Shaorin

as sick to F&%in' death as i personally might be of the 'ol RX-78, that's QUITE gorgeous work! congrats! anyway, i'll probably have to resort to UPSing my TAMIYA for the time being. any recommedations for best sources? ( - EDIT - ) 'kay, just ordered the five colors i need from here; http://www.megahobby.com/ came out to $24 and change. a little high, compared to what i would have had to pay for the same at my local H.T. USA, but it's not like i have a great plethora of options open to me ATM, or anything at all like that. at least i can now rest easy, knowing i that i did not end up testing that Gawdaful MODEL MASTER on the 1/72 F-14 or that Minky Momo figure kit. i wonder if i can get a refund, or at least some store credit for that M.MASTER crap?

i can clearly see why. the stuff STINKS, both literally as well as figuratively. i suppose that means that, if H.T. USA doesn't get stock back in within a reasonable modicum of time, (sometime this summer) that i'd be just as well ordering up the TAMIYAs i need online? (i had always thought it was impossible to sell/ship Flammable/Hazardous materials over the Net...)

hey, a quick Q for the pros around here; my favorite local hobby shop (and the only one in my area that i know of) that carries TAMIYA products has had their TAMIYA COLOR rack about 1/2-3/4 empty for months and months now, with all the most basic and commonly used colors long out of stock. i asked the manager about this when i was just up there yesterday, and he claims that TAMIYA is undergoing a catalog-wide re-design, and, as a result, their entire ACRYLIC PAINT line is currently OOP. he also says that they are taking forever on this, and all this is why he has been apparently dragging his feet on restocking his TAMIYA inventory. i suppose this is reassuring, as i was beginning to believe that my HOBBY TOWN USA had decided to discontinue stocking TAMIYA products, or something like that. well, that's all fine and dandy, i suppose, so i went ahead and picked up the FLAT WHITE, GLOSS WHITE, and shade of YELLOW that i felt best matched the JOLLY ROGERS scheme i am doing that 1/72 HASE F-14 in, as well as the GLOSS WHITE for the blouse of that Minky Momo kit headed my way. all three of those colors i was forced to pick up in TESTORS "MODEL MASTER" ACRYLIC, and therein lies the major issue; THIS DAMNED PAINT SEEMS TO BE TOTAL CRAP!! see, this "MODEL MASTER" stuff seems to have several things against it, so far, that the TAMIYA COLOR, last i checked, EXCELS at. for one, this TESTORS stuff is RUNNY AS ALL HELL. i could brush on TAMIYA, and just about every color i have yet used had superb adhesion properties. indeed, bare plastic model parts would seem to drink the TAMIYA up, and most anything i've ever painted with it looked good with a single coat, near perfect/perfect with a second, and only occasionally ever required a third. this TESTORS S&*T is requiring COAT AFTER RUNNY-ASS COAT to achieve anything like what i was almost effortlessly assured of with my TAMIYAs. i think i'm going to have wait a good while, 'till my H.TOWN USA -Finally- gets TAMIYA back in, because i think i'd best not risk those two kits of mine with this RUNNY-ASSED CRAP. if anyone has any advice about what might be going on here, and a way that i might be able to fix it, (besides replacing the bloody things with TAMIYA equvilants, which i oh-so-wish i could do right here and now) then please feel free to offer advice...

indeed. IMHO, the YAMATO 1/60v.II should be the template that any animation team taking on an SDFM remake project should fall back upon. truly, the 1/60V.II really is the closest that ANY depiction of the VF-1, in three dimensions, has EVER come to realizing the full VF-1 concept with little to no "Anime Magic" whatsoever, and, as far as i can imagine, is VERY close, if not EXACTLY what a "Real" VF-1 would HAVE to be designed like in order to achieve it's iconic FIGHTER/GERWALK/BATTROID conversions in any sort of truly believable "Realistic" fashion...

key words; ZERO TASTEFULNESS...

i never knew that PHOENIXes could be mounted on the outboard pylons. is that actually possible?

