What is lying on your workbench?

[specr0101]

Kurt,

Love the camo job. I'd be afraid to ask the cost of such nicely commision work!

[Mule]

I've always loved the pose of that biker scout. It's unusual in that it sort of shows the human side of an Empire soldier... some enlisted guy just hangin' out on his bike.

The paint job and basing work look great.

[buddhafabio]

i am courious, does any one recomend a paint for airtcraft hydrolic fluid?

[Kylwell]

i am courious,  does any one recomend a paint for airtcraft hydrolic fluid?

398315[/snapback]

I use either Tamiya smoke or clear red and a really fine brush. I use the smoke for oil and the red for hydraulic fluid. Don't know what I'd use for coolant. Anybody make a clear neaon green/yellow?

[HWR MKII]

tamiya clear green would work fine for puddled coolant.

[buddhafabio]

thanks

[physioguy]

Not Macross, but on my workbench. After doing my manly diecast Monster custom, I got really girly and customized my cutsy little Pinky Street dolls into Kill Bill girls.

Edited May 13, 2006 by physioguy

[Sdf-1]

Damn those are good!

[dyowelb]

Not Macross, but on my workbench.  After doing my manly diecast Monster custom, I got really girly and customized my cutsy little Pinky Street dolls into Kill Bill girls.

Nice. Those really looks good.

How did you customize them? What materials did you use.

Thanks,

-d

[Omega One]

hi guys!! here is what I´ve been working so far, kind of a slow work , but it´s getting there....

Regards

[big F]

Not Macross, but on my workbench.  After doing my manly diecast Monster custom, I got really girly and customized my cutsy little Pinky Street dolls into Kill Bill girls.

I was looking at the Pinky Street dolls while in Tokyo thinking about what macross customs I could do to them. Shame I never bought any. Oh Well theres alway September. Great work.

Omega One Looking good so far. The Cobra is one of my favorites.

[physioguy]

For the Kill Bill girls I had to use sculpey for the school uniform jacket and for all of lucy liu's clothes and the nurse's outfit and hair. All the rest were just painted up parts from various pinky dolls, and the accessories were just extra things i had lying around.

thanks for the kind words

[EXO]

Not Macross, but on my workbench.  After doing my manly diecast Monster custom, I got really girly and customized my cutsy little Pinky Street dolls into Kill Bill girls.

399275[/snapback]

Too cool!

[David Hingtgen]

A little late here but---

Coolant for what? What type of plane?

[Kylwell]

A little late here but---

Coolant for what?  What type of plane?

399805[/snapback]

er, any plane that has coolant? Just trying to simulate that neon green look car coolant (and the small aircraft I've worked with) has.

[HWR MKII]

piston powered acft will have radiators and coolant. Newer jet aircraft will only have oil fuel and hydro leaks.

[David Hingtgen]

That was my point/question---if it was going to be for a Valk, coolant would likely be inappropriate.

Also AFAIK, green-dyed coolant is only used in the smallest of piston powered planes, and non-military. You're much more likely to find it left clear or colored pink in larger props and military planes, I think.

[SpacePirateNeko]

AT AT completed this is my first airbrushed model.

Youll notice one of the legs is backwards. This is due to generic instructions on Amt's part and because i generally have all the parts off the tree when i airbrush em. The top of the leg and the bottoms they join to all look identical making it easy to overlook that when combined later on with the "piston" it could possibly be aimed n the wrong direction.

Oh well i didnt discover it until the end and wasnt going to rip the thing apart.

The weathering was done with mostly pastels since the colors are pretty basic and simple here.

Next up either a monogram f9f panther or i might keep it simple for now and make a tie defender and b wing since both require only two colors and im just getting used to the airbrush

[Kylwell]

uhm, actually 3 of the legs are on backwards.

sorry

[SpacePirateNeko]

Not Really ...see the upper and lower parts of the legs are seperate pieces ...so i had the option of making one leg look obviously backwards by having it be the only one with the piston on the outside.

