peter

I bet you're the kind of guy that would completely redo the missiles in the old 1/100 Missile Phalanx

That is an insane amount of detail for 1/144. I wonder if I gloss coat the Chara-Works ones, I can run panel lines on them...will have to see how deep they are on those kits.

Oh, ok, I remember those now. I have a few of the 1/144 Chara Works kits. Never got around to putting any of them together. Was toying around with the idea of doing a Max/Milia DYRL scene, but I still have to research the differences between SDFM and DYRL Q-Raus. Would also need to repaint Hikaru to Max, then rob one of my other Chara-Works kits for a 1S head..... Back on the shelf for now, hahahahaha

Are those as small as I think they are? They look like they are about as small as Bandai's Mecha Colle? Star Wars and Yamato mini models? If so, that's an incredible amount of detail packed into those things. The last three I built from the Yamato series, I had to use magnification on all three otherwise I couldn't see them with the naked eye. Are they wallpaper decals or is that mostly paint? Either way, they look amazing. I only gave Mac F a single viewing, so I'm not familiar with all of the Valks, but some of those look pretty cool.

Wow, that looks great so far. Thankfully none of my Yammies are yellowed, but one thing that really bugs me is the stickers. They are so obvious, you can see the edges, and some of them are peeling.

I see a familiar color on there, is that Tamiya Light Blue? I used Tamiya Light Blue on my defiant, and the bottle cap looks blue, the paint inside looks blue, but when it dried, it had that greenish tinge just like on your Runabout. Bottle of lies, hahahahaha! I'm going to have to build a Runabout one of these days.

Oh, I heard about your decals, and heard they are pretty awesome!

Actually, I was thinking a out leaving it just like this, like a Low Vis ship with some skulls here and there. A lot of the decals are really high profile and really scream "here I am, shoot me down", especially the red pinstripes. Ended up throwing them all on there anyway, but honestly, it doesn't look this bright on screen right? The colors look so much more subdued.

Lol, I totally get it about the jolly Roger, I was humming and hawing over which way to put it too. I think by the time I decided, I'd had more whiskey than Roy had rum in his pineapple salad and followed the chest plate of the Valk on my desk, hahahaha! In retrospect, I probably should have flipped the other way.

Experimented with the airbrush some more. I know the Defiant doesn't have wallpaper decals so maybe the varying coloration would show through. Some detail painting required some masking. I remembered Model Chili mentioned this decal was not a perfect fit so I decided to paint this section. Then I decided on a last minute change. With Roy sitting on my workbench staring me in the face, I decided to throw a bit of black and yellow on the underside. Finished product, no lights....wait, USS what?? Lol, the individual letters... What a pain, lol! I didn't bother with the USS part for the smaller decals and you can certainly see the difference in font when you zoom in. Business on the top.... Party on the bottom, haha! Roy approved, but no pineapple sad served in the replicators. BTW, the only decal that broke on me.

I might have missed it, lol, reading is not one of my strong points. Looks good!

Yeah, some of the clear parts were a bit of a pain. I ended up cutting off or seriously trimming down a lot of the nubs and gluing the clear parts in place.

I've always thought about buying up an old yellowed toy and doing a custom. So, what do folks do after building it? I'd imagine transforming it would risk scratching the hell out of the paint job? Once I build a model, even if it has ball joints and stuff, I don't touch it much after posing it, let alone transform it. Also, what about decals? I guess sealing them in under several layers of clears helps, but where do people even get custom decals for toys? Print your own? Customizing a toy might be still quite a bit beyond my skill level.

Cleanest Refit I've ever built. Three 537s as a kid (all fell apart or broken) One 537 resurrected into an auto destruct One 537 built last summer with HDA Aztecs and markings, still a mess. One 1/2500 Refit.... Turned out pretty bad, made a mess of the wallpaper decals on that one. This one went together nicely, everything actually lined up, no major gaping holes (Well, there are still a few gaps, but nothing catastrophic compared to my 537 builds) that were hard to fix, even the decals went on nicely, the Aztecs were amazing. More details than I even knew about, more details than the larger 537, and it even came decals and details that the the HDA 537 decals didn't. I did have a bit of a problem with the nacelles through, a bit of a pain to snap fit. I put a little too much English into it and actually fudged the Aztec decal on the pylon. This is after the Pledge and after the Flat clear went over the decal and cured.... Guess it didn't cure long enough. Anyway, it's not perfect (for example, I still had trouble lining up the strong back decals) but I am quite happy with it. This kit could really benefit from lights, but if it isn't idiot proof (like my Bandai Yamato lighting kit), I would probably make a mess of it. Besides, it's easier to woosh it around the room when it's not wired to the stand, Hahaha!

