Less than Super Ostrich

Monsters in Motion is a joke... those guys define un-professionalism. Never return emails and very unhelpful on the phone. Stick with Valkyrie's VF-4... just for the customer service and to support our own macrossworlder!

i thought it was over-weathered too. but the kit that he is selling is unpainted, so hypothetically you could weather it as you see fit.

awesome... did any of you catch that Blackaces Macross Zero battroid resin kit that's on Ebay? it's apparently the one from the most recent wonderfest.

Here is the chocolate chip I was talking about on my "Desert Ostrich":

Looks like a mod deleted it. that truly pisses me off. it may have been an off topic post, but some of us are like a family here. and when you do stuff like that it really hurts that. i think you're decision to delete it was really really bad form.

can someone tell me where they moved my post? it was about my new kid. Thanks, Brian

It's called Techmages... kinda a stupid name, but some nice guys. They meet once a month up at Venture Hobbies in Wheeling, IL. I've only been once, but I really enjoyed it. Techmages Website

get in line, rocco.

There is a local group of sci-fi modelers in Chicago that meet once a month... one of the crew, Terry Miesle (a frequent poster on Starshipmodeler.com) made this YF-21... I thought he did a very good job. His VF-1D also won a prize at this year's Wonderfest held down in Louisville. His award winning VF-1D

Squadron putty has its uses for small areas that aren't too susceptible to pressure damage. For an area that needs some strength, I've used milliput and been very pleased.

thanks much.... i did not know that you were suppose to seal the undercoat! Wow, what a mistake... no wonder I was getting so frustrated! What a critical step!

I'm clearly not a guru, but I will chime in anyway. Pre shading is the process of putting a slightly lighter coat on over a slightly darker coat. It only works with an airbrush. Imagine a box as your panel... paint the box a dark gray... then begin painting the center of your box with the light gray. slowly spray in circles around the center until you come close to the edge of the box. The theory is that the lighter shade will blend into the darker shade as it approaches the panel line. Looks very nice if done properly... personally, I have not made it work for me very well. The post shad is basically applying the darker shade directly on the panel line after you have applied the lighter shade evenly across the model. I believe this is what WM Cheng does. Beware, though, it takes a very steady hand, and much more difficult to recover from if you mess up, from what I hear. Very thin and light and straight lines with the airbrush are the key.

right down the middle... the fuselage of the plane meets right behind the small set of wings (which are behind the cockpit). Ugly break... but a decent recovery.

Ok... alot has happened since the last pic. I washed off the first coat due to my failure at pre-shading (don't worry wmcheng... i haven't given up yet, but still don't think I'm going to try it on this one). I snapped the model in half in the process. I epoxied it back together and had to re-putty, re-sand, and re-prime the whole thing. Yes... call it my battle scars of modeling! Here is the rebuilt VF-4... I've done a coat of off-white again. I plan to do an oil wash and charcoal pastel weathering after I do the cockpit and other details. (p.s. do you like my little coat hanger stand? got the idea from wmcheng on the elintseeker build up.)

i had a "desert scheme" valkyrie on the old board. it was desert camouflage called Chocolate Chip can someone bring a link to that one?

Definitely pin it!

you guys are being too kind... and I appreciate the positive response... but I gotta admit, I am a little disappointed with the progress of the model. I tried again tonight to get the pre-shading effect right with no luck. I ended up stripping all the paint off an starting over. I think I'm just going to paint it "newish" with a black wash for the panel lines. The pre-shading and post-shading are just to difficult for me at this point in my airbrushing education. Perhaps one day I'll be able to compete, but for now I am going to do it the simple way. I'll have some pics later.

Thanks much, WMC.. I'd never take constructive criticism the wrong way! I welcome it with open arms. The spray patterns were VERY haphazard (I am not happy about it, but since it will end up being mostly covered by the post shading, I'm not worried too much)... I have been trying to get the paint thinned, air pressure, and distance from model thing right... but only practice will make it happen, I think. The paint has been thinned to about 3 parts Tamiya paint and 1 part water. The pressure I use is about 15 psi. I hold the airbrush about 1/2 inch away. Do these stats sound right? I plan to do a post shading with an off white (hopefully with MUCH more accuracy than the pre-shade gray). If the pre-shading still shows through, I may dust it again with more off-white.... we'll see. The airbrush is a Badger 155 Anthem... it's selling point is that you are supposed to be able to only need one tip. It's my first airbrush, so I'm clearly not an expert. I have tried to be careful with it, but perhaps I need a new tip. I make sure to clean it after each use with windex.

What's the final paint scheme going to be? An off white plus any decals I can scrape up from old VF-1 models. I may be a little more creative on the other VF-4 I bought. How much time (a day) do you get to work on the VF-4? I only work on it about 1 night a week for a couple of hours on the weekend. Job and family keeps me pretty busy... where has all my free time gone? When did you pick up this piece? About a month ago from Valkyrie (another blatant advertisement!). What do you planned for the next model? Good question. I think I am going to hold off on that SDF-1 Cruiser mode resin kit (the G-System one). I've completed the bulk of the model, but I need to improve my airbrushing skills for that MoFo. I will likely try the Yukikaze Super Sylph. (However I hesitate trying to follow the Master Cheng, when he just finished that one a month ago!).

not sure if i'm supposed to post this here or in the How to Build a Macross Model section, but here goes anyway... VF-4 Build Up Thread

Now here is all the "In Process" models just waiting to be completed. My wife and I are expecting our second child any day now... so most of my free time is trying to help my wife get comfortable (watch out for those raging hormones!). I also want to wait until I get my basement remodeled to set up my spray booth area. I just got a new Paasche booth... and it looks great! Notice the Bandai Yukikaze Super Sylph and MAVE FRX-00. Also the Ma.K. models (I've never done one, but they look like soooo much fun). I think you can see the Low-Vis Yamato back there too!

whoops... here it is:

Ok... here is a brief fit. You can see that Valkyrie did a pretty good job with the vacuum forming cockpit cover. It is NOT easy to cut them to make it fit perfectly, but I think I'm close enough.

Ok... now here are some of the separate pieces. Man, I wish I had that fancy Alclad that WM Cheng used on his MAVE FRX-00 for those thrusters!

Next, here are the nacelles... I over sanded some of the panel lines on this... and I poorly rescribed most of them. I had particular trouble getting the panels surrounding the landing bay doors right... not a great fit. By the way, if you hadn't noticed yet... this will be an in flight VF-4 as I am building it with the landing gear up.