Zinjo Posted February 7, 2006 Posted February 7, 2006 Okay, who ever is the new MW admin should be assigned to developing a WM Cheng Buildups Hall of Fame! 366984[/snapback] I'd rather see him published in Fine Scale Modeller, for all to see! Quote
Berttt Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 Small Update: I am sure most people would like to here from WM but this will have to do ya. Almost there. This thing is killing me right now, anytime I feel like I close to finishing something gets in my way. Berttt Quote
jardann Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 That's a fantastic job Berrt! I'm expecting more from you in the future! Quote
azrhino Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 I am sure most people would like to here from WM but this will have to do ya. What, are you nuts? This looks great! It never ceases to amaze me that the quality of many of the model buildups on MW is so outstanding. Quote
wm cheng Posted March 21, 2006 Author Posted March 21, 2006 Fantastic work Berttt!! Yay! someone actually finally finished one of these babies (and it ain't me! ) Thanks for sharing - it really looks great. Are you going to weather your base a little more? I love seeing your work - please if anyone else has finished their boosters, I WANT TO SEE THEM. It gives me my fix when I don't have the time to build. Yes, my booster is on the back burner - I'm working now (thankfully!) and I've been sick with a flu. As soon as I have a moments time, I want to finish up the launch arm signal paddles (I've got the decals printed from my inkjet printer) and I'll post the photos along with the graphics if all goes well. That's first, then this booster (but probably detail up and decal the Yamato 1/48 GBP first - oops a toy! that might be a sin around here ) Then I just got my FineMolds Millenium Falcon too - that might throw me out of Macross for a few months if I ever get around to it! Quote
Dante74 Posted March 21, 2006 Posted March 21, 2006 WOW! Can't wait to see you do your magic on a GBP toy! Quote
Berttt Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 Are you going to weather your base a little more?382582[/snapback] Sure, it's not quite done yet. Like I said everytime I get it almost finshed..... Quote
Grayson72 Posted March 22, 2006 Posted March 22, 2006 Love the paint scheme, that's how I wanna do mine. Quote
Zinjo Posted April 22, 2006 Posted April 22, 2006 (edited) Beautiful Work!! Edited April 23, 2006 by Zinjo Quote
Berttt Posted September 23, 2006 Posted September 23, 2006 Well my booster is finally finished: Quote
Berttt Posted September 23, 2006 Posted September 23, 2006 Well my booster is finally finished: Cheers, Berttt Quote
MechTech Posted September 23, 2006 Posted September 23, 2006 That looks great. I agree that the colors look great too! - MT Quote
PetarB Posted January 23, 2007 Posted January 23, 2007 Oh god, I just found this thread. I really really really really want one of these now. And it seem SM has the masters and wont make any more yet, so I might go and make another post soon to hassle them... "QQ more" as we say in World of Warcraft... Quote
Grayson72 Posted January 26, 2007 Posted January 26, 2007 These should be available soon at the SM store, maybe a week or two. Quote
PetarB Posted January 29, 2007 Posted January 29, 2007 These should be available soon at the SM store, maybe a week or two. Quote
wm cheng Posted January 29, 2007 Author Posted January 29, 2007 I hope to be finishing up this model soon!! The baby is finally just over 6 months old (and she is fantastic!) - and the parents can now catch a breath!! I hope to be returning to this soon. I thought I'd get practiced with a Yamato 1/48 GBP-01 toy first, then move back onto this later in the week. Quote
PetarB Posted January 29, 2007 Posted January 29, 2007 Fantastic news all around. And hopefully by the time you post updates, I may have finally secured one... Quote
PetarB Posted March 16, 2007 Posted March 16, 2007 Bump for great justice, cause mine's about to arrive in the mail. Quote
Sdf-1 Posted March 16, 2007 Posted March 16, 2007 I thought I'd get practiced with a Yamato 1/48 GBP-01 toy first That sounds interesting as well! Quote
big F Posted March 16, 2007 Posted March 16, 2007 (edited) Its great to know that your getting time to do some more work. Equally its good to see others are inspired by your work. Edited March 16, 2007 by big F Quote
wm cheng Posted March 16, 2007 Author Posted March 16, 2007 Sorry guys... took a little vacation down south to the Caribbean with our daughter - then it was back to work... I got another job (much sooner than I anticipated). Its pretty crazy starting up again... so the booster is on the back burner, but its NEXT! Its pretty much assembled, only decalling and paint touchups. Come on all, lets see your Boosters! Inspire ME! ;-) Quote
PetarB Posted March 26, 2007 Posted March 26, 2007 My booster just arrived in the mail. It looks like the moulds are at the end of their life, so I guess I grabbed one of the last. Gonna need a lot of clean up, but I cannot wait to start. Unfortunately I will have to... a lot of other committments, but I hope to get it done within the next few weeks. In anticipation I did most of the Valk months ago. One thing which is slighly worrisome. one of the engine bells has a bit of a 'slant', but all the detail is fine. Not sure how im going to fix that... could I soak it in hot water for awhile? Quote
Berttt Posted March 27, 2007 Posted March 27, 2007 Throw up some pics and let's see what the issue is. Quote
PetarB Posted April 2, 2007 Posted April 2, 2007 Did some prep work on the weekend, and resolved the issue with a bit of judicious sanding. Not completely happy with it, but the way the placement goes, it shouldn't make a huge difference. Anyways, I can't wait to get painting on this beast. Quote
