tetsujin

Here are some pros and cons to Tamiya Acrylics and Testor's Model Master Enamels, based on my experience: Tamiya acrylic: + Dries quickly + Thins and cleans up with common products (windex, alcohol) - Because it dries quickly, it may not dry to as smooth a finish - Vulnerable to chipping and scratching Testor's MM enamel: - Dries slowly - Odd behavior if you paint successive layers at the wrong time (or so I've heard) - Extremely noxious fumes + Because it dries slowly, it often dries to a smoother coat + A bit tougher than acrylics

Yay! A Monster! I don't know if it's too late for this, but you might want to scribe lines in the foot to mark the separation between the front toe and the side parts (are they toes? I'm not sure...) Macross Perfect Memory has a picture of the underside of the Monster foot which may make this a little clearer.

Well, technically it's 1:15000. A 1:200 SDF-1 would be like 20 feet tall. The Nichimo Macross is a pretty decent little kit, though. Actually I'm just nuts about the whole Nichimo line. I initially picked them up to go with my 1:200 scale Destroid Monster, but they're great little kits. Thanks for the kind words about the Strike. A lot of work went into it. Also, about gloss: you may already know this, but a great source of clear acrylic is a product called "Future" (in the US) or "Kleer" (in Europe) - it's a floor polish, but it makes a great gloss-coat for models.

True, most of my paintjobs are pretty simple. The Strike Gundam, in particular, I was a bit lazy. I'd planned to do drybrushing on it but I was going for a contest deadline, and I ran out of time. That project was mostly about the rejointed arms, anyway. The Battroid has more weathering on it, but I tried to do it in scale so it doesn't really jump out at you from a low-res photo. I want to start being a little more ambitious in my future projects: but I try not to go overboard. I think it's very important to keep weathering effects in the proper scale. The Guncannon does have shading, I think it's a nice subtle effect. I do think the visor might have been better if I'd left it gloss-coated. One of these days I may re-gloss it... but right now I'm more interested in the next big project. My Regult is, as you guessed, the Nichimo Regult. It's a pretty sweet little kit. I didn't think the seams were too bad, the main problem was that the panel lines (such as they are) didn't always line up. A lot of that I just left alone, because I didn't want to spend a lot of time on the Nichimos or use any advanced tools or techniques. (I was building them as demonstration pieces for the Mecha Modeling Workshop I organized for Anime Boston, so I didn't want to use any techniques that people would be unable to use in the workshop. I cheated just a little here and there - like using SGT to fill the screw holes (since you're familiar with the kit I'm sure you've noticed that the screw holes are conspicuously missing), and custom-printed water-slide decals on both kits. But most of the work was kept quite basic.) As for the seams themselves - after the parts were glued together with solvent glue it was just a matter of puttying and sanding. If the seam is recessed, fill it with putty. If it's raised, sand it down. If you're not sure if you're finished with the seam, wipe it clean and mark it with a Sharpie. If you can see the line, you have more work to do. It's also important to line up the parts as well as you possibly can before gluing them, even if you have to cut off the alignment pegs to do it. I spent a total of about 20 hours on the Regult - I was trying to work fast because I wanted to see if it would be feasible for people to finish their models in the time available in the class. (Clearly not!) But I used Tamiya putty - it's great stuff, check it out. As for the panel lines: I gave the model a gloss finish, then filled the lines with an acrylic wash (about 10 parts water, 1 part paint, something like that. And a tiny bit of dishsoap.) With the gloss finish, the wash can flow into the panel lines, and wipe cleanly off the surfaces where I don't want it. Gloss is important - if the model has a flat finish, the wash will get stuck wherever you put it. Then once the wash was done I re-dullcoated the model again. Even if you're going for a dirty look, the work should be precise. De-emphasize the things that indicate the object's true nature. (Seams, mainly) Get some Tamiya Putty, that stuff is excellent. Anyway, I look forward to seeing your future work. I really think that if you took care of those seams and refined the paint work a bit, there would be a significant improvement in your work. HWR's got good advice, too - if you don't get the seams perfect, at least keep the drybrushing and washes from getting in them. I believe he knows his stuff, too. Also, the wood glue casting sounds interesting... I may have to try that sometime. Another thing you may want to try for that sort of thing is Bondo polyester putty. It's pretty noxious stuff, but you can use it to make simple casts and molds (you can prevent the casting from bonding to the mold by using a layer of petroleum jelly) and it's very cheap - $10 for a big gallon can. I love those little Nichimo kits. They're so much fun. Check this thread out: http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=8583 It's mostly "clean-looking" models, so not necessarily where you would want to look for your styling cues, since you favor the weathered look, but there's some nice work with the little kits in that thread. Add some drybrushing for faded edges to some of those and I think it'd make for a pretty sweet weathered look. Check out Mervin's full-open Armored batt. I love that thing. Grayson: this isn't about gaminig mini style vs. model style, it's about precision and refinement in model work. There really is no way to ensure my critiques will be nice to hear without compromising their honesty. It's not as though I get off on cutting people down. And I certainly don't agree with "If you don't have something nice to say..." - at least not on a technical (as opposed to personal) level. If I don't say that I think sloppy work is sloppy to spare someone's feelings, the message doesn't get across. If people whose opinions I trusted hadn't told me my work was sloppy, I would have continued thinking it was very well done, and I wouldn't have improved to the extent I did. (Yes, my model work used to be worse than it is now. ) I will say this, though: I think I did sell his work short on the first pass. I'm still not liking the armored batt too much, but in addition to the fast packs I'm finding I like the browns on that super batt, too.

