Lolicon

Me too. You know what this means? CHILD PORNOGRAPHY is being shown in our public schools!

A scale version of the Ranka Messiah girl, please!

Hmmm you may want to email them anyway and ask. The Ranka Deculture Decal sheet is huge; it's as long as the model box. The Armored decal sheets are small and have way too few decals for the entire model, like they were thrown in as an afterthought, so it might be bundled with the regular set.

That was the best Robotech video ever! Hey where's the The Macross II Saga footage?

Armored Alto is sold out at a lot of places. But it shouldn't be long before more become available. The cheapest places I know of are Amiami and Rainbowten, and they're both sold out. Only other place that is under 8000 yen is Hobby Search, but it's not under by much. http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10089907 I wouldn't be able to answer the decal question, other than add that I picked up the Ranka Deculture Decal Alto kit and it does not come with the regular decals. It does have a massive decal sheet though!

Robotech induces me to consume liberal amounts of alcohol.

I was talking about the grey recesses that the nozzles are inserted into and the ones at the front of the boosters. The ones you masked and sprayed grey. From the new photos you took, yeah you can't really tell once you attach the nozzles, but the other sections look good. Now that I've seen what they look like with nozzles attached, it'd probably be best if I just filled it in with a black Gundam marker. Quick and easy. The insides of the nozzles themselves is what I meant. I just did a wash on mine, inside and out. On most of the previous photos I took, they appeared silver, but they're actually a dull silver-gold color. Hard to get a good photo of the underside of the model, but this is what they look like.

I really like the way the grey recesses turned out. Definitely gonna include that on a future super pack build. Don't know what else to suggest regarding the clearcoat impressions other than saving the clearcoat step for after all painting has been done. I have a bottle of Model Master acrylic clearcoat that I only use to touch up or reinforce certain sections; majority of my clearcoat is lacquer. The one time I attempted to hand brush the acrylic clearcoat over acrylic paint was to protect it against the lacquer clearcoat I was going to spray over it, but ironically it was the allegedly "gentler" acrylic clear that started stripping the acrylic paint off. For the insides of the nozzles, I recommend just a wash. It's black most of the time from lack of light, but it's nice to see details in there if there happens to be light. Keep up the great work! I'm eager to see this thing assembled!

Brief case study of Robotech-turned-Macross fan. 1985: Robotech airs on weekday afternoons, and I love it (as much as a very small child can love any TV show). However, shortly after it went off the air, I had mostly forgotten about it. I clearly remembered "Rick Hunter" and the SDF-1 and the kickass fighter with the skull and crossbones. I also vaguely remembered the "cyclones" and the Invid, but I had no recollection of anything in between for many years. (A testament to how forgettable and crappy Southern Cross was.) I also had no recollection of any of the plot points of Robotech, like the perversion of Protoculture and some stupid flower. So yes, I had fond memories of Robotech, at least the tiny bits I could remember. 1986-1992: Like the rest of the 25 years of Robotech's existence, little to nothing happened on the Robotech front. I heard or read somewhere that Robotech was made from three separate anime, but since I didn't give a crap about Robotech anyway, I never pursued the matter further. Though this was before the Interweb, so information was often hard to come by, much to HG's benefit and our current mutual chagrin. I did obtain a copy of "The Sentinels" during this time. And I was disgusted at how bad it was. Later on I did start reading the Robotech novels because a friend had them and was reading them, and while they were alright, there were hardly anything to write home about. 1993: I got Macross II on VHS and loved it, despite the stupid ending. I hadn't seen DYRL yet but I still felt like it was a weak ripoff of the original Macross (I had already shed Robotech away even though I hadn't even seen all of the original Macross in its original form). I guess it was around this time period that Robotech died to me and it was full speed ahead Macross! 1995: Saw Macross Plus and loved it. If Robotech was dead to me already, then this cremated its remains and shot it out a torpedo tube into space. The YF-19 became my favorite variable fighter for years... until the VF-25 came along. 1996 to the present: I was able to see some of the original Macross episodes during this time, but I would not be able to see it in its entirety straight through, uncut and unedited, until the Animeigo DVD release. I also got about halfway through Macross 7, but I just couldn't go further; it reminded me too much of the "Sailor Moon" type shows of the era. (I think I stopped around the episode where Basara fights off some furry magical monster with his huge speaker attachments.) From 2000 and on, as I learned more and more about the legal situation, HG's sleazy shenanigans, seen the complete stagnation of the franchise in comparison to the continued success of Macross, and the crazed and often moronic Robotech fanboys, my indifference to Robotech has become disgust and contempt. How can anyone continue to gloat over such a crappy series and the greasy thugs who run it? It boggles my mind how anyone can be that goddamn stupid and stubborn. Thanks to the Interweb information (and entire shows) are freely available, much to our benefit and HG's chagrin.

