peter

Mecha Collection build done, more or less. Tiny kits, packed with detail, had to build with magnification otherwise I couldn't see the damn things. Yamato 2202 version. Completely different tooling than the not very old 2199 version. Seemed more refined, panel lines were finer and more to scale with the size, but filled quickly with layers of paint. Painted IJN Gray, Kure Arsenal. So this is the 2199 version. I painted this up with IJN Gray, Sasebo Arsenal, so in my head canon - Space Battleship Musashi. I even painted the radar white as I often saw models of Musashi with a white radar. Totally not screen accurate, lol! Andromeda......not to scale. It should be bigger apparently, but oh well. First time I built this ship, and the first time I actually looked into what the thing is supposed to look like on screen. I got sort of close, but it's still pretty far off. It came with Bandai's typical stickers instead of decals. Tried one, decided to bin the markings. My first Yamato model from like 35+ years ago, lol! And this one I built a few years ago, minimal paint, basically the deck and engine nozzle. Surprisingly close to what the anime colors are. That K'tinga is about to have a really bad day.

Yup. Not sure I will battle damage this one... We'll see. Already did a 537 auto destruct build, SO I sort of have it out of my system, but we'll see

Well, it's a slow week at work, and a bunch of stuff ended up on my work bench, as well as some goodies in the mail that showed up (and probably won't get touched for a while. Window masks for a 747 kit I picked up on a whim. Into the queue it goes. I couldn't decide what kit to build next.... Hummed and hawed between a Star Trek 1/1000 kit or maybe one of the Mecha Collection Yamato kits. I decided to go with ST. Lots of flash. For a newer kit, it felt a bit messy. $45 Polar Lights kit on the left, $5 Bandai on the right. Anyway, enough complaining, the kit went together. Lot easier than the nightmare AMT 537 kits. Some gaps, but gave me a chance to try out this stuff. Talk about easy to use, excess wipes right off with a wet qtip. While waiting to dry, I was curious about an Andromeda kit I had, whether it was the correct scale for the Yamato from the same series. I was disappointed to find out hardly any ships from this series are the correct scale for each other. 2199 version 2202 version. There are actually a lot of differences between the 2199 and 2202 version. Anyway, since I unboxed them, I decided to start on them. I built both versions of the Yamato before, ended up giving both of them to my kids, who over a period of time broke off all the pointy bits. These ones will be for me and off limits from the kids. Managed to get everything prepped and primer tonight More to follow.

Nice Tomcat!

I wish I had a 3d printer..... And the intelligence to operate one, lol!

Looks awesome, 1/48 must be massive. I have a 1/72 in my pile I should probably get to one of these days.

That is an awesome looking brake. You could go into business making real muzzle brakes. Two different 50 Cal brakes... Mines on the left, buddy's on the right.

Thanks! Man, they do come out in photos looking like tiger stripes. In person, it's definitely more subdued alike this photo: I think part of the difficulty was the 2202 version added so many extra panel lines over the 2199 version. I'm also struggling between learning to shade and keeping that sense of scale. I hope they make a 1/500 scale 2202 version because these old man eyes make it hard to build these smaller scale ships, hahahaha!

Space Battleship Yamato and her sister ship Space Battleship Musashi done. Musashi never appeared on screen or anywhere official as far as I know. Neither of these builds are screen accurate anyway. Bandai 1/1000 Space Battleship Yamato 2203 version painted IJN Gray, Sasebo Arsenal, where Musashi was built. The deck was painted a dark gray to match her appearance in Operation Sho Go. Below the waterline is Tamiya Hull Red with a red Oxide primer beneath. Bandai 1/1000 Space Battleship Yamato Final Battle Version painted IJN Gray, Kure Arsenal, where Yamato was built. The deck was painted a lighter gray than Musashi to simulate her appearance for Operation Ten Go. Below the waterline is Tamiya Hull Red, but on top of a gray primer, it almost looks brown. The Final Battle Version has more AA Guns and armored up turrets, which more resemble her WWII appearance. So easy to light up.

Light test. Musashi's sister ship Yamato is almost done.

Wow, those are awesome. Man, technology these days....

Never get tired of looking at your build.

Lazy builds done. No putty, no seam filling (though I should have, hahahaha!), and no masking on the BOP. I barely know anything about the Grissom other than it turned into a white cotton ball in STIII. In fact, I didn't really research the studio models of either of these two ships and just wanted to slap together a stress free build. They are far from screen accurate, full of mistakes and my laziness is pretty evident (please don't zoom in, there is some seriously messy decal work and huge gaping seam lines), but they both turned out far better than I was expecting so I'm pleasantly surprised by them. Yamato: come get some. Grissom: lol! BOP: wtf.

