David Hingtgen Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 Yes, Future brushes better than anything else on the planet--but it's not just "gloss-like" it is the glossiest gloss there is. New cars aren't as shiny as a nice coat of Future. Also, in my experience, "flattening" Future doesn't work well. You can cover it with flat coats, but mixing in a flattening agent to try to make it dry flat either makes it turn white or splotchy. (I tried many ratios, none worked well or consistently)
promethuem5 Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 (edited) Yes, Future brushes better than anything else on the planet--but it's not just "gloss-like" it is the glossiest gloss there is. New cars aren't as shiny as a nice coat of Future. Also, in my experience, "flattening" Future doesn't work well. You can cover it with flat coats, but mixing in a flattening agent to try to make it dry flat either makes it turn white or splotchy. (I tried many ratios, none worked well or consistently) Huh. I mixed Future 50/50 with Vallejo Satin Varnish and sprayed it straight thru my airbrush on a vinyl figure today over top of some heavy Future sealing coats and it worked like a charm ti provide a less glossy but not satin finish. The straight Future sealed parts look like candy, and the half and half sprayed parts are just a knock less shiny to differentiate. For most of the things I paint at this point, I'll use three healthy coats of Future sprayed thru my AB as sealer, followed by whatever finish sealer I need (matte, satin, or just leave it shiny Future). I got sick of buying rattle can topcoats. Edited November 23, 2009 by promethuem5
David Hingtgen Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 A "knock less glossy" is a far cry from 'flat'. I could get a sort of satiny finish, but let me know if you can get a FLAT finish from Future. (I was mainly using Tamiya flat base in my experiments, as it's what's listed in Swanny's Future guide)
promethuem5 Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 A "knock less glossy" is a far cry from 'flat'. I could get a sort of satiny finish, but let me know if you can get a FLAT finish from Future. (I was mainly using Tamiya flat base in my experiments, as it's what's listed in Swanny's Future guide) OK, I understand what you meant now, but I guess I don't understand the reason. Like I said above, I use Future as my catch-all sealer now, and then just have other varnishes of varying finishes for the final coat, if needed. I use an artists' UV Polymer Varnish (matte) for my dead-flat coats now... picked it up from an art supply store in a big-ass jar like two years ago (brand: Golden Varnish) and have never looked back... you can think it to just about the same consistency as Future and airbrush it in two coats to the most perfectly dead flat I have ever seen... it's perfect for stuff like tanks and whatnot, and I love to finish most of my vinyl customs in dead flat as well. For 'just satin' I just spray or brush the Vallejo stuff. Vallejo Matte has just a bit of a sheen to it, but it has its uses, and their Gloss has a nice plasticy look that can be useful in some applications.
David Hingtgen Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 What I'd really like is a brushable flat coat. Future brushes great--but I rarely have need for a gloss coat.
promethuem5 Posted November 23, 2009 Posted November 23, 2009 (edited) Like I said, artists' matte varnish... water soluble and thins down no problem to a brushable or sprayable mix. Most cost effective and most dead flat finish I've found. EDIT: Take a look at some of my pics... pretty much anything with a flat finish has either been sprayed or brushed with the stuff. EDIT2: Here's an example: All the teeth and claws were brush painted with thinned down artists' matte varnish. This shot provides a pretty good contrast with the shiny viny Edited November 23, 2009 by promethuem5
Noyhauser Posted November 24, 2009 Posted November 24, 2009 What I'd really like is a brushable flat coat. Future brushes great--but I rarely have need for a gloss coat. Polly scale flat finish; if you can find it. I've started using it lately from my airbrush where it goes on amazing... and I've heard similar rave reviews from others. I recently used it on this 1/72 Hayate which had a Alclad polished aluminum finish underneath and you can see the difference even with the cruddy cellphone.
David Hingtgen Posted November 24, 2009 Posted November 24, 2009 While Pollyscale is my fave paint, I don't like any of their clears.
