tetsujin

Well, a big part of making the paint look right is addressing seams and detail. Fewer and smaller parts means fewer and smaller seams, and less detail to potentially screw up - so it's an easier kit to do out-of-box and might be good for practicing the most basic skills - but I think practicing the surface work before the painting is just as important as practicing the painting itself - perhaps more so if you're only doing a simple paint job. Plus, I think for practice it's good to have a kit that's easy to work with. Something like the Nichimo Regult would be OK because you can build and paint it in a modular fashion. Most any other Nichimo would be a bit tougher IMO because some parts need to be assembled around other parts. Plus the re-releases don't include decals. (Though there are people you can talk to about getting decals..) I dunno. I do love the little buggers, so it's not as though I'd want to discourage anyone so inclined from ordering a big stack of Nichimos and using them for practice. I just think, if you already have most of the basic skills down, the Nichimos aren't going to do much to prepare you for working with a Hasegawa. I also think it's better for practice to pick kits that look good out-of-box, so you can do a reasonably quick build and just be happy with the result. Some Nichimos fit the bill, but a lot don't IMO. But a lot of the reason I say that's important is because I tend to modify the features I don't like, and that can become very time-consuming... I guess the good thing about working with small kits for painting practice is that they'd be a lot less forgiving of mistakes: at the smaller scale, a small seam line edge or coarseness in the paint job will look huge in the context of the model. So if you get the hang of them, it seems reasonable to assume that you would then be quite good at surface finish and painting work.

Hi, First, when taking parts off the trees you should do so either by cutting with a sharp xacto knife, or with some sort of small wire cutters or nail clippers or what have you. The first cut should be well away from the part, so the sprue stub is relatively large. Then you should use the knife to progressively trim more and more of the stub off until it is flush with the part. Cutting too much at once can result in gouging. Clipping too close on the first pass can cause the plastic to get mashed around, resulting in more ugly gouging or other problems. Don't paint with a Q-Tip. They would make lousy paint brushes, and they tend to shed as well. Don't get them anywhere near wet paint, whether said paint is on a model, or in a bottle waiting for future application. Buy paint brushes from a local craft store. When handbrushing, move some of your paint to a separate container and thin it there. (Don't thin it in the bottle, or it'll cure in the bottle) Don't dip the brush in too far, particularly keep the bases of the bristles free of any paint. Try to paint thin coats, and let each cure thoroughly before trying the next. Always wash your brushes after each use, by swishing them around in paint thinner (again, don't get the base of the bristles wet) - also don't set them down on the bristles or scrub the bristles against anything. When they're clean, store them bristles-up. If you do that, they'll last a while and your paintbrush investment will be protected. A somewhat simpler alternative might be to buy modeling paints in spray-cans. If I didn't have an airbrush, that's probably what I would do for painting large areas. Also, you need a system for holding the parts while painting them, and while they're drying. As for magazines, there are domestically-published modeling magazines like Fine Scale Modeler. Nothing anime-specific, but lots of good information. Hasegawa hasn't made a YF-19 Battroid, sadly. Hobby Link Japan is where I generally go for Hasegawa kits. As for greater challenge - any kit can be challenging depending on your expectations. If you want your models to look really good, that takes time and practice to refine the basic skills. Balance this next piece of advice against your need to work on whatever kits you find you are interested in: I think it's best to refine your skills on simple kits before tackling advanced projects. (The Hasegawas are at least reasonably simple..)

Meh, the parts count on the Nichimos is so low I wouldn't think they'd be very good as practice. They are reasonably nice kits to work with, but a lot of them don't look so hot out of the box. The Hasegawa Battroid isn't too tough a kit if you know what to watch out for, and especially if you build the A or J head instead of the S. The main thing is to get the parts aligned properly - remove the snap-fit pegs if necessary, just make sure that when you glue them they're lined up right, and then you'll be able to clean up the seam without destroying the surface detail. If you want to do a Hasegawa kit, the Battroid is probably easier than the fighters. The Battroid is a full-action kit with polycaps, so when you glue all the parts together, you can still take everything apart and paint it separately. Plus there are no fine-detail areas on the battroid like there are on the fighter (cockpit, landing gear, etc.). I think either kit would be easy to do a basic paintjob on: if you're doing a Skull Squad design or Hikaru's J-type valk, you can almost paint just one color (except for thrusters and such) and then do the rest with decals. Again, the battroid makes that easier. As for whether to jump in or practice on other stuff first, I don't know. On the one hand, practice is always helpful - but on the other hand, building any kit properly is a lot of work. I think it's best to stick to the stuff you're most interested in doing - if you screw up on a Hasegawa, that's not so bad, you'll just have a better idea of what you're up against next time. Plus, I think even if you're relatively inexperienced, a Hasegawa is a nicer kit to work with than something like the transforming valks on HLJ. Hasegawas have nice features like wings you can install after painting. The transforming valks are a bit complicated, dealing with all their ins and outs is a pain IMO. As for the decals... they can be tough if you're not used to doing them. I screwed up several decals on my first battroid, but the practice was enough to make using decals no longer a problem for me. Identify the decals you don't need and use them to practice - and remember to read the relevant FAQs and such on how to apply decals.