Well, yeah, but that's life... I'm not being mean here, I'm just pointing out that these are areas that need improvement. There's really no nice way to deliver an unpleasant message - but it needed to be said. It's fine to be happy with one's own work: but once you share that work, it'll be judged by the standards for the community. If that's not something an artist is prepared to accept, they might be better off not sharing their work. There is a wealth of knowledge here and in other places online among the more experienced modelers. I didn't have that when I started out, and I wish I had. It could have saved me a lot of trouble. I've since learned a lot from other modelers - often as not, because they brought up valid criticisms of my work that I may not have recognized on my own.

Whether I know anything about painting models, you can judge for yourself. I'm no WM Cheng either, but I'd say I know a thing or two: http://cybermodelcomp.com/apr04.asp?pic=tetsujin1 http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Works.../regult_01.jpeg http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Works...nnon_close.jpeg http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Proje...id/action2.jpeg As for miniatures, I know very little. I haven't done any minis or figures (unless you count Nichimo Macross kits as minis), but I've learned just a little bit about how it's done. As for the "white color of the plastic showing through"... read it again. That's not what I said. I said, "The white paint didn't seal out the injection color, so it's patchy and uneven". Yes, even if I didn't have that particular kit, I would know it's molded in green. That's exactly the problem. You need more layers of white. If you want to pass this as an intentional effect, I'd say it's a poor effect. It doesn't look like a weathered robot, it looks like a patchily-painted model kit. Weathering needs to be done in-scale. I saw the dust, too, but I wasn't critiquing the dust, just the model it's on. I hope you'll continue to build models and continue to improve your work, as we all must do. You should start with seam work: it can be difficult, but if you can improve your seam work your models will look a lot better. Then work on making a smooth, uniform paintjob. Then that can be the base for weathering. A little bit of drybrushing and well-placed discolorations can make a simple paintjob look killer.

Hey, if you post model photos on a model forum, people will post their honest reactions. I mean, what am I supposed to say? The seam lines are there, plain as day... the white paint didn't seal out the injection color, so it's patchy and uneven, he's got a nicely photographed close-up of the VF-1J's head and its white patches on the green visor... Face it, the models have problems. Maybe, though, he'll learn something while he's here and his next one will be better.

It's a good effort, but you've got seam lines all over the place and your paint work is kind of sloppy-looking, particularly the armored battroid. I'm not sure if that's intentional - but you should work on developing a basic, clean paintjob before you try to make things look weathered. I like the color work on the fast packs, however.

Why are the 'Raus so small?

Yeah, there are some issues but I think it looks nice. The most distracting to me is the red stripe on the chest - you can see where the decal sits on top of all the panel lines, and where there isn't a wash there... I think it's a good idea to mask and paint simple stripes like that when possible. And I saw the seam on the forearm that Stamen caught. But like I said, looks nice.

Or, as I prefer to say, "Best injection-molded mecha kit in all space, time, and alternate dimensions." I've built the non-fast pack version, I absolutely loved it. The thing is beautiful. It really changed how I looked at robot kits, and for a long time I lost interest in Gundam as a result.

I agree with what you're saying about saturation fire being a poor idea in open space, however, there's a flaw in your math. Your odds of hitting are based on single shots. If you have a .7% chance of hitting with one random shot, you have a 50% chance of hitting once with 100 random shots. If your odds of hitting a Gwazine with one random shot is 2.5%, the odds of hitting with 100 random shots climbs to 92%. So with those kinds of engagements, semi-random firing patterns could actually work. If each of the 10 ships on each side has at least two independent turrets, they can go through 100 shots (five each turret) in ten seconds or so.

