captain america

I built the Newtype-issued kit about 11 years ago for a magazine review... Funny, most of the pics I see on the net of the kit built are of my model. It's an ok kit. As Jesse mentionned, the Legioss' cockpot canopy is opaque resin, but as the Legioss itself is just a resin casting of the 1/72 Imai plastic kit, you may want to swap the resin chunker for its plastic counterpart. The tread portion is cute; nothing spectacular, but detailed enough for what it is. Though not actually transformable, it can be re-worked to transform to Tread Soldier with some minor scratchbuilding and refinement. Decals are plenty, and are of the same type issued in the Imai kits. They go on with no problems. The only drawback of the kit was the Tread's wings, which are molded in a soft resin which seemingly has a tendancy to sag with time... More so if placed in a warm area. You may want to scratchbuild a set of these out of styrene. Doubtful that you'll find that kit for $50. They usually fetch over a undred on E-Bay, and that's for the re-recasts.

God, some people are cheap. Truthfully, I've never considered myself a reckless spender, but to limit one's self to a $20-$50 price-point on an item simply because it gets stereotyped as a "toy" in my mind, just seems ludicrous. Unlike my parents, who are the cheapest people I know, and spend absurd amounts of time/effort to save a nickel on everything they buy, I've adopted a slightly different philosophy: you only live once, and you're here for a good time, not a long time, so enjoy. That having been said, I don't want to wake up one day, look back and say that I've saved-up all this money, knowing that I won't be able to spend it when I die. To me, toys are a healthy part of everyday life, and if I really want something, whether it costs $10 or $10 000, if I really want it, there's a good chance I'll get it.

Hi Jesse Sounds like a fair challenge. I may feel obligated to do a litle bit of tinkering on the VF-0 though... Most likely convert it to 1/32 scale and make it transformable for starters

Actually, I'll go with a slightly different answer: if your seam-line still shows-up after puttying & sanding, it's probably because your putty was too viscous to fill it in the first place, and when you sanded-off all the putty that was sitting on top--poof! Seam line's back. Take a low viscosity Ca glue and fill-in the gap. The glue flows very easily, so be careful, or it'll end-up everywhere. Wait about 5 minutes, and start to sand. If there's a substantial level difference between tour two halves ( poor molding, etc), don't waste your time with air-dry putties, they take forever to dry, and they shrink. In stead, use automotive polyester putty that you can find at a local car-care store. Make sure you get the fine grade, and un-filled. This is a catalized putty, so there's virtually no shrinkage, but be warned, it stinks to high-hell. The putty should go on very smooth, but make sure you sand your plastic rough first, to give it some bite. It'll start to cure in a few minutes, and you can start sanding in about 15... Faster if you kick-it with a hair dryer(accelerates cure.) If you still have problems, LMK.

Hi Six. Just a silly question: where'd you get that background? It looks fantastic!

Nice, refreshing custom job. You should have no problem unloading it on E-Bay with that scheme. Have you considered adding the proper markings to it? Technically, they're quite simple and wouldn't even require making decals for; you could quite simply cut the designs out of masking tape to make stencils and litterally paint the markings on.

...And another "serious" enquiry bites the dust

ROFLMAO!!!!!!! They're always "serious" until you provide them witrh a real-world quote. Then they disappear.

While I don't share your opinion about "HP" products... I have my own peaves about products made by Xerox, and a few other companies. I do find this idea of a "prototyping" printer interesting.... theoretically you cold make your parts on this printer, and if they are "stable" enough make a mold of the parts... Resin Model making would go extreme! If you can draw it/design it... you could make a model of it. There is one place here in montreal that offers stereolithography services on a contract basis. The service costs $100/hour( the cheapest I've found, by the way), and this doesn't include the cost of designing the part on the computer. The thing is, whether you have a very simple, or a very complex part, the machine works at the same pace, and the average "print" time for a given component is 20-40 hours. I know that Bandai employs this technology on the MG and PG line of models... The only way they can achieve such precise, complex parts. Mind you, Gundam is hugely popular and the enormous capital investment can be offset over the sales of hundreds of thousands ( perhaps even millions) of models. However, even with this technology, I doubt Bandai ( or anyone else ) would like average joes downloading and printing their own parts at home; it just makes counterfitting & theft potential too great.

Hi Jesse. The fact that you heard all this from an HP salesman makes me all the more skeptical: I've owned NUMEROUS HP products in the past, and as a result, they are effectively on my " never buy anything from them EVER again" list; these guys couldn't clean fresh puke off a teflon-coated linoleum floor Hewlett Packard produces garbage, plain and simple. Though I've no doubt that they will succeed in making the 3-d printing technology package cheap, it will also be garbage... Company policy obliges continuity. Besides that, how's your back holding-up these days?

I've seen these 3D printers firsthand, as well as handled "print" samples. The powder that the machine "lays up" needs to be coated with a sealant to protect it, or it'll deteriorate very easily... And even then it deteriorates with age and even the finest powder/resolution is very granular at best. Basically, it's a cheap-crap twist on stereolithography, but without the precision... All for the low-low price of roughly $26 000 plus materials, training & maintenance; courtesy of Z Corporation. Good advice of the day: you can put every fancy twist you want on rapid-prototyping, and though there are indeed purposes for producing prototypes this way ( aerospace and F1 spring to mind) you can still get better prototypes and models done by hand which are as precise as they need to be, and for faster, cheaper and better than anything that comes out of those push-button "part-O-matic" printers. Remember, technology is just a tool, no different than an airbrush, or modelling board. I would caution those who believe that they will get instant Garage Kits galore simply by purchasing/getting access to one of these machines... Technology isn't a replacement for talent. Want custom models that kit manufacturers won't produce? Learn to sculpt, it's that simple.

