peter

Never clearing my shopping cart.

Haha, I was looking at the post about CD Japan 4 hrs ago

Damn....why wasn't I awake for this??!?

June of last year right? I'm still waiting too. Shot them an email a few days ago, nothing so far.

Pencil? A pencil can do that??!? John Wick

Thinking about whether to build it straight out of the box or gut it and wrap the skin around a GFrame. Actually, I also bought a Gundam kit with the idea of gutting it for the ball joints and stuff, but one look at the parts and I knew I was in over my head. I might just build the thing box stock and use the hands from the Gundam. I can't stand the balloon hands on a Strike Valkyrie, lol!

#313 from Prometheus got separated from Bandai Squadron and wants to play with the boys from Skull (Hasegawa). I know this formation doesn't make any sense, especially to those with some Airforce experience, but I have to figure out a display solution that can hold all of these guys.....or maybe keep the brownie separate?

Cool. There are a few other mil guys here too.

Some of the kits I made when I was ten A couple of small (don't remember the scale) beam cannons next to my 1/72 Hasegawa Hasegawa 1/72 on top of the glue, Arii 1/100 to the right of it. Hasegawa gunpod on the left, not sure which scale on the right. Mangled Bandai 1/72 variable from when I was ten up top, recent Hasegawa below. A pair of 1/72 heads, recent one on the left, ten year old me on the right.

For safety nuts, the mags were empty, chamber empty, triple checked before the photo....for those that don't know, selector can't go into Safe unless it's racked, hence why the selector is set to rock and roll.

Lol, thanks i'm just grateful it didn't turn out like the Macross models I built when I was ten: The missiles do spruce up that old kit quite a bit I think. Lol, the pic of M4(m4gery) is one of my personal rifles, not an issued one. If I painted that on o e of our issued rifle (which actually has the fun switch), I'd never hear the end of it from my chain of command. Our rifles are black and green and they stay that way unless you're with the secret squirrels. I'm a bit of a gun nut so when I'm not obsessing over Macross, guns are usually on my work bench. I used to be heavy into clone building but that is a really expensive hobby and I have to get out of it. My personal clone of my work rifle on the left, and a clone of the US M16 on the right.

Bandai instructions, paint and decal guide: What I ended up with: Not a bad kit for ¥800, wasn't too horrible to build. Would I buy another one? Probably not, lol!

Bandai 1/72 Valkyrie Super Fighter done. I already built Roy's Strike in Hasegawa, and I stole the 1A head from this kit to complete the squadron, so I figures I'd do a brownie VF-1J. I probably would have done a 1A if I had enough. I didn't follow the paint and decal instructions that came with the kit, instead, I loosely followed my previous Hasegawa builds, which was loosely based off my Yamato 1/48 toys. Threw on whatever leftover Hasegawa decals I could find that would sort of work. Most of the decals that came with the kit look way too cartoonish. Leftover weapons from previous builds. Leftover DRYL pilot leftover from previous builds. Sort of sanded the tip of the nose a bit....any more and I would have completely butchered this kit. The Bandai kit wants to hang out with the coop Hasegawa kids. I know this formation doesn't make any sense in the real world. Photo is just for comparison between the Hasegawa and older Bandai. 

While I'm waiting for my Bandai super cannon fodder to dry, I'm sitting here wondering how feasible it would be to fit the GM Sniper (I don't even watch Gundam) inside of the Bandai 1/100 Super Battroid......

I thought I was done with pieces so small I could barely see.....

Woah, nice!

One more comment about the Bandai. The kit came with almost enough parts to do a Super Gerwalk. The only thing I could tell that was missing was the arm armor.

Btw, building models at 0300 when you're sleep deprived is probably not the best. I got Tamiya glue mixed up with Mr. mark Softer when I was doing decals for the Bandai and splashed a bunch of glue all over the nose decals. I was lucky the decal had already set and the matte coat hid the gloss from the glue so it's not that noticeable. You can also see I sort of tried to fix Bandai's nose. I've seen at least one example of someone resculpting the nose, but I wasn't brave enough to experiment.

Krylon Khaki on one of my rifles after a few years. It's bee abused, but doesn't look that bad considering. But it didn't quite feel completely dry to the touch for a few weeks, something I completely forgot about when I painted the Bandai. It went in smooth, but I should have waited, or at least sealed it before doing the panel lines.

Yeah, I should have at least washed the model before painting, but I even skipped that. I just blew the dust off and went straight to paint. I'll probably take more care for the bigger 1/48 I have sitting in my mountain of kits to build. Haha, electronics are beyond me. I didn't touch a model for 17 years, this was my first Macross kit in that time. What actually got me back into model building were some super easy Bandai Mecha Colle Yamato kits. Then it was one big 1/500 Scale Yamato from Bandai and to be honest, those kits were easy builds compared to these Hasegawa kits. Still in the mil? I've been a Reservist for the last ten years or so, but I've only done the part-time thing. My family would not have it if I went full time.

Thanks guys So, since I sort of took my time and was mostly careful to build my Hasegawa kits, I relaxed a bit with the Bandai. I originally rattle-canned the brown bits with Tamiya Light Sand But then I ran out in the middle of the night and didn't feel like waiting until the next day to buy a new can to finish the model. So what did I do? I went to my shelf and found two rattle cans of Khaki I used to paint a few of my rifles, one from Rustoleum and one from Krylon. I did a test spray to see how they would turn out and ended up going with the Krylon because it seemed to go on smoother. The color looked ok, it's a real world military color (albeit rarely seen on aircraft). My mistake was going in the cheap, skipping the sealing process and assuming it would be resistant to thinner as quickly as Tamiya paint. I did the decals then straight to the panel lines with Tamiya Panel Line like I did with my Hasegawa kits. When I cleaned the panel lines, the Tamiya paint was solid and didn't come off against the thinner, but the Krylon came right off, lol! Anyway, I already put more time into this kit, have to go play with the kids and get some work done so I'm just going to matte coat the thing and slap it together the way it is, lol!

Ok, so pro model builders will cringe at what I'm about to say, but I skipped the primer. I also skipped the wash. I went straight from glue, to sand, to paint. Since I'm not using an airbrush, these rattle cans lay on the paint a lot thicker, which would result in a loss of detail. I minimized the thick coats by dusting on the paint, but these models were eating up cans of paint like there was no tomorrow. After paint, was decals, Tamiya Panel detail, then.....wait for it ......Rust-oleum Matte clear. Yup, I went with Rustoleum because I was out of Tamiya Matt clear, and the local hobby shops are sold out of Tamiya and Testor's....well, basically any flat clear finish. Behold, the Kakizaki that I mangled. Thankfully it's hidden behind the backpack and boosters. Those thin decals sure are finicky once the Mr. Marksofter hits it, lol! If you look closely, I also mangled Max's decals. You can probably see all the seam lines I missed during sanding in this photo too. Yikes. In my defence, building two Hasegawa 1/72 was a waking nightmare, up until 0300 every night trying to mash these things out, lol! (Have two little kids at home, daytime model building is not an option, lol).

DYRL pilot doesn't want to sit in the TV seat, lol!

Oh, as someone mentioned, the nose is wide and fat. It also turns downward like a vulture so a pro would resculpt it. I did not, lol!

I didn't follow the paint and decal guide that came with the Bandai at all. I probably won't use more than half of the non-sensical decals that came with it either. Some of them are way too big for this scale and look too cartoony I have a pile of left over Hasegawa decals so hopefully they will help mask some of the simple appearance of this old mold.