Generally I prefer the Super. The strike cannon is OK but I'm not generally too crazy about it. It's sort of awkward, really. But I also don't like the rest of Skull Squadron copping Roy's style, either.

http://www.micro-mark.com is a good place for many modeling supplies, including decal paper for either inkjet or for laser. For regular black text, that may be enough. I'd recommend a laser print if you can get it, just because it's sharper. Just be careful, and print lots of extras: when I tried laser-printing my own decals I had a big problem with the ink flaking off (almost immediately after printing). These days I just have someone else print decals for me, because I use a lot of custom decals and by buying them from someone with an Alps I get to avoid most of the frustration and focus on the designs - and I can get decals in white, yellow, etc.

I never took "sing the song of destruction" literally. I figured it referred to the orbital bombardment of the Earth by the Bodolza fleet.

i dont think theres enough chest room for a millia cosplayer to put it on. Milia didn't exactly have a ginormous rack... Not until Mac 7 anyway.

I never really thought Yamato sucked anyway.

I think the old Armored battroid kits were just one-layer. There was no "standard" battroid inside the armor. Your best bet would be to refer to a toy version, I think, or one of the scratchbuilt add-ons to the Hasegawa Battroid that appeared in modeling magazines.

Why are you seeking photos of the model rather than the original design? The old kits weren't real great about detail and proportion anyway - it seems like building a "copy of a copy" so to speak isn't the best way to go... Most likely the underlying proportions of the Arii kit won't match the Hasegawa anyway. I don't mean to be a pain, I just think that starting with the lineart and the Hasegawa's proportions is probably a better choice. The instruction sheet contains nice front/side views of the kit you could use to plan out how the armor pieces will fit in, and then scale them to the size of the model itself. And before somebody else mentions it, of course I assume you've seen the information in the MacrossWorld models section - which consists mainly of a low resolution scan of the instruction sheet - most likely not adequate for your plans.

There are some differences: 1: I don't think Tomino was directly involved in the production of Seed. What I heard is that he was supposed to be involved but he didn't want to do it. 2: Gundam sold its dignity long before Seed (Double-Zeta... though at some level everything in ZZ is just an extension of what goes on in Z and MS Gundam). Macross has had comparatively few releases - but 7 came out at the same time as Plus, which was a fantastic series. The contrast is less favorable. 3: While Seed has its issues, I think there is no denying that it is an improvement over the Gundam TV shows of the late-90s. It's more approachable and pop-addictive than Turn-A, it's more engaging than X, and it's more serious than Wing - yet it also integrates the lessons of those shows - a bit of the experimentation evident in Turn-A (minus Sid Mead), the pop-merchandising power of Wing (but without quite so heavy an emphasis on the bishounen angle), and... probably something from X, too. 4: Combat in Seed, while perhaps not as good as it ought to be, is generally done pretty well. Fairly little repetition, anyway. There are some similarities: 1: Seed does have some design issues, mainly with the stuff Okawara did all himself. (The first five Gundams on the show were done by Akutsu and re-done by Okawara. The last six were all Okawara.) Of course, on Mac 7's side it's mainly the Fire Valk and the MAXL that are a problem... 2: Emphasis on merchandising in both shows. Probably more in Seed than in Mac 7.