wm cheng Posted June 19, 2007 Author Posted June 19, 2007 Well, my first Father's Day! and the best-est present was 7 uninterrupted hours of modeling! Weird feeling getting back into the saddle. There were actual cobwebs in my workstation. I had to spend some time vacuuming the surfaces (didn't want the airbrush kicking up dust and debris) and finding all my stuff first. Then it was figuring where I left off and planning what steps to take to finish. I never took such a long break while in the middle of a model before. First thing was that I decided to mask and paint the black markings; the triangular patch near the front, the longitudinal stripe and the front intake slots. I used a circle template to get the size of the UN Spacy Kite symbol and masked that off so the black stripe didn't show through underneath (even thought the decal is white backed - black is a hard colour to opaque out). I then drew the triangular pattern on a piece of paper and cut it out to use as a template so that I can flip it to get the other side symmetrically the same. Then I used the good Tamiya masking tape to do the actual paint edge, followed by cheaper regular masking tape that I stuck first to my paints to remove some of the stickiness. Quote
wm cheng Posted June 19, 2007 Author Posted June 19, 2007 (edited) I spray lightly (in thin coats), especially when you want a crisp masked edge, its better to go light and build up in layers. Always spray from the masking side in towards the model, never spray against the masked edge - you don't want to drive paint under the tape. The airbrush took a bit getting used to after all this time. But I'm pretty happy with the results. If you notice the 3 vent slots are filled in with liquid mask from over a year ago - if you look closely, you will see that it has completely dried out and cracked so that it looks like the surface of the desert. This is my next nightmare to follow!! In fact these 3 vent details have been a thorn in my side for the entire process of this Booster kit. I decided it was time to remove the masking and expose the grill and engine detail work so that if there was any touch up to the edges of the vents that needed to be done during the masking removal, I could do it now before I get any of the decals down. Edited June 20, 2007 by wm cheng Quote
wm cheng Posted June 20, 2007 Author Posted June 20, 2007 In the meanwhile, whenever I had to wait for anything, such as the black stripes to dry, I started to decal the VF-1 Valkyrie, I started by doing all the large black stripes on it too! Best technique I've found is to trim as closely any excess carrier film from the decals. Wet the area on the plane with MicroSET setting solution (normally this just breaks the surface tension in the water and minimizes bubbles - but for some reason it actually attacked some of the Hasegawa decals - I don't know why, MicroSET is usually pretty harmless). I slide the decal onto the model with lots of water, and position it to where I want it. Then I use a wet paper tower folder over a few times and press down hard on the decal careful to not slide it out of place. This forces the decal down and onto the surface of the model and into all the contours, panel lines and rivet details. Once you see all that amazing detail show through (I still think the original VF-1 is still one of Hasegawa's best molded detailed kits ever!) the decals, I would then dab a little (very little) MicroSET solution only over the areas that have the most details - this softens the decals up and allow it to conform to all the little nooks and crannies. Becareful with MicroSET, this is powerful stuff on decals and the decals should never be moved after MicroSET is applied, the decals will become extremely fragile and may pucker or wrinkle a bit, but don't worry, if allowed to dried undisturbed, the decals will eventually flatten out and look like they were painted right on the surface will all the fine molding intact. After all the decals are done, I would do a very light panel line oil wash over just the decaled areas (ie; light grey over the black decals and dark grey over the light decals) to make the panel lines look uninterrupted over the decals. Quote
wm cheng Posted June 20, 2007 Author Posted June 20, 2007 ARGH!!! The nightmare begins! Ok, tip to any that care... do not let liquid mask dry out on your model!! Of course this doesn't happen overnight or in months, but over a year it can - especially in dry Canadian winters when you're workspace is beside the furnace. What should of been a 5 minute job and the joy of revealing work underneath (I've always love peeling liquid mask - it signals a stage where something that was hidden is finally revealed in all its glory, its quite cathartic - except in this case!) is now a 3 hour ordeal! The cracked bits of dried liquid mask flaked off in tiny bits, gumming up the fine mesh underneath. Also the dried mask intensified its pull on the painted vent edges underneath and pulled flakes of paint off with it as it came out. I basically surgically had to use a x-acto blade and needle-nosed tweezers to slowly pick at this stuff while trying to minimize the damage to the surrounding edges. Unbeknown to me, some of the liquid mask got underneath the masking tape over the mesh and seeped into all the tiny holes of the mesh - its what you see as some blue marks on the mesh, its not overspray, its the remnants of the liquid mask. Anyone know of a solvent for Microscale Blue Liquid Mask that won't also desolve my paint around the vents? So the tedious task of removing all this crap now befalls me, it took 3 hrs to do these three vents, there are 12 in total - so I thought I would attack one each night for the next twelve nights. And thats all I got in my 7 hours of Father's Day bliss! Hopefully I can sneek a little here and there, cause I really want to finish this up before more damage occurs on it while just sitting on my bench! Its the best part left which is all the decaling and weathering. Quote
cool8or Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 Wonderful colors! I'll try to follow this color scheme when I'll build mine... Congratulations! Quote
Gabe Q Posted June 20, 2007 Posted June 20, 2007 ARGH!!! The nightmare begins! *SNIP* So the tedious task of removing all this crap now befalls me, it took 3 hrs to do these three vents, there are 12 in total - so I thought I would attack one each night for the next twelve nights. Nightmare indeed. If it was me, I would just throw a coat of silver over the gummed up vents and call it a day. Oh well if I screwed up one small detail. Quote
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