- True, Gundam does suffer from Char recyclage syndrome. It has ever since F91 or so... I don't count Z and CCA as Char recyclage because it actually was Char, and he wasn't wearing a mask. - The main character-pilot and his father-robot maker is a very old standard in robot shows. I'm not entirely sure why. Gundam was one of the first shows to turn this premise around a bit (by making Amuro's father very cold, work-obsessed, and making Amuro's use of the Gundam a burden rather than a fun privelege - Zeta sort of repeated that, "but more so") but I don't think any show has really taken this standard to the extreme that Evangelion did. Then there's G Gundam... I think that's the last one. Three instances. - Well, let's look at that one. There's Amuro, of course, he had a great talent but he was also very clumsy for quite a while. He was also saved by the fact that he had vastly superior hardware at the start of the series. Camille wasn't trained in the military, but he was a mobile suit hobbyist and a skilled fighter. Judau from ZZ... there's no excuse for him, but that's ZZ for you. Quess in CCA was never really all that effective as a pilot... I can't really speak for F91 or V, or Turn A, but 0080, 0083 and 08th didn't feature this phenomenon at all. Seed took this to a whole new level, of course... but I think they explained it pretty well. - Yeah, Okawara pretty much sucks these days. I love a lot of his older work, the old Gundam designs, the Scopedog, etc... The first half of Seed had some pretty good designs, most of which were not done by Okawara - but really I think Gundam design has been all downhill since after 0083. Izubuchi made some pretty kick-ass designs for 0080 and CCA, though, and there's all kinds of cool stuff in Zeta. - Well, those are two of the most effective weapons when a large portion of the human population lives in space, and there's a bunch of large, heavy objects orbiting the Earth... though practically speaking it'd take a crazy amount of energy to de-orbit something like that. Orbital drops make for good action-drama, though: once the object's course is set, there's a certain amount of time before impact (which would cause massive damage), and stopping it takes incredible force... so the battlefield has a well-defined scope and goal, as well as a time limit. But when's the last time they used this? Wing? Gundam X maybe? (I haven't seen all of it.) Seed had nukes and superlasers... but no gassing.

The backstory goes like this: the reactors used by the ships and MS put out the particles in some quantity. To be effective as ECM they need to put out more - so now and then in the original series (or most anything else through CCA) you'll hear them issue orders to broadcast Minovsky particles. I don't know if they fought any MS battles without ECM-level Minovsky particles. I don't know the specifics beyond that. Frankly, it's just a plot device to make mobile suits, and especially close combat between MS, practical within the context of the story. If you look at the backstory materials provided with 08th MS Team DVDs and such, they say that the Zeon leaked info about MS development to the federation early on, claiming the units were for construction, and the feddies' reaction was that they were ridiculous large-scale toys. That would seem to indicate that before the use of the particles in warfare was understood, MS were not practical weapons. The Minovsky premise is rather silly, but it serves an important purpose: it gives us robot animation that looks cool, along with an explanation of why we get that effect. One would expect space combat to take place over very long range - dozens or hundreds of miles. You do see some of that going on in DYRL and some Gundam material, but combat over that kind of range isn't something that can be presented effectively in a TV or movie animation. It's too big. The Minovsky premise brings everything to knive-fight range, so you get things like beam sabers and hand-to-hand combat between robots. In Macross that effect is explained differently: most small units are fast enough that they're hard to hit with long-range beams, and all units are very good at shooting down missiles. Either way, the anime needs a set of rules in place to make humanoid robots and combat within the bounds of the screen work. Gundam's approach just happens to sound more like a bad episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. As for the missile question: you do see more missiles being used in Zeta, ZZ, and CCA.

Gundam at its best is great stuff. Zeta in particular was very strong, I think it's incredibly rare for a sequel to turn out so well. There were a lot of cool mechanical designs in Zeta as well. Gundam in general... these days it really is formulaic, tuned to what people will want. But the thing is, that's effective. Seed had a lot going for it - some good combat, a few nice designs, but above all it was very polished. One of the main things Gundam had going for it before Seed was momentum: it was pretty much the most popular robot show in the early '80s, and now a lot of the people who grew up with it are now adults who remember it fondly - much as a lot of 25-30 year olds in the US fondly remember Transformers. There were a lot of shows in the '90s that tried (and mostly failed) to consume that momentum for more profit - but I think Seed's the first one in a long time to turn that energy into something really impressive. As for Macross... it's just a different beast. I think that it's done pretty well despite everything. It is popular, but there's no mecha series as popular as Gundam right now. I'm just happy they made Zero. It's great stuff.