According to the Mospeada style sheets, the Gurab inbit is roughly half the height of the Legioss in Soldier Mode; maybe just a tad less. The Eager Inbit, in turn, is about half as tall as the Gurab. I'd end to think that the Wonderfest kits are a little too large for the scale, but it certainly makes for a nicer piece to display as a result.

Hi Jesse The re-castings look excellent! No pin holes or other defects that I can see either; probably even better than the originals, now that they've been cleaned-up prior to the new molding. Just for fun, did you end up casting the parts with the Smooth Cast 321?

400 bucks? HA! I'll do it for $500

Agreed. I don't see any tremendous similarities in the two designs. Toynami worked-over a 1/48 Imai model. About the only thing that may have been derived from my model was the prominent "elbow" shaped LEX, but then, this feature is in the original japanese animation model sheets, so as far as I'm concerned, it's fair game.

The background for the Glaug is an aluminium briefcase... Ain't it purdy?

Hi Pfunk. Nah, that's the 1/100 kit alright. Original imai release, whereas the 1/72 was made by Arii. Neither one is all that great, and I had to do a bit of a hatchet-job on this one to get it to look right... Namely increasing the size of the main pod/cockpit, and modify all the arm/leg joints.

One more.

Hi Gian. Here you go.

Hi Graham. Thanks for showing us the latest on the VF-0. A shame you may not be getting one to sample. I truly hope Yamato reconsiders; it's great free advertising for them. Considering that the toy is 1/100, the detail is actually quite good. I think that they can very easily minimize the hip/groin peg housings. Since I doubt that the intake covers come off, they can house a ball-joint inside the intake/hip itself, and delete the extended housing alltogether. If they're having teething troubles, tell them to give me a call, and I'll fix it I think this is just about the only real alteration the toy needs: the joint that allows the thigh to pivot foreward can't help but be that size; any smaller, and it would all-too-easily snap upon manipulation. Overall, I think it'll be a very welcomed product, and should sales figures permit, let us hope that a larger scale toy will find its way through the pipeline

I may have a solution to the problem of yellowing plastic: Castrol Super Clean is designed to, among other things, clean yellowed patio furniture and plastic microwave trim parts. Technically, this will probably work for the Valks as well, but the only thing I can't say for certain is whether this will also affect (damage) the painted surfaces. For those of you who have broken/spare valks, you can probably give this a try on the underside of one of the parts to see if it reacts. The best way to go about this is to dilute the Castrol Super Clean ( 16 parts water, 1 part Super Clean) and proceed to gently scrub the part with an old toothbrush. Rinse immediately, being sure to NOT let the solution dry on the plastic. Hopefully this would be a successful solution.

Actually, while we're on the topic of yellowing, here's a question for those of you who have multiple 1/48s. I recieved a brand new VF-1J Hikaru about 2 weeks ago, and one of my first impressions was that the light grey plastic seemed just a touch "warm" in hue. Now the problem is that this is my first and only 1/48 Valk for the time being *dodges tomatoes* so I don't have any other 1/48s to compare it to. I promptly took an old T-shirt and some rubbing alcohol and proceeded to wipe-down the toy, just in case the yellow was a result of an assembly line worker's dirty hands, but to my surprise, the cloth stayed clean. Essentially, Is the Hik 1J the same color plastic as the previous releases?

I've seen the Max Wantabe pre-shading technique discussed earlier in the thread, and I just wanted to say that there are better ways of creating a weathered look that is infinitely more realistic. All you really need are acrylic paints, a good airbrish, some chalk pastels ( cheap ones are great) and a few Q-tips. You simply paint & decal your model as normal. No pre-shading or nonsense of that sort necessary. Once you're done, apply a flat clear overcoat and let dry. Now the fun begins... You take your airbrush ( a very fine spraying ability is necessary) and spray a slightly darker or lighter shade of the base coat, but in small, carefully-controlled patchwork shapes. You must absolutely be using flat paints for this. Once these small patches are dry, take a black or brown stick of chalk pastel & over a small shallow dish, gently scrape-off some of the chalk with a sharp hobby knife until you have a small pile of chalk powder. Now, take a Q-tip and swirl it into the chalk powder sparingly, being sure to wipe off the excess, and then rub the Q-tip gently in random areas to create a dirty look. A stippling motion works best, and don't worry: if you apply too much, just blow it off and start over. once you've covered all the desired areas with the chalk, proceed to re-airbrush some different colored patchwork over this to make your mecha look like it's been maintained/repaired. This technique mostly replicates the look of naval aircraft which have a worn & repaired look to them... Probably similar to what a Valkyrie would look like in service The pic below shows the technique applied tol a 1/48 Tomcat.

They're most likely just out of production for the time being. There just isn't enough demand for Yamato to be churning them out 24-7. When they get a large enough order, they'll set the molds back up again and pump them out accordingly.

That's an open-ended question that won't get you any real answers. The "better" proportionned toy is mostly in the eye of the beholder/nitpicker.