The part of the upper leg has an indentation and a really "hey this is a model !" look to it and was meant to be hidden so i didnt want them showing and opted to just have the pistons on the outside thus making t look like only one leg was screwy. ie the only leg which was actually put together the right way is the bad leg lol

eiher way it doesnt bother me too much its a pretty tall model and only someone into hardcore star wars would know off the bat they belong inside.

[Kylwell]

Actually, it wrong too. Pistons on the inside but the serrated lines on the upper leg are supposed to match up with the serration's on the joint.

Nice paint on it. Looks nice ('cept that leg thing).

Edited May 20, 2006 by Kylwell

[Sdf-1]

I wonder would it be possible to dissamble it still. I know I would have to try it.

[SpacePirateNeko]

Actually, it wrong too. Pistons on the inside but the serrated lines on the upper leg are supposed to match up with the serration's on the joint.

Nice paint on it. Looks nice ('cept that leg thing).

400709[/snapback]

Thats what i was saying

The top part of the leg and the bottom part are two seperate pieces

I could basically turn the whole leg around and thus have the pistons on the inside but that would reveal the top hinge on teh backside of the leg which is really ugly and unnatural.

so i opted to just leave the legs turned pistons out to hide a worse appearance.....the top parts of the leg are on correctly the bottoms arent

As for dissasembling....honestly not worth it

The glue i use melds plastic together and if it was within the day i could prob rip it apart but thats been glued for months.

besides the model was only 9 bucks =) ill build another one someday

[Kylwell]

And I understand the flaws in those Ertl/AMT instructions. A few of the diagram are so vague & poorly drawn I gave up and used the box art as ref.

Why, why can't we get somebody decent to master a new version of some of the classic SW verhicles...like Fine Molds. Just wish they've move into a bigger scale.

[SpacePirateNeko]

I just wish we could get fine molds star wars models at a faster rate

i cant wait to pick up the falcon

but i want fine molds walkers and and destroyers

[David Hingtgen]

I want a Fine Molds Star Destroyer. The AMT one is the only kit that has such poor fit that even when I was only 10 years old I realized it had huge gaps and ill-fitting parts when building it. Well, tried. I don't think I ever did get it together.

[honneamise]

I should be busy casting Ghost kits, but this week I needed to get rid of this Trumpeter SU-15, a commission that had been gathering dust on my bench for months.

The kit looked like Tamiya in the beginning but turned out to be a dog after some time. Wrong nose angle, inconsistent plastic surface: rough and smooth mixed up on all the big parts, just what you need for a silver finish , some parts super thin, others totally clumsy, many decals went to pieces when I tried to apply them. One of the red stars broke in 12 pieces, took me about an hour to fix this one alone. If I really count the hours against what I get for this kit I´m going to cry....

This was my first build of a Trumpeter kit and I must say they need to evolve a long way until they are on par with Hasegawa or Tamiya. Still, the plane is quite beautiful.

[Grayson72]

Man look at the nose on that thing, looks really great though Thorsten

how old was the kit, I've heard nothing but good things about Trumpeter but I only collect the 1/32 kits.

[specr0101]

Very clean job...Nicely done!

[honneamise]

Man look at the nose on that thing,  looks really great though Thorsten

how old was the kit, I've heard nothing but good things about Trumpeter but I only collect the 1/32 kits.

404262[/snapback]

Chad you should look at it from above, my GF said with that nose it looks like what most men dream of... what were the Russians thinking?

The kit was brand new BTW. It seems they use a strange kind of plastic. Bends easily and you could scribe it with a pencil I guess.

If you have a kit molded in silver you often see streaks with darker/differently pigmented plastic in it, seems to have something to do with the pouring process. You usually paint it over and that´s it, just a pain for those who don´t want to paint their kits. Now Trumpeter seems to have the same problem but with grey plastic. No coloured streaks here but there areas with a totally smooth surface next to one with a rough, grainy surface. Even with the soft plastic this is hard to even out with sandpaper. The effect is not that noticeable, if you have a camouflaged jet you might not even notice it, but with my silver finish I had a real problem.

I don´t know if I have a "typical" Trumpeter kit here or if this particular one is was just made on a bad day.... same with the decals, no reviews on Trumpeter kits state any of these issues, neither with the plastic nor the decals. Just bad luck I guess.

