Lolicon

Hehehe the answer to 90% of the problems associated with Bandai decals: just paint it! Heck, you don't even have to paint the whole thing. You could trim off the problematic section of the decals (say the white part or one of the blue sections) and paint that in, then just apply the easier part of the decal over the rest. I don't have the decal sheet in front of me right now, but could you say paint the entire intake part in blue, and then just trim out the white part of the decal and apply that? Or vice versa?

I take back everything I said about previous decals: the shoulder hexes, Alto's head stripes, everything. The worst decal I've dealt with is the giant skull emblem on Ozma's back. I guess it's just because I don't have much experience with such large, irregularly shaped decals, but I had a hard time with this decal. As soon as I lifted it out of the water, it wrinkled up and folded up on itself worse than any decal thus far. Then I spent a few minutes with the decal underwater, trying to flatten it out so I could try to lift it onto the backplate. I've labeled the whole ordeal "amateur hour" because that's what it would've looked like to an outside observer. At one point I chucked my tweezers aside and just used my fingers to flatten it out. Once I actually got it onto the backplate, the rest was fairly easy. The horns spread across onto the swivel joints for the wings. I pressed it as flat as I could and let it dry before carefuly slicing that section to allow movement without tearing the decal, since this is going to be in battroid mode. Also, off-topic slightly, but my friend convinced me to play Aion with him. I like their character creator.

Hey MickyG, are you talking about the decal that goes over the top of the legs and wing boosters? The Armor parts have a similar decal. I was able to get mine to fit well. You have to accept that it's not going to be a perfect fit and work from there. I always put down Mark Setter on the part before attempting to apply a decal, so that may have helped. However, this is one of the few decals where I had to break out Mr Mark Softer. Using a fine tip brush (the default brush out of the bottle is way too big) I applied Mr Mark Softer across the decal... and then sat there for a little while softly brushing the entire decal to keep the liquid from beading up and spread evenly across the entire decal. Rather tedious work, but it worked out in the end! In the future, I'd rather just paint that part and apply the little red triangle decal separately (the kit comes with alternate decals for those who wish to paint that section). Looking at my Super parts decal sheet, it looks like the intake decal is even worse. I see that the decal requires you to notch the edges of the decal. The circular spheres on the ankles are very similar to that also. I carefully notched the decal where the edges were supposed to fold together, and after application, I applied a large amount of Mr Mark Softer and hoped for the best. As I've said before, I avoid using Mr Mark Softer if I can on these decals, due to poor absorption. I believe those two decals are the only ones on the entire kit I've used it on so far! Hope this helps!

There sure are a lot of WIP VF-25G's in the wake of HLJ's clearance sale. Yay! Ozma's unit finally has a head! The 25S head has more moving parts than the 25F; the head collapses downward and the side vents swivel up and down, in addition to the head turrets. The head was somewhat difficult for me because it involved a fair amount of hand painting, which is probably my weakest skill. The black area around the "eyes", red sensors, base of the head turrets, and those grey thingamajiggers on the top of the head are hand painted. The kit does not have decals for any of the sensors. You get one wonderful foil sticker for the big red sensor at the top of the head. And another for the eyes. The single hardest part for me was just attaching the head to the neck because of the collapsible head. I accidentally chipped the chestplate while fidgeting with it.

Occam's Razor, my friend.

I did the heavy black wash method and it works well enough, though I was bit a sloppy about it and some of the wash got on the sides of the missiles. However it was acceptable to me since it just made the insides look kind of dirty. The problem with simply dipping the missiles into some red paint is that half the missile racks are not flat, even rows. They're mutiple rows sitting at different heights. Check out the attached pic. The missiles look like they're in level, even rows, but they're not; they all sit at different heights. The innermost columns (closest to the leg) stick out the furthest.

Despite the long three day weekend (for us in the States), I didn't get to spend much time working on it. Most of the remaining parts are in that limbo state of being painted but still needing panel lines/decals/clearcoats/whatever. But I did manage to get enough done to start assembling some sections. It's starting to look like a VF-25 finally!