That would have been awesome. I'd love to see it in TOS colors. I like the look too, I think it was done tastefully. The upscaling baffled me a bit, but then after reading about the BOP, nothing in ST surprises me anymore.

The Pikerprise/Discoprise scale irks me. I haven't watched STD so I didn't know about the weird scaling issue, I only bought the 1/2500 scale kit because the box described it as 12" long and I figured it would look good with the 1/1000 scale TOS and Refit. I open the box and I'm thinking *uck me, they forgot the model, all I see are the instructions. I flip the instructions off and I see this tiny thing in the same size box that the other 1/1000 Enterprises came in. This thing looked like it could have come in a box about 1/3 the size. To this day, I am peeved about the printing error on the box. I would not have spent $45 if I knew it was going to be that tiny.

I wonder how they treated this area of the ship, wondering if it will be a physical grill or decal.

Despite my messy decal work, and my complete lack of knowledge of this ship, the Grissom is turning out looking not too bad. I have two more of these so the next one hopefully comes out better now that I know what to expect. Will seal these decals in after they all settle. I had to resort to Tamiya Mark Fit Super Strong for some of the curvy decals.... And they still don't like cold water, despite feeling robust (fragmented a few). I may leave these decals out. They sit on the edge of the pylons, and to my old man eyes, it looks like there isn't enough surface for the decal to cling to. I think more decal will end up folding over the edge than on the face of the edge.

Lol, my wife knows I have it, so if I sold it, she would kill me, especially since her parents went to the trouble to send it to me. That is a VERY good point to remember with toys, that they are built to be played with and will hold up to posing, unlike my Hasegawa models. With my Hasegawa and Bandai battroid models, I don't want to touch them again after I finish them because they seem too fragile to pose too many times. That said, the last year, I've found a lot of enjoyment in building models, and sharing my experiences with everyone here

OMG, that's embarrassing. As a kid, I thought I knew my WWII planes, but it's been a long time since I dove into my Time Life - Epic of Flight books.

The in-laws sent a care package from Japan a few days ago. I know it's not a model, but hear me out, it is model related. And they threw in a DX Roy and Strike Packs. I ordered this ages ago and they decided it was taking up space so they threw it in the box, and I appreciate them doing that but..... Strangely, I wasn't as excited about it as I thought I would be. I opened the box, pulled the Valk out and attached the Strike packs.... But then it just sat. I didn't feel compelled to play with it, or transform it. Instead, I went back to working on my models - Yamato, the BOP and Grissom. I bought the DX Max a few years ago when I was in Japan, and I was pretty stoked about it, but I always wanted a Roy since I was a kid. This was it, my first Roy toy.....but when I finally got it, I wasn't super excited. I've been building models on a regular basis during the last year or so and I wonder if my renewed interest in models has become the priority. I mean, the toy is awesome, all painted, lots of markings, nice proportions..... But the first thing my eyes were drawn to were the seam lines, the gaps, the gun metal colored landing gear (they should be white), that unsightly booster cradle, and other inaccuracies compared to the 1/72 Hasegawa models I made, lol! It's like I can't unsee them, and this is something that I never noticed when I bought the Max a few years back, when I was still on my hiatus from model building. Has this happened to you guys? Maybe I'll appreciated it a bit more after my workbench is cleared... I better, because the wife knows how much I spent on this thing.

@Thom @Grayson72 @derex3592 Lol!

Oh, that's awesome....is it based off the P51? Edmoton CANADA!

Some more work on Yamato. Fingers were cramping and sore by the time preshading was done. Gray primer below the waterline instead of Oxide Red. Filling in each panel at a time. Just a bit of experimentation to see how that marbling effect will look on a ship of this scale..... Might look a bit out of place when it's done, but it will be a learning experience. It's quite different than her sister ship. I might see if I can go darker but will wait until tomorrow to see how I feel about it. Tamiya Hull Red seems almost more brown than red. Knocking back the pre-shading one panel at a time. The gray I'm using for this one is IJN Gray, Kure Arsenal which was Yamato's shipyard. It's noticeably lighter than Musashi's gray. Engine nozzle. Will knock it back with a bit of flat black later. The wood deck in Yamato was apparently painted a light gray for Operation Ten Go, so I put a few drops of black and gray on top of the wood deck tan. Not as dark as her sister ship, but I want these two ships to look noticeably different.

Lol, I was thinking the same thing.... Maybe they just wanted to do something easy.... Or it could be hinting at a new BOP? Since the Grissom always seems to be associated with it....

Race plane? Lol, not sure I like the Grissom enough to get a 1/350.....only reason I got it was because it came with the BOP Just need to add decals then flat clear the thing tomorrow. With the old resurrected BOP I did a few months back. Some more work on the Grissom. Decals are sturdy, but a bit stubborn. Lots of decal solution on these curvy ones. Flat ones seem to be cooperative.