the "Bird of Prey" and "Double Nuts" variants, respectively? i had really wanted the DN, but it was pretty much impossible to find by the time i was in a position to afford one. water under the bridge, pretty much though, as i was somewhat recently able to pick up a 1st Ed. off of a fellow MWer at a great price...

just finished up, for the first time, the original "DOMINION TANK POLICE" 4-part series on LD. crazy F%$kin' S&^t, that...

all of that doesn't really matter much to me, actually. it certainly won't kill me if i find that i have gotten some things a little off. i just want a nice looking F-14 to accompany my Valk collection, and, after watching TOP GUN again for the first time in some years indeed, (still hear all that damned awesome music in my head!!) not only did it get my fighter jock blood a pumping, but also turned me on to how good an F-14 actually looks in a realitively plain, "Low-Vis" -ish color scheme. as such, a close variation on the box photo is how i have decided to go with the 1/48 REVELL, and i think it is really shaping up good so far, all considered. i've got her all decaled, i just need to get off my ass and do some final touch-up, and i'll be ready to show her off to you guys...

gonna be taking yet ANOTHER project on in a month or less; -got this little Cutie Pie from an HK seller for $20shipped. i figured that she'd present a unique and interesting modelling challenge for me. (standard HK shipping always seems to take 2-3 weeks, so i should be quite finished with that 1/48 F-14 of mine by the time she arrives, and i've decided to shelve the 1/72 HASEGAWA for the time being) she's got a fantastic sculpt, IMO, most especially for an early-80's figure model. i very much dislike the canonical primary coloring of her clothing, however, so i intend to do an overall Pink/White scheme, with redish/pink colored hair. i should be able to achieve that by mixing a touch of TAMIYA red into some pink, right? all aside, i know very little about "Minky Momo" besides it's place as one of the earilest, prototypical "Magical Girl" Anime series from which the likes of Card Captor Sakura, Wedding Peach and many, many others spilled forth...

thanks most kindly. i've been mostly following the box art, with a few of my own touches; i doubt that it is at all positively accurate, but it looks good to me. anyway, i was up late last night, waiting for my sister to download the new KOEI game "OROCHI 3" off of the SONY PS Network, onto my PS3, the only one in the house. mine isn't usually connected to the net, but it had to be, at least for a night, in order to get that game, which is, regrettably, DL only for it's U.S. release. i had nothing much else to do, so i just kept on working on the model, until i had ended up with what you see up there, by the time the damned game had -finally- downloaded completely and we could both actually think about hitting the hay. it's largely finished, AFAIAC, just need to touch up and clean up/square off some details, decal it up, and decide if i actually want to leave the armament off, which i kind of feel sort of mucks up the fighter's overall lines...

that's basically quite similar indeed to what i had done with that 1/32 REVELL i did up back in the late 90's that i mentioned a page or two back. very similar, except for an overall light gray spray paint job, with stripe work in a dark "EURO-1" gray (TESTORS MODEL MASTER) i recall fashioning a GU-11-like Gunpod of sorts out of a pair of fuel drop tanks and other bits scavenged out of the misc. parts pail that i got from my father at the time, a by-product of the heavy plastic modelling he was into all throughout the 1980's. that in the past, i have decided to take the cheap, easy and reliable route with this new 1/48 i am working on, to just leave it primarily in it's base molded color, painting details and highlights only. sure, it looks more toylike this way, but i do not mind much, as i prefer a nice F-14 model that i can pick up and admire like a YAMATO VF, not having to worry about an elaborate full paint job to mar and dirty up. i'd just buy one of the very nice, collectors' grade 1/72 or 1/48 pre-finished F-14 replicas available by DRAGON, CENTURY WINGS and FRANKLIN MINT, but, with the prices they seem to command, i could just as easily buy myself one of the YAMATO VFs that i still have on my want list. so, for $13.99 and some old-fashioned elbow grease, i'm making myself a perfectly acceptable F-14 model, just about exactly as i want it to look. now, if YAMATO could only find a market for a great F-14 toy/scale replica/etc. rendered with their amazing talents, features abound, such as an opening canopy, full-function Vari-Geo wings, a system to reasonably simulate those wing-glove air-bladders, without hindering wing movement, fully functional landing gear, removable and variable weapons loads, deployable arresting hook, etc./list goes on...

