Where the heck is Modelbaseguy

[modelbaseguy]

Hey gang I am so sorry that I have not chimed in here for awhile. I have been sooooooo busy with the bases that I have not had a chance to do much else. I mod another forum and that takes a great deal of time as well. I finally got a breather last week as the family and I got out of town for a few days. I just wanted to let you all know that we at The Model Base have not forgotten about you and that we are ready to start up on the next base design. This time we are going to leave up to a vote as to which design will be done next. The sizes will remain the same as the initial kite design, a 5" thick base and a 7.5" thin base.

Okay, so how does one create a poll here?

[Robert S]

I like the JR logo. Also you would get some cross over with the aircraft guys and is is the same logo for VF17/VF84/VF103

[Grayson72]

If you could post some mockup pics that might help ppl to decide easier.

A pic is worth 1024 words

[Gundamhead]

I like the JR logo.  Also you would get some cross over with the aircraft guys and is is the same logo for VF17/VF84/VF103

342463[/snapback]

Actually, the real Jolly Rogers is different by a noticable bit through the years.

[Robert S]

Thank you for the correction but I still think it would be close enough for most

[promethuem5]

I like the sounds of the Jolly Rogers and SDF-1 w/ Kite combos....

[modelbaseguy]

Well it seems that the Jolly Roger is what you guys want so that is what we will go with. We can offer the smaller base in the same level surface formats as the kite base or, if these bases would be for Aircraft only (no figures) we can add a little depth to the piece by raising what you see in black on the artwork below about a mm. The larger, thinner base would remain a smooth level surface like the large kite base with the outline of the Jolly Roger and the text engraved into the base. What do you guys think?

[Grayson72]

Love it, raised would be awesome!

[Aurora-7]

Edited November 16, 2005 by Aurora-7

[Aurora-7]

Oh, this is great! I can't wait to put my Battroid on it!

[Less than Super Ostrich]

For what it's worth, Modelbaseguy get big props in my book. I lent him a couple Macross videos (I think we have a new convert)... and he sends them back with an extra kite design base! Thanks Modelbaseguy... you're the best.

By the way, would it be ok if I bought your next base through SSM? I'm friends with John and Linda and I'd really like to help support their effort as well.

[Mechamaniac]

Will these bases support 1/48 Yammies?

[Less than Super Ostrich]

It could support a 1/48th, but it would be tricly. You'd have to be balance it very precisely on a metal rod. I don't think a normal acrylic rod (see my pic below) would be enough to support the Yammie. By the way... throw your toys away... models are for the big boys. (***GRAYSON!***)

Edited November 16, 2005 by Less than Super Ostrich

[Grayson72]

The 7" base would be great to stand a 1/48 battroid on. No rods would be needed and now you have your choice of a big kite or a Jolly Roger.

[Mechamaniac]

The 7" base would be great to stand a 1/48 battroid on.  No rods would be needed and now you have your choice of a big kite or a Jolly Roger.

345261[/snapback]

It would be really cool to have a sculpted base then. Something that looks like runway, or hull plating.

[modelbaseguy]

The 7" base would be great to stand a 1/48 battroid on.  No rods would be needed and now you have your choice of a big kite or a Jolly Roger.

345261[/snapback]

It would be really cool to have a sculpted base then. Something that looks like runway, or hull plating.

345273[/snapback]

So does anyone else like this idea? It can happen if there is enough interest.

[Grayson72]

I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about, a sculpted base, you mean around the outside of the skull on the edge or what?

[modelbaseguy]

Okay guys the Jolly Rogers are ready but I have not put them up on the web yet. I will try to get to it Monday morning, still trying to recoop from all that Turkey!

[modelbaseguy]

Well the Jolly Rogers have been up on the website for a couple of weeks now and..............................................................NOTHING, ZIP, ZILCH, NADA. Where is everyone that wanted one of these? We have both sizes available and we spent a lot of cash bringing them to you guys so why have we not sold the first one. I posted in here and in the Items for sale area but we have not heard a word from anyone. I thought from the response of the poll that the Jolly Roger was the next logical step, I guess that I was wrong. Got to say that I am disapointed with the luke warm results that our bases have gotten from the Macross fans. I think that for now we will stick to working for our customers that actully purchase our products. If and when there becomes a REAL interest from the Macross group perhaps we will get back into developing bases for the genré. Take care all and Happy Modeling!