I trimmed them at the upper and lower corners, skipping the "middle" corners. Good grief it'd be too much of an ordeal trying to line up six decals into an even hexagon, considering it's a bit dodgy with four.

Managed to squeeze in a little progress today. Hopefully I'll get some more time with the long Labor Day weekend. Finished the arms finally. They're not terribly complicated; I just felt reluctant getting to them after the ordeal of the shoulder hex decals on the VF-25F. Although I think I did a serviceable (though not great) job on Alto's, this time around, instead of trying to apply the entire decal at once, I cut it at the corners into four separate pieces. This didn't really make things any easier, as the decal is a poor fit to begin with, and trying to line up all four pieces was a vicarious experience. But it did allow me to avoid the wrinkling issues that have plagued many a VF-25 modeler. Once I got the hex decals on, the rest was a breeze. Painted the edges of the hexagons black as it's supposed to appear; the pro modelers never bother for some reason. Just like the underside of the lerx. The shoulder sensors use another pair of ill-fitting decals. I just painted them in with silver and clear red. (This VF-25F is my WIP progress battroid that's currently on hold.)

My experience with Mr Mark Setter is that it really makes it easy line decals into place. I don't know how to really describe it, but the buoyancy of the liquid is different from water and it's not as easy to shift a decal out of place on accident. And as it dries o as you wick excess off, it just pulls the decal down into place better and has some kind of sticky element to it that makes decals stick better. This is poor explanation, as I don't know how else to describe it. It's helped me avoid using Softer on almost every decal. If you have no problems with just water though, more power to you! With modeling, do whatever works best for ya! Gloss clearcoating over acrylics (or any paint really) is good since it protects your paintjob and makes decaling easier (smooth surface). I'm finishing up the arms myself. I am now master of the shoulder hexes!

Ouch! Sorry to hear about the problems with the decals and softener. It's those kinds of issues that make me reluctant to use Mr Mark Softer except where absolutely necessary. Although I've never had any decal tears like that, the areas where excess wasn't wicked off right away would have a pock mark where the texture differed, though it was visible only from certain light angles. Do you use any kind of decal setting solution like Mr Mark Setter? It's made decaling so much easier, it's unbelievable.

Fair enough. They still look like generic SMS pilots though. Ranka's really been hitting those weights!

What's with the generic pilots? Brera doesn't wear a helmet and flight suit, and I was hoping for a Ranka figure for the second seat.

It comes with the complete VF-25 plain kit, and then the additional Armor parts. You build the Armor packs into the kit by switching out parts, rather than attaching additional Armor parts to the plain VF-25. Same as with the Super parts. You could switch between the two by swapping parts back and forth, but that's a massive ordeal and will most likely screw up the model.

I "fixed" the decal! Of course, but "fixed" I mean I cut it out and just painted the light grey portion in. Compare this to the earlier photo. So much better now. Also finished assembling the legs and putting the final semi-gloss finish on. So far I'm having a much easier time with the Armored than I did with the plain VF-25F, even though I'm actually painting it this time around. Perverse. For panel lines, I usually use a 0.3 mm mechanical pencil with the edge sharpened even further by holding it at an angle and rubbing it on a piece of paper. This is an easy way of doing panel lines since it gives a nice grey line and you can erase/rub off any mistakes. And of course once you're applied a clearcoat, you don't have to worry about accidentally rubbing it off later. For hard to reach places, I switch to a wash and just let the liquid flow into the cracks. However, on the dark grey armor parts, pencil wasn't really showing up at all, so I switch to a Sakura brand micron pen. In person, the lines aren't all that noticeable, but whoa! In these pics the micron pen lines are very distinct and clear. For the center of the chestplate, I painted the underside black since the decal only covers the front portion.

Yeah using Mr Mark Softer is very unwieldy with these. If you gotta use it, use it, but be prepared to deal with the slow absorption and beading up of the liquid. I'm probably going to trim the grey parts off and then just paint those sections. The dithering pattern on the decal is pretty clear and distracting in that photo, and it's still not perfectly lined up.

