tetsujin

Ha ha, you n00b. I guess the Minmay Strike Battroid is a bit steep (3800 yen) but HLJ shows it as available, Feb restock. Personally, though, something about it just rubs me the wrong way. Too noisy, maybe, or maybe I'm just unwilling to appreciate anything that's different.

Yeah, WTF was with those anyhow? Am I supposed to file them away or something? Cetainly the Animeigo packaging wasn't so great. But the content was kick-ass.

Any period with lots of Meltran. I love tall women.

Hey, Toward the end of 2002, finishing my first Hasegawa Battroid seriously renewed my interest in Macross, and for a while I wasn't too enthusiastic about Gundam. Along the way I was happy to discover that Nichimo had re-released most of their old Macross kits, as it offered an inexpensive and convenient way to get a lot of the classic Macross designs in kit form. The Nichimos are generally pretty good, too, so I eventually collected all the re-releases and one of the original issues. The Regult is one of my favorites in the line. Although, like all the Nichimos, it's crude in some areas, I think it looks nice with a relatively small amount of work. As with all the re-releases, it includes some piss-poor stickers in place of the original decals. I would not recommend using the stickers. A good alternative is to have someone print decals for you. The main shortcomings of the kit are the screw holes, the deep panel lines, and the minor molding defects, such as indentations which appear at the top of the pod. All the Nichimo kits can be held together with screws: while this is an effective system for keeping things together, at the small scale of the Nichimo kits, the screw-holes are all-too prominent. In the case of the Regult it's fairly easy to fill them in if you're good with putty. I used Super Glue/talc mixture to fill the screw-holes on mine after screwing the kit together. The panel lines are a bit of a problem because they are oversized. That's particularly bad on a kit that's this small. The panel line that separates the gray and blue areas of the pod is inconsistent, as well: the line disappears as it wraps around to the side of the pod. The feet have a few irregularities, as well: each is molded from two halves, which should be the same. However, one half is molded with a screw-hole, and lacks the panel detail present on the other half of the foot: so if you build the kit as-is, the inner half of the foot will look too-plain compared to the outer half. This could be solved by mating two outer foot-halves and discarding the inner halves, but then you'd also need a new way to attach the foot to the leg. Assembly-wise, the kit is reasonably modular. I recommend against using the screws that go in the hips. If you do that, and cover all the screw holes, you'll still be able to remove the legs from the pod for painting purposes. The booster housings on the sides of the pod are attached with plastic-on-plastic joints, but you can make those, and the head-top lasers modular as well with some trimming. This greatly simplifies the painting process. When assembling the model, a little work to drill out the cannons and make the barrels more circular will also do a lot to improve the looks of the model. I'm not perfectly satisfied with the look of the model, I think the pod should be a little larger, and the points where the cannons are attached should have a more regular shape. Overall, though, it's a nice little kit and a lot of fun. I have an older review of this kit here: http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Reviews/1_200_Regult/ Also, I have recently completed one, and photos and information are here: http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Works/Workshop_Regult/ Presently, the only place I know of where I can buy Nichimo Regults is Akihabara Toys: http://www.akitoys.com/

Decals take practice. If you know how to work with decals they're not hard at all. You can keep them mobile by keeping the model surface wet, and then once they're in place and they've settled down a bit, you can hit them with decal solvent and they'll almost look like they were painted-on. It can be frustrating to attempt large decals when you're out of practice like I was a couple years ago, but once you get the hang of it it's great stuff. Much better than the alternatives, like Bandai's stickers or even dry transfers.

I was thinking of doing a Nichimo Super Battroid next as another quick out-of-box excercise. Actually I was thinking of changing the battroid's pose and sculpting a better head, but other than that it'll be OOB.

Hey, I finished my Regult. You can see the rest of the photos and the writeup here: http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Works/Workshop_Regult/ It's been so long since I've finished a kit... it's a great feeling to have a new model.

Probably a coloring error. Check the leg, one of the stabilizers is red instead of blue. But I'm not sure. (EDIT): Never mind, see the thread somebody linked. Apparently the heatshield was consistently black through that sequence.

My experience with Tamiya paint must be pretty limited. I didn't know there was another size. I've had decals printed for the Nichimo Tomahawk and Regult. They're based on the Imai versions of both. Anybody who wants a copy of the decal designs, let me know - or you can order sheets from Peter Savin (http://models4you.whoadude.com) - since he's already printed up the decals once, he should be able to do so again with little difficulty. The only problems with my Regult decals at present are that the white shapes that go on the upper legs aren't properly fitted to the Nichimo kit, and the number sequences that go on the hips are white instead of black. (I think I had them printed white because I wanted to have that serial number on the blue part of the pod, but I forgot that they appear on the hips as well.)

I voted launch claw: though really I'd rather see stuff from Macross Zero, like the destroids, SV-51, and maybe a battroid version of the Zero, since it's unlikely we'll see any of these anytime soon from Hasegawa.

Yeah, but it is so worth the wait.