Remko Posted November 29, 2009 Posted November 29, 2009 Long time since I posted here... Anyhoo, I ordered the Bandai 1/72nd snap-kits from HLJ. Not all of them, but Luca's with the three ghosts, Michael's (special Klan Klang livery), Ozma's armored unit and the VF-27 Lucifer. So far I received the Lucifer. Man what have I gotten myself into... I thought that these would be nice and easy to built kits (I don't have any time to properly paint them so...), but I opened the box and almost got a heart attack! So many pieces... Oh well, when I finally have some time for them I'll start the build. If anyon's interested in out-of-the-box pictures, just let me know.
regult Posted November 30, 2009 Posted November 30, 2009 welcome to the club...I have only one built (plain Alto), unpainted and lousily applied decals. The rest of the boxes stay untouched (and stored somewhere)
Funkenstein Posted November 30, 2009 Posted November 30, 2009 I got a Michael , a lot of the moving parts have been broken. It has its decals, but you can see the forward wheel well complete broken and just glued together. Some of the design choices for moving parts are pretty terrible.
jardann Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 While Pollyscale is my fave paint, I don't like any of their clears. David, I'd suggest you give Vallejo's clear flat a try. I haven't actually brushed the clear flat, but I have tried several of the colors and they have worked very nicely. They give a much nicer result with a brush than Tamiya or Testor's acrylics.
CF18 Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 VF-27β, two head units, 5500 yen, Feb 2010 source
Ignacio Ocamica Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 This is great, more VF-27 goodness I'm waiting for my Brera's VF-27 to arrive!!!
David Hingtgen Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 2 head units? I don't recall seeing a variation. Presumably one of them is Grace's---though I don't recall ever seeing hers in battroid mode. Or really, seeing any of the green ones in battroid mode.
Kelsain Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 2 head units? I don't recall seeing a variation. Presumably one of them is Grace's---though I don't recall ever seeing hers in battroid mode. Or really, seeing any of the green ones in battroid mode. Based on that pic, it looks like it has smaller 'ears' than Brera's.
electric indigo Posted December 1, 2009 Posted December 1, 2009 2 head units? I don't recall seeing a variation. Presumably one of them is Grace's---though I don't recall ever seeing hers in battroid mode. Or really, seeing any of the green ones in battroid mode. Kind of - there is a pretty large headshot in one of the later episodes. But it's the same head as Brera's, only green.
Jarrod Posted December 2, 2009 Posted December 2, 2009 Got my VF-27 yesterday and quickly snapped it together...gonna be a few weeks until I can paint it tho:( Altogther it builds pretty similar to the VF-25, but with enough differences to not make building it boring. And overall, I think it's definitely an improvement over the Messiah. Some points to note: Pros: -Fighter mode is SOLID! The hips tab into the intakes, the legs tab into the backplate, and the wings tab into legs. The arms hold in alot better too. -Wings actually lock in the folded up position in battroid, so no floppy wings. -Neck/head mechanism is just smoother and works better, and it locks firmly into place. -The hip/waist connection for Battroid is now a strudy, securing hook instead of the the fragile tab. -Waist flap-thingy is works alot better, and stays fully deployed. -No trying to tint the damn canopy!!! Cons: -Same stupid falling off front landing gear doors. -The shoulders do indeed look just as undersized in person, and I do feel the chest is too wide as well. -Lots of tiny decals...ugh. Havent' built the gunpod yet, but it looks huge!
Midi_Amp Posted December 2, 2009 Posted December 2, 2009 Pros: -Fighter mode is SOLID! The hips tab into the intakes, the legs tab into the backplate, and the wings tab into legs. The arms hold in alot better too. -Wings actually lock in the folded up position in battroid, so no floppy wings. -Neck/head mechanism is just smoother and works better, and it locks firmly into place. -The hip/waist connection for Battroid is now a strudy, securing hook instead of the the fragile tab. -Waist flap-thingy is works alot better, and stays fully deployed. -No trying to tint the damn canopy!!! Cons: -Same stupid falling off front landing gear doors. -The shoulders do indeed look just as undersized in person, and I do feel the chest is too wide as well. -Lots of tiny decals...ugh. Yowza! Bandai really fixed everything. For the front landing gear door's looseness, I wedge a tiny thin ply of tissue, and works wonders... Given that actually my VF25 Michel's custom landing gear door is actually not that loose to begin with. Grrr... Couldn't decide to keep collecting the model kit or picking up the hi metal series.