Sheryl with in-concert purple hair I assume.

Getting a little OT there... anyway, I wasn't making excuses for Bandai (I think I've been fairly critical of their Frontier DX line), just offering a possible explanation as to how Bandai ended up with the current Quarter color scheme. Personally I wish it resembled the darker colors of the anime too, but at the same time, I'm so glad it isn't as jacked up looking as the VF-25 line. I've got mine preordered! Maybe Bandai will pull a Wave on us and release an "anime color" version in the summer.

I've seen many pictures of the actual Enterprise model and I agree that the coloring is too saturated. Don't forget though that the Enterprise was repainted and matted over several times during the course of six movies; the Bandai release is supposed to be from The Motion Picture era, but I haven't really seen any good photos from 1979. Even as early as The Wrath of Khan the Enterprise looked totally different from its original form, as ILM matted over the old paint job from TMP. EDIT: I've also seen the Enterprise-D 6 foot filming model in person, and it is most definitely blue-ish and not the warm grey seen on screen.

I think the difference between the CG model and the DX is Bandai trying to reproduce the "actual" colors (since no physical filming model exists) over the low lighting model seen in the TV show. They did the same thing with their Enterprise model, based on data provided to them directly from Paramount. I'm pretty sure Bandai got the exact coloring data from Satelight as well. Actual colors Low lighting Whichever one you prefer is a matter of personal preference of course. Just throwing that out there as to possibly why the DX colors differ from the anime. Or it could just be that Bandai wanted to make the colors stand out more to make it more noticeable as a toy? Because, you know, it is a toy... Besides, the coloring of the Quarter is way less problematic than the craptacular design, engineering, and QC that went into the VF-25 DX line.

Wowzers! Now that you point them out, they really stand out. It really does look like the clearcoat is still a little soft, as I get problems like that if I don't leave it out to dry long enough. I dunno if you're anything like me, but I press and rub the tape down pretty hard around where I'm masking to prevent paint leaks, so that might be why the Tamiya tape leaves more of an impression than the standard tape. I forgot what brand of clearcoat you were using. Can you apply another coat to eliminate the impressions?

What kind of impressions are they leaving? I use Tamiya masking tape as well, but haven't had any issues except the adhesive coming off a little because I'm such a lousy masker and have to shift the tape so much. Though now that I think about it, I don't believe I've ever used masking tape over clearcoat. I usually do all painting first before applying any clearcoat.

The smartest thing that anyone has said in this thread in awhile.

I prefer it over big red blocky messes that carry samurai swords, yes.

There is no available model. I was just being a dick.

Ohhh! I like that they have the custom decal VF-25s!

I know too well the pains of an unsatisfactory DX. Just get the model kit.

Anime magic strikes again! Thanks for the pics. Can't wait to get mine.

Monthly cycles, childbirth, Robotech... truly women can endure far greater pains than us lowly men.

Maybe it's just my eyes playing tricks on me, but I swear it looks like Basara with guitar! http://www.amiami.com/shop/shop?vgForm=Pro...amp;set=english

That actually makes a lot of sense. I know that back in the days of motion control photography, ships in Star Trek were painted primarily in duck egg blue, but once lighted and filmed, they appeared grey. I have the Bandai Enterprise model which is supposed to be a faithful reproduction of the studio model, and as such has areas painted in shades of blue and green... just like the Quarter.

Probably the same way they managed to turn this into this