ashamed to admit that that HASEGAWA 1/72 F-14 has taken a back seat the last few days, since i stumbled upon, and couldn't resist, a 1/48 REVELL F-14D for $13.99 at my local FRED MEYER; as can be seen, i've got most of the assembly done, but a good bit of detail, clean-up and decal-work yet to do. i have to admit, i'm having a lot more fun though with this build, than i have so far with the HASEGAWA. it's probably just that 1/48 is a far easier scale to work in, and the model is a much more simple design, despite the fact that it has functional vari-geo wings which the HASE completely lacks. at first, i was going to do a 1986-PRIOR JOLLY ROGERS VF-84 color scheme on both, despite the fact that the HASEGAWA provides for that in the decal department, while the REVELL does not, but then, i decided to pop in my LD edition of TOP GUN for some research, and decided that i actually LIKED the "plain" Low-Vis look both featured on the F-14s used during filming of TOP GUN, as well as intended and decal-provided in this 1/48 kit. in sum, i'll be dong the 1/72 HASE in JOLLY ROGERS, as the work i've started on it is already headed in that direction, but for this 1/48 REVELL, i'm taking things in my own slightly modified subdued manner, which seems to complement the lines of the F-14 quite beautifully, as i have personally found... http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-121.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-122.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-123.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-124.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-125.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-126.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-127.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-128.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-129.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1210.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1211.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1212.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1213.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1214.jpg http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll310/shaorin-chan/LASERDISC/TOPGUN-LDPLAYBACK-3-20-1215.jpg

i'm guessing that there is some sort of general perception of "Respectable Stateliness" in regards to wooden desktop aircraft models?

pretty much how i myself feel. i started out with a pair of TF "JETFIRE" repaints that i got around 2000/2001, one of which, i custom painted into a Focker 1S, and the other i kept as a JETFIRE. both were aquired bare by me, no FASTs, no Gunpods, no nothing, and i never got around to even begin to start hunting down even Gunpods for them before the great Yammie roller coaster began, and my interest in 1/55s began to wane. i ended up giving them both to my mother's BF, whom, while not any particuar MACROSS fan, seems to like and appricate the chunkies in his own way. today, it's pretty much YAMATO only for me now, outside of a complete 1985 BANDAI HCM no.20 1/72 VF-1J hik T.V. that i paid something of a premium for, because, as a child that grew up with a ROBOTECH CHANGERS re-package of the IMAI 1/72 Focker 1S model kit, the HCM feels far more nostalgic to me than any other vintage MACROSS toy, and also feels, to me, at least, like an ideal revision/redesign of the 1/55 chunky, that BANDAI, i feel, would have done most well to have worked into an actual "1/55ver.II" still far from perfect, but nonetheless far and away superior and more accurate than TAKATOKU's original mold ever was. if the big "B" couldn't have worked this into their 1984 1/55 re-releases, then they could have given MACROSS fans one HELL of a surprise with the release of the 1/55 "SUPER VALKYRIE" back in 1990...

I SURE AS HELL DO!!!!

well, those swing-wings are definitely NOT functional. fairly cheesy, IMHO. i'll just opt to have them spread. otherwise, the kit looks like it'll build FANTASTIC,and in the perfect size, at that, not too big nor small...

just arrived this morning!! damn, that was fast!! i imagine that that brass PITOT set will be taking at least two weeks, being shipped from Europe and all, but i'm certain that i won't even have the model half completed by then, so no worries... **** ADDENDUM **** i'm a bit miffed now, after going through the manual, that it appears that the model is meant to be built with the swing wings in an OPTIONAL spread OR folded mode. what the hell's up with that? this seems to be an EXQUISITE kit, in every imaginable way, EXCEPT for that facepalming little niggle. on the upside, the wings DO APPEAR to have TINY rotational points, that mate to TINY pins in the fuselage, that MAY allow for full swing-wing movement, if assembled slightly differently from what the manual dictates. STILL, there is no gearing system to speak of, so even if i was actually ABLE to effect functional swing wings, they would NOT be able to fold/spread in tandem. so, what exactly might the meaning of this nonsense actually be? a cheap and dirty means in which for HASEGAWA to encouage the customer to opt for the larger/more expensive 1/48 editions? or are even those kits hampered by such a silly limitation? anyone have any explanations? fellow member "Nuyhauser" perhaps?