Much like Gundam ZZ, I found the first 10-15 episodes to be insufferable. If a show can't snag me in that time, there's just a pretty good chance I'll lose interest. It also bugs me that they took an incredibly cool design from Mac Plus (YF-19) and turned it into total cheese (Fire Valk). Yeah, they had to simplify it for TV animation, but they made some really bad stylistic choices. I do think there's a lot of good stuff there, but the cheap production really hurts the show, especially in terms of mecha. If they had taken the time they used to create the Fire Valk transformation and used it, instead, to make 5 or 6 cool little sequences with VF-11 or VF-17 fighting the Protodevlin, they could have repeated those endlessly and had some good battles. Instead the battles (in the early episodes, at least) followed the same pattern, often using the same 4-5 short snips of animation: - VF-11s engage Protodevlin. VF-11s are blown up, escape pods are captured and drained. - VF-17 flies in and shoots Protodevlin. One or two blow up. - Fire Valk flies in, transforms in a detailed sequence rendered in more depth than any other mechanical animation in the early episodes of the series. Once in robot form it shoots (and hits) several Protodevlin with speaker pods (which seems to be something the Diamond Force can't do with live rounds) and Basara sings. - The attack continues, combatants generally don't move around too much, etc. As satisfying as it is in the first episode to see Basara try to stop the fighting by singing and fail utterly, the approach of Mac 7 is in some ways self-defeating, especially in these early episodes. They've put all the resources, all the fancy animation and all the focus on Basara and the Fire Valk - made his valk look like a highly merchandisable super-robot and set him up as the hero - and then they undercut that by making him look like a doofus and making his participation seem incredibly useless. Hikaru from the original series was given many of the same conditions: one of the most recognizable and merchandise-friendly designs (red on white), his valk appears throughout the opening and on the eyecatches, and from the first time his custom valk appeared until the last time it was blown up it probably appeared prominently in every episode. Yet, for most of the series he's kind of a dufus. So what's the difference, in my opinion? Roy Focker. When Hikaru's out crashing into cruisers and dodging asteroids, Roy's out there kicking ass in his equally recognizable, only slightly less-merchandisable Focker custom. And since the shoestring budget for the original series was more appropriately balanced, no characters have any really impressive animation to show off (not until "Pine Salad", at least - and that Max vs. Milia sequence wasn't terribly reusable) but there's a general investment in the show's mechanical animation as a whole that makes things generally passable. Mac 7 puts all the eggs in Basara's basket, then hits them with a hammer. It's incredibly frustrating. I think a lot of the robot shows of that period had similar approaches to animation constraints (i.e., animate one thing really beautifully and then repeat it a million times, rather than animate two dozen different things moderately well) - I guess they thought it was a way to still deliver something impressive and eye-catching in a genre that was losing its audience, and stand out amongst all the other robot shows that had been made since the dawn of time - but it still strikes me as an unfortunate mistake. Still, seeing Mac 7 for myself made it clear that the show wasn't as cheesy as people used to tell me it was, back when I was just excited that there was a TV show with VF-11s in it. It has problems, and it's goofy in places, but it's a fun show with potential. I can sit down and watch Gundam 0080 and still love the goofy G Gundam or even the convoluted, cheaply animated Gundam W - so if Mac 7 gets its crap together somewhere, maybe one of these days I'll get back to watching it. I probably left off around episode 15 or 20, still frustrated with the lack of explanation for why a civilian owned a fighter superior to anything used by the military aboard the Mac 7.

I don't dislike him, I just can recognize dead meat when I see it. Yeah. Shin = Maverick. Edgar = Goose.

Most of the old kits are pretty crappy IMO. They all have their little redeeming features, but for the most part they're kind of cheesy. I wouldn't bother bashing an Imai variable with a Hasegawa - better (if you must have transformation) to just work from the Hasegawa alone.

A Hasegawa Battroid head is about 2cm long, about as tall, and maybe around 12-14mm wide. I don't quite understand how you're going to get mobility from this joint. It seems like, hinged or not, there'll be no place for it to move. But here's what you need to know to mount a polycap: First off, you can not glue polycaps to anything. They're too flexible. If you super glue them to something, and then they flex a bit, the super glue will pop right off. What you need to do is encase them such that they can't go anywhere. There are two simple and effective ways of doing this: the first is to mount the polycap using Bondo (a polyester putty used for auto body work - it's cheap and very useful). Bondo is great for all kinds of custom-fitting work, too. The second is to mix up super glue with talcum powder to make a putty. This super glue/talc mixture (SGT) bonds as well as super glue but is more resilient and workable - it won't hold a bond to a polycap, either, but it will create a solid, durable grip around it. I'm still trying to figure out just what you're trying to do. It looks like what you've got is a polycap that's already installed in the top part of the leg, and you want to hook it up to the lower part of the leg. Really, the best way to do that is to mount a peg in the lower leg and have it go through the polycap. I don't know if that's possible with the way you've got it set up, though. Probably the simplest solution is an off-the-shelf type of thing. Somebody suggested Wave L-Joint: I think thos would be too large for this application. Wave T-Shaft or Kotobukiya Mecha Joint might be a better choice: http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?WAVOP-291 http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?KBYD-109G The Wave part is also available domestically from Gundamshop.com if you're in the US. Both are basically the same thing, though the Kotobukiya one is a bit larger and stronger: the middle is a box with two hinge joints, and there's a long peg coming out from each end. Bury the pegs in Bondo and it's installed. You might also want to check out Peter Savin's work on his Hi-Zack. He does a lot with Bondo - most of the stuff he shows is cosmetic stuff but there's some real nice work with aftermarket polycaps, too. He really knows his stuff. http://models4you.whoadude.com/ He seems to be a big fan of the Kotobukiya T Joint: http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljpage.cgi?KBYD-103B It's a nice general-purpose joint which could be very useful for the installation you're doing (where the top part of the leg appears to have some kind of horizontal peg going through the polycap, and the bottom of the leg has nothing) - you could trim a T joint to the right length and mount it in the upper leg as-is, and then you'd have a long peg extending down from that joint which you could then Bondo into the lower leg. If the peg in the upper leg is the right size, that is. (Check the measurements. Kotobukiya's site, linked from the HLJ pages, has great technical drawings of their parts with measurements.) For this particular installation it could be the easiest way to go, if the fit is right. In general the T joints are a bit more work to use than things like the Mecha Joint, but they're incredibly versatile.