[Aurora-7]

oof! I haven't checked for a while. You got an order coming up from me! This will look great for my Strike Fighter.

As for Macross fans, I think it's pretty nichie and next time you try a Macross related product run, try it on a pre order basis with only a definite go once a base number of pre-orders has been reached.

I for one am very gratefull that you were willing to make them at all. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought some one whould have bothered to make bases for this stuff! Keep the faith. E2046 is marketing a resin kit of the Regult battle pod so maybe once the word spreads of their availability there will be interest.

Is there any way you can get to a Japanese distributor? They'd eat it up but I don't know what kind of copyright issues there would be.

I'm part of a Macross Group Build over at the Fine Scale Models Magazine forum and I'll put a link there to the Macross bases page. Anyone else out there reading this, this could be your only chance to get something like this for your Valks!

Edited December 9, 2005 by Aurora-7

[armentage]

So I received my first Model Base Guy Macross base today. It's a Kite logo base.

It seems like a very nice, big heavy base. I'm a little dissapoint that it did not come pre-painted. I imagined that it would come painted, finished, polished, etc.

So I'm wondering, does any have stencils to make it easier to paint? White is hard to work with, and trying to put red down along a white edge is just asking for disaster. Since it's a curved image, it's going to be hard to do a nice clean mask with tape.

Model Base Guy, do you have any stencile outlines you could post for us to use?

[Aurora-7]

It seems like a very nice, big heavy base.  I'm a little dissapoint that it did not come pre-painted.  I imagined that it would come painted, finished, polished, etc.

353634[/snapback]

All that for $15.00? That would be too much to ask for.

But, I too, wouldn't mind some advice from Modelbaseguy on how to finish it. What you have on display on your site looks great.

Edited December 19, 2005 by Aurora-7

[Grayson72]

Guys, if you look in his site he tells you how to go about painting it.

Armentage, can't believe you thought you were gonna get a painted and polished...completely finished base for $15 bucks. Do you have any idea how much resin costs?

[armentage]

Yes, I know how much Resin costs.

That's why I expected a base made of some sort of cheap material, like wood or a cheaper plastic, perhaps a mass produced base from some other company, with a simple Macross layer attached. Or maybe a Macross logo printed & stickered on.

A giant piece of cast resin seems a little odd... I could see it for those intricate Star Trek bases, but not for a simple kite-logo base.

Honestly, ModelBaseGuy needs to put MANY more pictures on his site, of all his products, from multiple angles, painted and un-painted.

[Kylwell]

With as sharp of an edge as the MB bases has, paint isn't too much of an issue. Paint it white then brush gently out from teh edge. If youdo it right (and don;t allow your brush to flip down) you'll get a nice clean edge. If not, I'd suggest a liquid masking agent. Cover it all and trim/sand off the high points.

[armentage]

With as sharp of an edge as the MB bases has, paint isn't too much of an issue. Paint it white then brush gently out from teh edge. If youdo it right (and don;t allow your brush to flip down) you'll get a nice clean edge. If not, I'd suggest a liquid masking  agent. Cover it all and trim/sand off the high points.

353819[/snapback]

I was looking at it last night and thought something like that could work. Going over the edge with a black sharpie will really make it look clean, me thinks, as long as the tip is cut thin enough to fill the whole gap but not to spill out.

[modelbaseguy]

