have to be perfectly refined upon submission. Details like text placement and wording can be perfected later on the winning entry.

Quick update; As of tuesday, the monster is on its way! According to UPS, I should have it on monday. Expect a thorough review and project analysis monday night

I'm all for someone else recasting the VF-4, as long as they can do a good job at it. Is there any way you can post pics of some of your friend's casts? Preferably some small, thin parts, since the VF-4 has them in abundance.

Nope, we're still far from having a final box art. There's a contest thread pinned in the Fan Works forum, but it hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention so far

Thanks, Melissa! Well, first of all, I don't yet have a box for the project, so I don't have any dimension guidelines to give just yet. But if I can get a large enough box from my current supplier, it should be similar to my VF-4 box, shown below (rectangular and front-opening) I'll also post text guidelines in the near future also, but the obvious includes "VB-6 König Monster", "1/100 scale resin cast model kit", "Fully variable" (or something similar, etc. You might also get some text ideas from The Compendium. Grayscale and color art are both acceptable. Lineart is pretty plentiful, but I know of few good color pics (one in the VF-X2 gallery comes to mind...). I have no pics to offer right now, but there's a wealth of lineart on pages 141 - 143 of Design Works. I'm sure this will probably go without saying, but what I really want above all for this box art is a good, attractive design and layout. Just a bunch of cool pics isn't gonna win it For a bit of comparison, below is the VF-4 box art that Nanashi designed for me a few months back. I think it's a very good, and rather classy design. He did a great job with it, I think. You may choose to do something that's also simple and elegent, or something a little (or a lot) flashier. There isn't any one thing I'm looking for. So let's see what your imaginations can come up with And while I'm at it, the original IHP box

I suppose now is as good a time as any to answer that question. For the most part, payment won't be due until the project is done, and you all place your orders. In fairness, only those on the list will be able to order during the initial run. However, because I don't have the stacks of cash necessary to get a project like this off the ground, I'm going to need to take a few pre-orders (with partial pre-payment) to raise the money to get the project going. Not a lot, mind you. Probably 5 or less, at ~$100 pre-payment each. And of course, I'll have to think of some sort of incentive to pre-order. I can't promise it'll be anything huge, but I'll try to come up with something to make it worth your while. That having been said, I must issue a preemptive 'sshh' to all you who are reply or PM me saying "put me down for a pre-order". I don't want to start taking them just yet. First I want to get the kit and see exactly what I'm in for. And another preemptive 'sshh' to those who are about to PM me asking for me to put them down for a pre-order in advance. I don't want to take any pre-pre-orders either Thanks a lot, guys. It's great to see that this project has enough support to succeed!

Like I said, no one has comitted to it yet. We have no caster for the project yet, and therefore, the project is dead in the water for the time being. So assigning other tasks like box art, decals, etc. at this point would be rather fruitless, if you ask me. Come on guys, have a little patience

No one has comitted to recasting the IHP VF-4 yet. So you're KINDA getting ahead of yourselves

This thread is for the IHP 1/72 full variable VF-4G, as was discussed in the VB-6 Monster thread. Pics are here: http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/ihp/VF-4_BOX.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_1.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_2.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_3.JPG

I've just gotta add that the price of $120 is extremely tentative. I said that it's the aproximite price the kit would have if I was the one recasting it. And I probably won't be.

Great to have you on board, Anasazi! As soon as I'm able, I'll get you a kit cast from my clean-up molds (as I've taken to calling them), so you can get going on the decals while I clean up casts and make final molds. I was going over my VF-X2 art book the other day, and I didn't see a lot of decals which obviously need to be added. But there are at least a few. And also, the red 'eye' decals included with the kit are incorrect. The inside part of the eyes should be white. And by the way, there looks to be at least two different VB-6 paint schemes in VF-X2! One in the game, the other in the opening movie.

Actually, I have answers. Me, and soon I got an email tonight from the owner, and it looks like he will be mailing the kit out on monday. A 'Count me in' thread, as you put it, sounds good to me. Just don't add the D'Stance to it. He doesn't have one

I've been meaning to PM Devin about creating some decals for the project, actually. The kit came with some decals (I'm told this is the only IHP kit that came with decals, by the way), but it doesn't look like they're too extensive. If there are more that need to be added, I could probably send Devin some casts from the first set of molds to help create (and properly size) the new decals. I should have the box situation covered, actually. I called the guy who got me my VF-4 boxes today, and he's going to see what he's got in larger sizes.