Or we could, you know, buy the Bandai rereleases of these same kits on Hobby Link Japan. I think the one post on the auctions forum was quite sufficient.

I look forward to hearing how that works out - it'll help me when I try to advise other people trying to get into airbrushing. Maybe another option would be to get yourself a reasonably large tank (maybe 10 gallon or so) and a noisy-but-cheap compressor capable of filling the tank. That way filling the tank is convenient and you'll have a reasonable amount of work time (maybe) - and you'll just have to deal with the refilling noise when the air runs out. (You could go somewhere else while it's refilling, I guess...) On the other hand, it sounds like you won't really have a dedicated work area, so lugging a 10 gallon tank out to the yard and back probably isn't a great prospect. I guess the capacity of tank you want depends on your needs. For me, the 2 gallon (?) tank on my CH compressor, pressurized to 100 PSI by the compressor, is (without refilling) adequate for a substantial piece of work but not a large amount of work. I could maybe fill the tank, and spray all the parts of a 1:144 Gundam kit with 1 layer of paint, and then need to refill the tank. Working normally (that is, refilling the tank any time the pressure drops to around 50 PSI) I probably refill the tank 6-8 times or more during a single session. If you're taking the tank somewhere to be pressurized, then they may fill it up to a higher capacity than what my CH can muster... that and a larger tank would give you more work time, but I don't know in practical terms how much. But as you've said, you're mainly looking right now to spray base coats with this thing... so a lower capacity may be OK. As for quick-disconnects... I was looking into that when I bought my Iwata recently. It just didn't seem to be worth it. Those things are pretty expensive, and I actually don't disconnect my airbrush from the air supply so often anyway.

I have to say, though, as much as I love the VF-1, the VF-0 has a lot more depth to it. It makes the VF-1 look a little blocky and simplistic by comparison, especially in aircraft mode.

I think my CH said something about being "quiet" on the packaging - that's probably relative to compressors made for power tools and the like. Tough to say. Otherwise it sounds comparable to mine. Maybe ask the folks in Wal-Mart if you can turn it on in the store - that's what I did.

Consider this: You can use most dual-action airbrushes exactly as you would use a single-action airbrush: generally they'll have a trim wheel or some such for locking the paint flow at a certain point, then you can just press the trigger to control air flow, as you would with a single-action airbrush. You can grow into the features of a dual-action airbrush as you become more comfortable with them - or you can just learn dual-action from the start, and make it a part of your mental model of airbrushing from day one - and then learn to do it better, including fancy tricks like fine lines (which I can't do) when you're ready... Or not. I mean, I don't want to be bossy or anything.

Bean crock! We thank you for your opinion. But are more thankful that you were not specific. Suffice to say that none of your comparisons really seemed to have any connections to each other. Like the Max & Millia wedding thing... is there really any connection there other than "people getting married"?? It's all like that. You've tied all these bits of scripture to bits of the Macross story, but none of it really makes any sense, or else has only the most superficial connections.

What a crock...

Looks like Steel Batallion to me, but I'm not sure.

I use Gunze acrylics sometimes. They seem very similar to Tamiya, actually - alcohol smell, general behavior, etc. My air compressor is the "Wal Mart" variety, a Campbell Hausfeld with a small pressure tank built-in. It's not really a quiet compressor, but it's quiet enough that I don't think it disturbs my neighbors (I live in an apartment - I did my best to figure out how much noise it makes, and it seems from 1-2 rooms away the noise is minimal.) and the pump only runs when the tank needs to be refilled. $100. My particular compressor has some overheating problems, however - if the pump is run too frequently, it can overheat and shut itself down for a while. I don't know if this is such a problem on newer CH compressors - but generally if I'm running into that problem, it probably means I'm using too much pressure or working too fast anyway. Personally I think that general style of compressor is a great way to go, as long as you're OK with one minute of noise out of every 5-10 or so of work.

Why the high premium on super-quick cleanup? Personally, I'd really recommend going to a Paasche VL or some such. It is siphon-feed and comes with a big siphon bottle as well as a small siphon cup. Usually I'll spray different colors all from the one siphon-cup, spraying thinner in between each and only doing more thorough cleaning if the color change really requires it or at the end of the session. I guess external-mix would still be a quicker color change and cleanup, but I don't have much faith in the capabilities of such things.