Armentage, sorry to disappoint but we try to offer the highest quality pieces at an reasonable price. One reason we use resin is the weight, so that when the model that you have just spent the last few weeks painstakingly puting together and painting will not topple over if the table it is sitting on gets bumped. I have had too many run ins with cheap plastic bases to allow that to happen with one of our products. As for mass production, well we are a small humble group literally working out of the basement of my house so we are considered a "Garage Kit" company. Because we are small we can make small batches of a specialized product and still offer them at a reasonable price which means you guys get the bases that you like. Try getting one of the "big" corporate model companies to produce decent bases for you, it ain't gonna happen. To understand why that is just take a look at what it takes to mass produce something as simple as a plastic base. First you must have a master base from which to work. Well you can just find those lying around so you have to hire a staff of artists and engineers to make that happen. The raw materials for the bases are cheap if you buy in mass quantities, say 15 tons. Plastic comes in pellets not liquid and the only way to make it liquid is to heat it up. To do that you need a foundry because you are not pouring up just a couple bases, no you are pouring gallons of scalding hot liquid plastic into a $50,000 + metal mold that will produce anywhere from 20 to 100 pieces at a time. An operation like this is not run out of someone's garage or basement oh no you have a staff of 100 or more that you have to pay wages, insurance and benefits to. Oh and then there is rent on the building where you house all of the expensive equipment that it takes to mass produce that cheap little base your company offers. And let's not forget the utilities to keep your business running, those furnaces don't generate the heat magically and it is hard to work in the dark or lift that molten hot bucket of liquid plastic without the use of some sort of hydraulic or electric crane and pulley system. Well now you have your bases all manufactured but now you need a package to put them in so now you have another creative staff just for your packaging and advertising needs. Then you sent this art to a printing company who makes the boxes or header cards that hold your individual bases. Your staff of customer service representatives and sales people take orders for your bases that you pay to have shipped to the retail locations where HOPEFULLY they sell. So you add all this up and you would have to produce and sell several thousand little bases just to break even. That is why you won't find any bases like the ones we produce coming out of the big companies because they cannot specialize, they must generalize just to stay afloat. That is one more reason I founded this little gk company because I could not find a good quality base for my starships. I started producing my own then for friends, then clients and the next thing you know we are in business. Now we are looking to the future and the possibility of producing resin kits because once again I see a need that the big boys are just not filling.

Now please, no one take this as a rant or that I am angry. I certainly am not but sometimes it is difficult to see what goes into that little inexpensive "thingy" until it is pointed out to you by someone in the biz. Heck I complained all the time about the cost of the figure kits that now reside in my collection that is until I had the process explained to me by a rather ticked off kit producer.

Moving on........ To paint the Kite base in particular I used.................... shhhhhh, come closer so no one will learn my secret...................................................................... .......................................................................................Self adheasive plastic wrap used in the kitchen. You know that new kind that has just a touch of "Post-It" adheasive on one side to help it stick to any kind of container. First I painted the entire base gloss white out of a spray can that I bought for .99¢ at (God help me) Walmart. I let this dry for a day but you don't have to wait that long just follow the instructions on the can, then I tore off a piece of the plastic wrap that was much larger than the base itself. I applied the plastic wrap to the base and really burnished it down around ALL of the edges between the shapes. Next I took an xacto knife with a fresh blade and traced all of the recessed lines in the base and then carefully removed the areas that would be painted red. Don't toss those pieces away you will need them later. Now taking another .99¢ can of spray paint I sprayed red over the entire piece, let that dry for the proper amount of time and replaced the pieces of plastic wrap I had previously removed. Now on the outside edge I trimmed the plastic wrap away to reveal the beveled edge of the base and painted that with, you guessed it a .99¢ can of flat black paint. Once the last coat of paint had dried thoroughly I removed the plastic wrap and began to clean up any edges where paint slipped under, not many of those. Up to this point all of the paint that I have used is enamel so now I switched to a jar of Modelmaster Acryl semi gloss black paint. I thin this about 50% and begin applying it to the recessed lines in the base. Just load up a medium sized brush with the thinned paint and touch one of the recessed lines capillary action will do the rest. Once you have all of the recessed lines filled just let the paint dry for 10 mins and then come back with a q-tip "moist" not "wet" with water and touch up any areas that you painted outside the lines. Because acrylic will not adhear to enamel this should be an easy cleanup. Let the paints continue to cure out for another day or so and then spray the entire base with your favorite clear coat to seal your work. Mount your model to the base and knock the socks off your friends and would be competetors at the next model contest.

I hope that this helps and if you are not asleep by now from reading this looooooong post I wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year. Take care all while traveling over the holidays and hey if you get some time, build a model, stick it on one of our bases and send it to me. I just love seeing what you guys come up with.

[Grayson72]

Oh man that touch and seal plastic wrap is a friggin' awesome idea, didn't even think of that.

Thanks dude!

[armentage]

What's this plastic seal stuff called?

We don't really have Walmart's and Super Markets where I live, just litlte stores, so I have to call around for an exact product before I go shopping

[modelbaseguy]

It is Glad's Press n Seal plastic wrap. I have found it in grocery stores as well.

[Less than Super Ostrich]

By the way, I love my base!