That is indeed a very good idea. I'd rather not have the box art be a modified version of the original (i.e., adding the word Recast to it). One thing I like to do with my recasts is change the box art so that is cannot be mistaken as an original kit. Partly so no one can sell one on EBay and pass it off as an original. Last time, I took Nanashi up on his very kind offer to design all new grayscale graphics for 5 of the 6 sides of my VF-4 box. It's not very flashy at all, but I really like the design he came up with. I think it's pretty classy looking, actually But anyway, I'd like to be one of the judges also. Especially if I get the project

I agree that he definetly deserves a free re-cast of his kit. I'd actually like him to have the first one (although that isn't really up to me). I just wish there was more of a way to say thanks. I wonder if we could have some sort of thanks on the main page...although I don't want to cause Shawn, Graham, or MW any problems because of the re-cast so these are just random thoughts. Something to think about at least... For me, a freebie recast for the kit provider pretty much goes without saying

The $250 was just for the Monster. The VF-4 kit actually doesn't look too bad, from a casting perspective. Only 89 parts, plus screws. Lots of the parts are pretty small (which, for me, is a good thing). The only part that looks at all challenging is the fuselage. I'm guessing that if I did it, it'd have about a $120 price tag on it. Like I told someone else in PM earlier today, I still have the Tread molds, but I'm really in no hurry to make more of them. Both because they're a pain in the ass to cast from, and because they wouldn't be any better quality than the ones I made 2 years ago.

one more

I do. I have both pressure casting and vacuum casting setups. Here are a couple quick pics of some of my more recent casts

I agree. This isn't a case of two wrongs making a right.

Actually, the pics Carl posted were of his original Tread kit, not my recast Mine were cleaned up quite a bit, and have no nasty seam lines like you see in that one foot. But the parts have some surface bumps, resulting from my having pressure casted the parts without vacuum degassing the molds. Looking back, it's kinda embarassing, actually. My equipment and technique has gotten a lot better since then (it was about 2 years ago).

Yea, I think that's a pretty safe asumption... I just got the pics from Melissa a bit ago, and... holy crap. I counted 189 parts in the not including the barrels (which look to just be plastic tubing) Instead of resizing the images, I decided to just upload them to my own webspace and link to them http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_1.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_2.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_3.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_4.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_5.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_6.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_7.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_8.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...B-6_PARTS_9.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...-6_PARTS_10.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...-6_PARTS_11.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/ihp/VF-4_BOX.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_1.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_2.JPG http://home.comcast.net/~valkyrie2036/mw/i...F-4_PARTS_3.JPG Seeing pics of the whole kit like this, I'm guessing that the kits will cost around $250. Hopefully a bit less, but almost certainly not less than $200. It's looking like it'll take a lot of materials and a LOT of time and work. But fortunately for all you, I'm currently unemployed Honestly, I'm amazed IHP sold them for only Y30,000... But I can see why he only made 8 or so of them!!

What they all said. No one here is out to steal the potential profits of any kit maker. Rather, this would seem to be the only posible way the majority of us will be able to get thier hands on these kits. At any price. Just for the record, you will never see me selling recasts of a kit that is in production. I do have ethics about this kind of thing. Unlike companies like Hobbyfan and E2046. I've been pissed off many times seeing them selling recasts of brand new retail kits, and undercutting the kit's makers by quite a lot. And yes, settle down about the D'Stance, guys. We still don't have one.

Doing two recast projects like the Monster and VF-4 at once would be nearly suicidal If Carl's Garland recastin' guy wants to take on a project, maybe I could do the Monster and he the VF-4, or vice-versa. I'm very anxious to see those pics! Oh, and any word on wether he owns a D'Stance YF-21 or not?

Carl, Sounds like the guy you know is at LEAST as qualified as I am to take on the project. I'd bear no grudges if he got the project and I didn't. Hell, it'd mean a lot less work for me