But still, I even forgot to state that the wings had the wrong angle, the plane looks like a Harrier if you don´t correct this, and the angle of the tail fins is "F-4 Phantom" if you don´t remodel the mating surfaces and install some plugs to hold them in place. Trumpeter tried hard to get all the rivets right but some of the more important parts were not well thought out.

A friend bought their Savoia-Marchetti SM-79 and a FW-200 Condor recently (both 1/48). He said they look great at first sight but they are so full of errors in dimensions, shapes and details that there is no chance to fix them. I´m not sure if this applies to all of their kits (I mean they SHOULD be able to get their domestic MIG versions right) but I´m warned now - recessed panel lines are less important than an authentic shape in my book.

And Chad, I hope you won´t change your name to Grayson32 one day?!

[David Hingtgen]

I've always thought a lot of Trumpeter planes seem like they took your standard Jane's 3-view as absolute gospel and their only source. A 3-view will not make an accurate 3D model. Trumpeter planes are often either amazing, or pretty poor. Respectively--tons of photos and research, or fed a 3-view into a rapid prototyper.

They seem to do consistently better on their ships, many of which are among the best ships money can buy. (Though their 1/700 Iowa class have issues)

[honneamise]

I've always thought a lot of Trumpeter planes seem like they took your standard Jane's 3-view as absolute gospel and their only source.  A 3-view will not make an accurate 3D model.  Trumpeter planes are often either amazing, or pretty poor.  Respectively--tons of photos and research, or fed a 3-view into a rapid prototyper. 

Amen to that! Proper research takes a lot of time- why make the effort when you can use it to crank out 20 more kits? Oh these modern times.... The bad thing is that even the kit reviewers seem to like a model as long as it has those finely engraved panel lines. It seems an accurate shape is  considered secondary.

I´ve just taken a look at the Trumpeter FW-200. An IPMS member built the kit and he has nothing but praise for it. At ONE glance you can see that the whole fuselage is far too rouded in cross section, like a He-111, while the actual FW-200 is  rather boxy.  As you said, it is obvious that the Trumpeter guys used ONE 3-view at best. The Revell kit , despite its heavy riveting, is far superior, and you can always engrave detail but you can´t change a shape that easily....

They seem to do consistently better on their ships, many of which are among the best ships money can buy.  (Though their 1/700 Iowa class have issues)

404424[/snapback]

Their ships look better, but I think issues like wrong cross sections are even more easily overlooked in the "naval department". People tend to praise this exquisitely detailed bofors quads but don´t see a wrong bow section that easily (as in the Hornet kit). Another example is their "Pittsburgh" cruiser family (1/700) which has the whole armour belt/bulge assembly upside down(!)

Modern processing techniques mean nothing when there is no devotion to the subject involved. Trumpeter are just copying the "look" of a well researched and executed japanese kit but they don´t actually pay anyone for an in-depth-research. Even with the ships, I rather stick to the old brands. IMO there is no better Battleship kit than the old 1/400 RICHELIEU from Heller (does anyone even know that ship? )

[doodler7]

what's up fellas,

not much on my workbench, or drawing desk ... i've been working on my PG RX-78-2 for a while ... i'm planning to beef it up with twin-canons in the back and in the front, a couple of bazookas.

i'm seeing great stuff on this topic, keep 'em coming. maybe i can get some tips on weathering and air brush application.

the parts i'm using are of course the PG kit, a 1993 1/60 HG kit and the 1999 B-club FA-78-1 armor conversion parts.

i'll probably skip the normal green color and stick with the white, blue, red and gray.

Edited June 2, 2006 by doodler7

[Berttt]

Here a couple of things:

1/48 scale Hind:

1/72 Starfury, I used it for scribing practice and couldn't be bothered researching it, so panel lines are totally arbitrary:

1/72 scale DML StuG IV Late:

And last but not least, Hasegawa YF-19:

Cheers,

Berttt

Edited June 9, 2006 by Berttt

[jardann]

Great stuff there Berttt!