Yeah, that's my picture. I was rather amused when I searched for "Nichimo Regult" on google and my review of the kit was the first match. If you don't have a good idea of the size of that paint bottle in the photo, you can look at the grid they're standing on: those are one-inch squares. I highly recommend all the Nichimos. I'm a big fan of the line, they're cheap and a lot of fun. I think most of them look really good, too: the only ones I don't especially like are the non-super battroids (very oddly-shaped) and the gerwalks (proportional problems, especially in the arms.) Later today I'll post final pictures of the Nichimo Regult I've been working on. It's out-of-box, except that I added decals scaled down from the Imai Regult, and filled in the screw-holes. If you want to see my full review of the Nichimo Regult, it is here: http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Reviews/1_200_Regult/ If you want to get a valk in that scale, get the Super Battroid. That thing's pretty nice. All the Nichimos are sort of crude in places, panel lines are too big, parts count is low (leading to draft-angle problems), things like that, but the basic forms are in many ways better than the equivalent (larger) Arii and Imai kits. If you buy re-releases, though, don't use the stickers. Get someone to print some decals for you if you want markings.

The real giveaway, though, is the faceted polygon edges on the "spheres" in the feet. It does look great, though. I gotta learn to do that.

There are dangers associated with using hardware store varieties of lacquer thinner for thinning paint. That type of lacquer thinner is also rather good at melting styrene, so if too much of it comes in contact with your model it's possible that the surface will become messed up. However, this is a risk I've mainly encountered as a result of direct application (using it to try to remove paint, etc.) - so if you choose to try it for thinning paint that's something you'll have to evaluate for yourself. I'd be careful in any case. For cleaning the airbrush, however, yeah, I do that all the time when I use Mr. Color. As a precaution I usually run a cup of Mr. Color Thinner through the brush before going back to painting, to reduce the amount of "hot" lacquer thinner that goes onto the model. For changing colors, I usually just run a few cups of thinner through the brush, unless it's a color transition that has a serious effect on the new color. (For instance, if going from red to white, even a small amount of the red will turn the white into pink) In those cases, I clean the airbrush more thoroughly, which goes something like this: - Run one or two cups full of thinner through the brush - Disassemble the brush to remove the needle and the nozzle assembly. - Clean the needle with a soft cloth soaked in thinner - Clean the nozzle by pushing thinner through it with a pipette. Collect the thinner in the color cup. - Clean the interior of the airbrush with an airbrush-cleaning brush soaked in thinner - Clean the neck of the siphon cup with another airbrush-cleaning brush, using the thinner in the cup. - Fill the rest of the cup with thinner, reassemble the airbrush, and spray out the thinner. - Wipe the inside of the cup to remove any sitting paint - Possibly spray out one more color-cup worth of thinner.

Sometimes there are differences in different companies' markings - now and then a particular company comes up with something totally new (like Arii's squadron marking on the Tomahawk leg) - but most of the variances are just a result of the fact that the different decal sheets were produced independently. Most Macross subjects have pretty well-defined markings for the high-detail versions of the designs.

http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/glaug_decals.png This is from the Imai Glaug kit. Look at the instructions scan in the models section of MW for decal placement.

Dude, they said "Battroids"! No "L"! ...Though, for that matter, they also said "Kakizaki" and "Hikaru"... Trippy.

Hi, It is most certainly possible to do better work than this, even when completely brush-painting a model. The key is to be patient, use very thin coats of paint, and build up the color gradually. For starters, I would recommend switching to acrylic. Apart from being water-soluble (which I do not consider an especially great asset) they also dry faster (enamels can take weeks to cure - and have strange behavior between the time they dry and the time they're fully cured which can cause layering to fail. For a long time I was dead-set on using only solvent-based paints like Testor's enamels, but in retrospect that was a mistake. I could have done better work with less effort by using acrylics. Testor's enamels also have this real gummy texture when they dry, it's not something one can easily sand smooth if it's misapplied. The texture that's all over your parts appears to be a layering issue: you paint a layer of paint, it dries, you paint another layer, and the brushing action of the second layer along with the solvents in the paint cause the first layer to break up a bit. This, in my experience, can be hard to avoid with enamels anyway - but it can largely be avoided by working in very thin layers (thin your paint, quite a lot!). Another thing to keep in mind: never work with paint straight from the bottle. Don't put your paint thinner into the paint bottle (paint thinner accelerates curing). Also putting your paint brush into the paint bottle deposits dust and paint particles into the paint bottle, which can show up later in your paintjob. Transfer paint to another container first, then thin it, then apply. Also, there are places on your kit where you applied white paint on top of blue. This generally doesn't work too well, white paint doesn't seal very well. It's easier if you use flat white paint instead of gloss, or paint the area gray then repaint it white - but the easiest thing, if possible, is just not to do that. Paint the white part white then paint the blue. Also, I cannot stress this enough: you must putty your seams. All your paint work is wasted if you do not smooth the seams properly. Here's a good painting tutorial. It's a little more advanced than you need for painting aircraft/mecha (it deals with figure modeling stuff, like highlights and shadows) but the basic painting techniques taught in there are solid. Here's an example of my work: done in a total of 8 hours (starting from the sprues) using acrylics and handbrushing: http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/regult01.jpeg It's not finished yet, in particular the black areas need more layers, and some putty's showing through the white on the legs, but hopefully this shows that some decent work can be done with handbrushing.