Helmet on the workbench pic

@Chronocidal I don't know that series but it's an awesome looking craft. @arbit Is that Kodai from Yamato? @Dobber Nice custom work on that TOS gen ship! Love the extra detail....thinking about building a TOS Enterprise next, but it will be boring and straight out of the box if I do, hahah! I do have some custom work on the defiant I'll post later, but don't get expect much, its not very exciting. @electric indigo I still don't know what mecha that is, but it's coming along nicely, haha! @derex3592 I wonder my if childhood Titanic build is worth digging out for a few laughs, yours is looking great....illumination...will need to figure that out one day. @505thAirborne Yes! A Valkyrie! I honestly can't tell, is that a Yammie 1/60 or 1/48?

When I was a kid, I took spruces held over a candle and stretched them out until they were super thin, but I had inconsistent results and made a mess of gluing them onto the ship. Not sure I could do much better today.

Photo dump: Made a mess of the chillers. They actually have large flat black surfaces with a slit of light peaking through. When I was a kid, the whole thing looked blue to me. Anyway, I tried various ways to simulate the blue behind the black, but without a light source there was no way to see the blue in the thin trenches of the chillers so I just cleaned the black off completely. Not lighting this one so simulated it is. The last Refit I built was a 1/2500 and I painted it pure white and it looked pasty, even with the Aztec wallpaper decals. For this one, I wanted to experiment and see if I could get some unevenness with the panels, so gray primer, white with a drop of gray and then I painted each panel one by one with varying degree of opacity. Got the Aztec kit for this and Reliant. One of the best decals I have ever come across. They sucked right in, even around odd shapes, bends and edges. With the wallpaper decals though, you can barely tell the base paint isn't even. The pylon Aztecs didn't come with the triangles precut. I found it easier to apply the decal first, let it settle a bit, then cut them out after instead of trying to measure and cut them first. The decals that came with the kit must be a different manufacturer or different batch because although they were ok, they weren't as awesome as the Aztecs. They just didn't conform around curves and edges as well, though I shouldn't complain as they didn't shatter into a million pieces like some other Round 2 decals. If I ever build another 1/1000, I'll sand off the nubs on the RCS thrusters so the decal doesn't need to wrap around it. The phaser emitters on the stern were a bit of a pain too. Just let them sit on a drop of Mr. Mark Softer and as the liquid evaporates, it sucked the decal down.... With some help of some tweezers. As you can see, I still have trouble lining up the Strongback decals. I just hope I don't have this problem when it comes to the 350. Dug the 350 out for fun. Sometimes I forget I have this monster. The strong back decal is as big as a 1/1000 nacelle. While watching the decals dry on the Refit, I dug my Defiant out. A sandwich within a sandwich, with clear parts captured inside... Yuck. Lazy masking. Hope this works, lol! Not a bad looking ship I was thinking about experimenting with illumination, but decided I wanted to woosh it around the room more than have it wired to the stand, so no lights. Should I make it a UN Spacy vessel? Hahahaha! More to follow

Woah, a Titanic build! Awesome. I built a Titanic kid in grade 4 or 5 and it suuuuuuuuucked. Not sure I'm even cut out for ship models now. Rigging and PE intimidate me, even at larger scales. There is a Doyusha 1/250 Musashi kit a local guy has for $100CAD and I am tempted, but not sure I could do it justice. Older kit, might need a lot of aftermarket accuratization. Might just buy it for the box art, lol!

Most militaries wouldn't accept that long hippie-dippy hair either, hahahaha!

Take care man, looking forward to seeing your builds when you get back.

That is the biggest groin protector I have ever seen, hahahaha!

Holy crap!!! That would be well beyond my abilities to paint, even with magnification.

Wow, talk about a smooth finish!

Too small for me to even see, hahahaha! I can barely see these plastic barrels