Lolicon

Far be it for me to contradict the many pro modelers on these boards, though I think a lot of it boils down to personal preference. For military vehicles I generally think flat paints give a more realistic appearance. But for anime mecha I like using a semi-gloss finish, seeing as the subject material is animated and doesn't actually exist in the real world. I guess for me it's just a compromise between the animated world and the real world? That doesn't mean the models I've seen here with flat finishes don't look great!

Holy ****! HLJ having a sale on a bunch of Macross items, including the Frontier model kits. Time to finally round out the SMS squad! http://www.hlj.com/hljlist2/?DisplayMode=i...0Special%20Sale

Off the top of my head... Most of the light pink parts are unpainted. The face consists of one big clear green piece that you have to paint across the middle. I lack that psychotic level of skill, so I just painted the foil sticker instead. It's sealed in so no worries about it peeling off. The jaw area has no real guidelines with which to follow; you just kinda have to follow the curvature when painting. I tried masking it but brush painting gets under the tape anyway. So I just gently scraped off excess using a toothpick till I got the look I wanted. Yay acrylics! Similar principle was used on the crystals at the ends of the rifle barrel. Filling in panel recesses is a great way to cover up painting mistakes! Scope lens was painted using a Gundam marker. The temples are trimmed decals, though I wish I had just painted it because they were damaged during assembly.

Ahhh good to know for future projects.

It's Tamiya mica red. I didn't even know it was metallic till after I tested it; I thought it was just dark red. Got lucky. Hey I have you to thank for this, for pointing out the glaring inaccuracies on the face and showing that a gloss finish actually looks nice on Brera's unit, seeing as how I'm having a severe shortage of semi-gloss coat atm.

Battroid mode still suffers from old man pants syndrome, albeit not as bad as the VF-25. I'll call it middle-aged man syndrome.

"Accuracy" and "DX" should never be used in the same sentence.

My non-canon VF-27. After the herculean effort of the Armored VF-25S, I decided to take it easy and just lazily stick this one together. Finished in one month instead of four. Took a lot of shortcuts and cut a lot of corners. The pics with the flash more accurately show how the red appears in person. I figured dark red is more intimidating than bright lavender... Model doesn't have enough range of motion to replicate the super dynamic poses seen in the anime.

I'm having a difficult time getting the crotch lock tab in place on the VF-27. Anyone else have trouble with it or am I just doing it wrong? I'm wary of snapping the thing off.

LOL! The Grace pic nearly made me spit my drink out.

The underside of the nose around the landing gear doors is blue in the anime.

Yay I'm not the only one who doesn't want to see the VF-27 on an SMS stand, model or toy.

Yeah, I recommend simply trimming the white parts of the decal and applying them separately and just painting the maroon stripe in. Sadly I don't have the proper paint available to fix it right now; something to do later I guess. The front "toe" decals that cover the black stripes are too widely spaced. I simply cut them in half and applied them separately. The purple stripe and green sensor on the thighs are a single large decal. Hard to tell if they're spaced perfectly because of the irregular surface, but cutting them apart would probably make it tons easier to apply. I wish Bandai would actually include properly sized decals for their own models.

Just an FYI the shoulder markings on the VF-27 are done with one big U-shaped decal that doesn't fit. I found out the hard way and now the right shoulder looks kinda screwed up. I got it to go on better on the left shoulder with enough fidgeting, but the decal is simply too small for the shoulder. More corner cutting from Bandai!

Hey Jarrod or anyone else who's worked on the VF-27 kit, did you guys notice that the panel lines (apart from the wings) seem a lot more shallow than the VF-25 kits? I'm having a harder time getting a wash to fill in the lines. Of course it could just be that the paint I'm using managed to partially fill in the lines (the high gloss doesn't help)... I can't actually remember what the bare plastic was like.

Whoa those shoulders look perfect! What color gundam marker did you use on those?

Whether or not it was ever established as canon onscreen, it's just damn foolish to build an aircraft without landing gear.

Too slow. Others have already filled me on on the differences in the GFF line. I made my statement because I thought the original poster was referring to the 1/144 GFF line. But if you insist... How is the 1/100 scale VF-19 a "completely different product targeted to different buyers" versus the crappy VF100 line? Same scale, more or less the same price point, one release not even a year after the start of the previous line, by the same company. Your comparison with the old Takatokus is specious. The 1/55 chunkies were made in the early 80s by a completely different and now defunct company. So it's nonsense to compare them to the current Yamato line. How does that many any sense at all?

I'm trying to cut down on my figure purchases. This doesn't help!

My remark about substandard to better products refers to both franchises (it didn't seem to come across in my post). On the fence on whether or not to pick one up. Though if a YF-19 is really in the works, I'd rather wait for that!

I like the color. It like Brera's unit got a haircut.

EDIT: Double post. Stupid DSL. EDIT 2: Fair enough. So Bandai's MO is to release a substandard product so they can release a better version later. That's only slightly better.

Just would like to add that I have the GFF Zeta and it's a POS. It's detailed, but that's all it has going for it. Parts fall off if you look at it the wrong way, and the parts themselves lack the precise molding required for something that transforms. In other words, it's supposed to transform, but can't really because all the parts are so warped and ill-fitting. And it's not even very poseable. I have a lot of other GFFs besides that, and crisp molding and parts that fit properly are not their forte. The VF-19 looks to be far and away superior than the GFF line.

It'll be even more ironic if Bandai releases a VF100* version VF-25 that surpasses their bigger, more expensive, super ugly DX. *EDIT: A Hi-Metal VF100, that is.

So, um, did anyone pick up the NA Sheryl release? http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097989