yep, i had to improvise, as i got the kit on the cheap 'cause it had been "started, but looks complete" well, it was complete, all right, save for the cradle-type stand it originally came with. would have been a non-issue had i indended to hang the model from the ceiling or the like, but intending to display it as a desk model that i could pick up and admire at will, i was natually quite miffed by the absence of the model's stand assembly. that is, until i improvised, anyway... also, BTW, i just picked up this solid brass "ALFA and AoA" nose-sensor PITOT pair for that HASEGAWA F-14 mentioned above; -i dunno how long it'll take to reach me, as it's coming from Britainnia, but the model proper will be arriving by tomorrow or the day after, so says the seller...

WOW... oh, and BTW, i was bored the other day a couple weeks back, and decided to pull this old thing out and spruce it up a little bit, mostly via a lot of decal work and parts-refitting. still looks like total A$$, though... and i haven't forgotten about that EXCELSIOR build i'm working on, either. still PLENTY ways to go on it yet before i'm satisfied;

just picked up this awesome HASEGAWA 1988 1/72 edition of my favorite real-world aircraft since childhood, for $27.00 shipped, $7.00 cheaper than the far more recent edition of the exact same kit, available at my local hobby shop, that i've been mulling over for the last couple months or so now; this will be the first time i have touched a real-world fighter aircraft kit since the late 1990s, and the first time i have ever touched one of a top-quality Japanese make, for that matter. (one of the tiny handful, and very last fighter jet model i ever attempted, was a late-80's-edition REVELL jumbo-size 1/32 F-14, bought for me by my parents on clearance from the local PAY-LESS, going out of business, for around $10.00 or so, and i had built it up into my own non-canon concept of a U.N. SPACY F-14 variant. -i had that thing for years, but it got disposed of during my last move, and i've no photos. that said, it wasn't particuarly well done anyway.) this HASEGAWA, needless to say, is much smaller, and promises to be far more manageable, yet a far more complex build, than that REVELL 1/32 ever was. that said, regardless, i feel i am up to the task of finishing it in a nice JOLLY ROGERS VF-84 scheme, as the decal sheet clearly allows for...

AMEN to that. for me, there is no NCC-1701/1701refit as beautiful and majestic as this; -and no starship anywhere so downright gorgeous as this; natually, any future entries in the ST reboot effort will likely not feature anything remotely like these two fine starships, and, even if they actually happen to, the spaceframe's designs will most likely be re-imagined to the point of utter grotesqueness. in sum, AFAIAC, STAR TREK is quite over and done with. any transfusion of new blood into the series, as the ENTERPRISE TV series and this movie reboot effort are attempting, is more than likely to be wholly offensive on most every concievable level, to a purist such as myself, at least...

Awesome!! looks like this will be that opportune moment i've been waiting for to finally pick myself up a Focker 1S...

oh, yes there is. there's lots of stuff out there, Anime and otherwise, that has had only a VHS and/or LD release, more than adequate reason for someone like me to keep a well maintained pick-of-the-litter VHS VCR and LD player around. further, there is a ton of Anime out there that was tossed out during the early years of the 21st century on DVD that likely won't ever see a BRD re-release. granted, a good BRD player will likely play DVD quite well, but, for me, anyway, i like to keep my media playback chained to purpose-built players. A; because it keeps wear and tear down to absolute minimum using a specific player exclusively for it's primary intended purpose, and B; because this sort of practice simply feels "Right" to me. in any effect, i suppose i'm just a bit of a tech fogie, behind the "Hot-N-Now" times, and i don't necisarrily believe that that should be reflexively dismissed out of hand as a "Bad Thing"

i'll probably be getting the 1/60 FOCKER 1S available there sometime in 2012...