Hehehehe I understand completely. I got tired of masking anything right around the second set of tailfins. When I said 'studio model' I was just referring to the pictures on the box and in the manual. The one allegedly built by a professional modeler that's often inaccurate. Yeah I meant trying to mask over everything again to apply two different types of clearcoat finishes, after you're done painting and have applied all the decals. The color tone difference is harsh because the darker paint is glossy and the lighter paint has a flat appearance, and it ought to look pretty good once it's all coated in the same finish. Unless you plan on masking it all again to do two different finishes. On the blue paints, are you just applying a single thick coat or multiple thin coats?

Looking great so far. I really like the two tone main fuselage. Ah, if only I wasn't so lazy... Got a question. For the Super parts, were you trying to color match the anime or studio model, or are you just tinkering around with colors until you find one you're happy with? There's no wrong way to do it, I was just wondering what your intent was. Terrified of using masking tape over any surface with decals, even with clearcoat over it. I've ripped off decals with tape before. I don't think a good semi-gloss clearcoat will affect your final colors so much that the differences in the shades of blue will be lost. Right now the difference is pretty harsh due to them being different finishes.

A note on the chest decals: for the love of all that is holy, I highly recommend trimming them into smaller sections! The grey section of the chest missile covers and surrounding red trim are all one big C-shaped decal. Given my previous VF-25 decal experience, why I didn't think to cut this obviously pain-in-the-ass decal into smaller parts I can only attribute to a momentary lapse of insanity/cockiness. Trying to line everything up perfectly on such a f'd up shape was an exercise in futility. It's going to take a lot of Mr Mark Softer to flatten this mess out. I avoid using this stuff as much as possible on these models because with Bandai's decals it takes forever for it to soak in; it'll quickly bead up on the surface long before it gets soaked into the decal, leaving an uneven mess. Basically, whenever I'm forced to use Mr Mark Softer, I have to sit there for awhile lightly brushing the decal with a small brush to keep the liquid from beading up until it finally soaks in and melts the decal. All of this can be avoided by trimming the decal. Incidentally, right after this, I started on the much-maligned ankle decals, well known for their tendency to wrinkle up and tear and being a royal pain, and was able to apply them flawlessly.

Thanks for stating the obvious. I'm well aware of what I bought and am currently building, thanks. I was talking about the model kit, when someone earlier was blubbering about how expensive it was, and I pointed out that the model shipped was only $85, which is a far cry from $200 for the hideous DX.

Sheryl shipped from Hobby Search already. Hope to have it by the weekend.

Brief update today. Haven't had time to make much progress, but I did get around to panel lining and getting a few decals applied to the legs. Just like with the plain VF-25, the Armored decals are the same thick, cheap decals with a noticeable dithering pattern from the silk screen or whatever it is Bandai uses to produce them. And of course the decals don't actually fit into the sections they're meant to cover! Familiar territory for anyone who's tried to decal any VF-25. Armored decal 8: What the hell was I thinking trying to use this decal? Trying to fit a cheap Bandai decal over a semi-spherical surface? Wrinkles ahoy! A generous helping of Mr Mark Softer helped a little. I regret not going ahead and painting this part. Armored decals 38, 39, 40, 41, 42: These decals are the red striped sections on the ankle sections. They're more or less the right shape, but they're too short to stretch across the length of the recess, and they're not wide enough either. But it's passable since it's not terribly noticeable unless you look really close. It might be harder to mask and paint because it's such a recessed area. Armored decals 33, 34, 35, 36: These form the SMS lettering on the leg armor. You have to line up the decals over the curved gap in the armor plates. It's actually easier than it sounds. However, I noticed that the instructions have the numbering backwards. Decal 35 should be on top, and decal 36 on the bottom. Good job, Bandai! Will update with close up pics when I get home. EDIT: Added close up of the leg to show off the dithering on the decal, the wrinkling and improper size.

http://www.rainbowten.co.jp/english/index.html 6400 yen for Armored Ozma or Alto, then shipping is about 2000 yen for SAL.

Armored VF-25S cost me $85 shipped via SAL. Not cheap, but there's a huge difference between $80 and $200. I'd be more forgiving of the DX's flaws if it was only $80 shipped.

I might be interested in a set. Especially interested in the cockpit parts. The default cockpit is the most awful and horribly inaccurate part of the model.