Presently Hasegawa does make a VF-1 Battroid of course. It remains to be seen whether they'll give the same attention ot other series. If they follow the same pattern for Macross Zero as they did for Macross, they'll start with the fighters, and maybe give us a battroid sometime later.

If you're losing surface details, you're using too much primer. Be sure to use very light coats. If you're still concerned, use a finer-grain primer like Mr. Surfacer 1200 with an airbrush. There are advantages to priming: a big one being that it makes it much easier to identify places where seam lines are still visible or the effects of sanding or puttying are too apparent. This is especially true with gray primers: but be careful, if you plan to paint the model white, a gray primer can cause a lot of trouble, as it's hard to seal out colors using white paint. White primer (Mr. Base White, etc.) may be a good choice in that case.

March 21-June 20. So yeah, April, May, or most of June.

Yeah, they have the same problem on the toys also, even with the tomahawk The missiles fire from the bottom. As missiles at the bottom fire out, the ones above it move down. I think you can actually see that on the Tomahawk in the "Daedalus Attack" episode. And, no, the fingers don't look hinged to me either.

Mr. Color Thinner generally won't eat styrene... However, one thing you might try is scrubbing with rubbing alcohol. It's cheaper than Mr. Color Thinner and it does remove Mr. Color - and it won't mar the surface like sanding would.

He'd be scrunched up good, but he could fit. Of course, the official height of Kamjin is around 11m, but shouldn't other Zentradi be closer to 9m?

Not all games use those extra features, and all the PS2 games I own work with PS1 controllers. Battlecry, for instance, has some pressure-sensitivity support, but the game still works fine with a PS1 controller. I tend to buy PS1 controllers because they are a bit more durable than the PS2 controllers. (No, they are not physically identical.) Of course, I play Amplitude, so controller breakdown is an almost unavoidable eventuality anyway.

I like the new design for Roy. To me it captures the elements that define the character, visually, for me, while fitting the look of the new stuff. It gives him a more serious look. He's still Roy, but now he looks military, too. Plus it's just really great to see him flying again, he truly is the man. Does he look out of place relative to the flashbacks in Macross? Sure. But then, so do the VF-0 and SV-51. That's just how these prequel things work. Par for the course.

The overall motivation behind this decision is to make things easier. Some assembly has to be done before painting or there's no way to clean up the seams: so generally I do a certain amount of the assembly work before painting (as much as I can, really), then paint, assemble what needs to be assembled, paint any touch-ups and whatnot, etc. For different kits this process can vary. For a Gundam kit, generally things are modular enough that I can break the whole thing down into individual components, paint them separately, and reassemble. No fuss, no muss. The Hasegawa Battroid is generally the same way, though there are some areas that are a bit more complicated to deal with, like the plates that seal off the inside of the torso on the sides, or the visor on the S-type head. The only way to deal with the visor is to mask it off when you paint the head. You can't paint the head before assembling, and you can't put the visor in after assembling. The chest stuff might be easier to paint before installing, since the boundary between it and the surrounding areas is hidden well enough that it shouldn't matter much how you handle it. For older kits, this process is complicated by the fact that a lot of those old plastic-on-plastic joints aren't modular. Sometimes (as with my Glaug) I'll rejoint the parts to make the assembly more modular. Other times I'll just deal with it, assemble things and then paint them as large assemblies. That leads to a lot of masking, though. The Arii example in the previous message (painting the lower leg halves, then assemblint them) can work, but you'll wind up with a visible seam down the middle of the leg. That's sloppy. A better solution (without altering the parts structurally) would be like this: Assemble upper leg and foot. paint them. Let the paint dry, and cover them with masking tape, then install them in the lower leg halves and assemble the lower leg and clean up the seams. Now paint the lower leg. When the paint's dry, remove the masking tape from the upper leg and foot.

Behold, Guncannon.