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=4867 Oh, and you should get rid of that image inline. It's not nice to take starshipmodeler's bandwidth.

Before anybody gets too pissed off... I just got a shipping notice from HLJ. I was one of the ones initially disappointed by the "backordered" and "Feb Restock" messages on the inventory list - but it appears that the messages did not indicate that current preorders would be delayed, but only that any new orders would have to wait.

Yeah, what the crap? I pre-ordered as soon as they listed it. (EDIT): Here's a possibility: (theory) They took the pre-orders and ordered a bunch of VF-0s. The pre-orders came in, they looked at their stock relative to the number of pre-orders, and declared them "Backordered" (since anyone buying one now would have to wait). But while the pre-orders are accounted for, they're not all processed - those of us who pre-ordered may get shipping notices in the near future (after the weekend, at least), but in the mean time we don't have a real way of knowing what will happen. Make sense? As long as it makes some kind of sense and offers the hope that I'll get my VF-0 soon...

In what sense is the scene "impossible"? How is it not possible to bolt missiles to a stabilizer that has no practical function in space? What makes it an error? And apart from the fact that it never appears again (much like the GBP armor in the TV series) what makes it discontinuous with the rest of the series? A "Continuity error" is generally something done inconsistently from scene to scene, or frame-to-frame. Like in B-movies when they show a guy with a pipe, cut away and cut back and the pipe's gone... or when colors mismatch between frames. Or when a valk flies off the deck with no missiles, then fires six while in combat. I doubt that there are no continuity errors in that episode, but the existance of the missile magazines is not a continuity error or an impossibility. Yeah, what your saying would be true if not for the fact that VALKYRIES TRANSFORM whether or not they're in space. Judging by the sheer amount of weaponry that accomodates their advanced features(transformation), it would be stupid to just tack those missiles on... Additionally it would be worthless anywhere else besides space while in Fighter or H-walk mode. So? It's generally assumed that missiles from wing hardpoints are fired before transformation, too, because it's inconvenient to go rolling around on the ground in battroid mode and snap one's wings off. It's worthless apart from in space. Much like the FAST packs. You must expend it/eject it before transformation, much like the GBP-1. So again, what's the problem? You fly escort for a cat's eye, you see a quel-quallie or a bunch of Regults, you fire your missiles and transform whenever the hell you feel like it. There's really no reason to transform until you've closed to close range - and in DYRL battles seemed to start with a long-range exchange of missiles anyway. So I can't understand why this is such a heart-wrenching bit of variation. They just did things differently one day.

In what sense is the scene "impossible"? How is it not possible to bolt missiles to a stabilizer that has no practical function in space? What makes it an error? And apart from the fact that it never appears again (much like the GBP armor in the TV series) what makes it discontinuous with the rest of the series? A "Continuity error" is generally something done inconsistently from scene to scene, or frame-to-frame. Like in B-movies when they show a guy with a pipe, cut away and cut back and the pipe's gone... or when colors mismatch between frames. Or when a valk flies off the deck with no missiles, then fires six while in combat. I doubt that there are no continuity errors in that episode, but the existance of the missile magazines is not a continuity error or an impossibility.

And even after he so-called work his ass off, the valkyrie is till pure white instead of the blue in certain places? The only parts of Max's VF-1A that are blue aren't visible in that shot. They're on the sides of the legs, and the intakes, the head, and the shoulders. You can see blue on the intakes. Though I don't remember seeing the tail missiles on Max's valk, only on Kakizaki's. "Ben" does not exist. ' I don't see what the problem is. I thought it was cool that they did a different missile payload for once...

Yeah! I forgot to mention the superglue thing. The thing is, superglue has a really strong bond, but it cracks under stress. People generally use super glue for resin kits, but in order to make them hold together in the long term, they have to insert support pins. Another problem with super glue is that it's much easier to misapply it, and if you get it someplace it shouldn't be it's still cure and mess up your surface. Styrene solvent glue, on the other hand, works by melting the plastic, so the bonded pieces are (in the ideal case) just as good as if they were a single piece to begin with. I'd recommend using one of the stronger varieties, like Tenax, along with the needle-type applicator. It takes some practice, but it bonds like nobody's business. Tenax is very liquid, too, so it flows into the whole contact area and bonds it up good. Comparatively, more convenient varieties of liquid glue like Testor's (in the plastic bottle) don't bond quite as well, and gel-types (the types that come in a metal toothpaste-type tube) are said to break down over time because of the stuff (fillers, adhesives) they put in them apart from the actual solvent which creates the bond.