Jarrod Posted December 2, 2009 Posted December 2, 2009 Built the gunpod, it is quite large. Holds closed very nicely, and moves open smoothly on two sets of hinges. Very nice. Here's some quick straight assembly images of battroid mode. And sturdy, locked wings! Oh, and btw, that's with the smaller, transformation friendly chest plate, its about half the length of the optional one. There's also an optional plate to cover a gap in the neck that I have also not used.
Ignacio Ocamica Posted December 2, 2009 Posted December 2, 2009 Cool!!! Thanks for sharing the pics. Looking foward to build mine
Lolicon Posted December 2, 2009 Posted December 2, 2009 Oh, and btw, that's with the smaller, transformation friendly chest plate, its about half the length of the optional one. There's also an optional plate to cover a gap in the neck that I have also not used. Anime magic strikes again! Thanks for the pics. Can't wait to get mine.
regult Posted December 3, 2009 Posted December 3, 2009 (edited) is there a glossy finish compared to the first frontier models? it looks a bit shiny to me...interesting. Edited December 3, 2009 by regult
Newtype78 Posted December 3, 2009 Posted December 3, 2009 I'm very interested in the 1/72 model kits by Bandai for Macross Frontier but I'd like to know more about them before committing $50 for a kit. I realize there is a lot of information about the kits as this is the third version of the thread(wow!) but I'm not able to really get a good bearing on the hard and fast pros and cons of the kits. Some people really seem to like them while others don't. Jarrod's list of pros and cons for the 1/72 VF-27 seem to imply some issues with the 1/72 VF-25s. Are there other known issues with the 1/72 MF model kits? I would appreciate any insight and info you guys can share. Just FYI, I'm relatively new to the model kit scene as I've just started working on these cool products a few months ago. I started off on Bandai's Gundam kits, mainly the 1/144 scale High Grade kits. I'm also branching out into other areas like Kotobukiya's various model kits.
Graham Posted December 4, 2009 Posted December 4, 2009 Eh........the VF-27 comes with two chestplates? I'm presuming the smaller one is for battroid and the larger one is for fighter? Do you have to swap them in order to transform? I may pick up the green mass production version when it's released. Prefer that over Breara's unit. Anyway, glad to hear that they have strengthened certain areas of the kit compared to the VF-25. Graham
bullet101 Posted December 4, 2009 Posted December 4, 2009 So seeing as there are only two real variants of the VF-27 and the cannon fodder/grace version is about to be released, does that mean that we might see a VF-171 soon? Please let it be so.
azrael Posted December 4, 2009 Author Posted December 4, 2009 Eh........the VF-27 comes with two chestplates? I'm presuming the smaller one is for battroid and the larger one is for fighter? Do you have to swap them in order to transform? Vice versa. Small for fighter, larger for battroid. The chestplate is just slightly longer than the VF-25's according to the CG models. The longer chestplate would interfere with the transformation on the model so they gave us the option of swapping the 2 for a more accurate model.
Paliodor Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 So seeing as there are only two real variants of the VF-27 and the cannon fodder/grace version is about to be released, does that mean that we might see a VF-171 soon? Please let it be so. I also hope that Bandai will release a VF-171. It have quite nice design and besides it would be great to have canon fodder in collection...
David Hingtgen Posted December 5, 2009 Posted December 5, 2009 Just another quick shout-out that if anyone has a spare head-striping decal for Alto's, I could use it.
David Hingtgen Posted December 6, 2009 Posted December 6, 2009 No clear parts at all on Grace's? I'm going to have to go snag more screen caps to compare to... (there's definitely some fairly bright green parts in that area but they may be striping)
Kyp Durron Posted December 6, 2009 Posted December 6, 2009 (edited) I'm pretty happy with the way my VF-25S turned out : I'm liking that cannon fodder VF-27, if the fighter mode is as tight as Jarrod says it is, I'll have to get that one! -Kyp Edited December 6, 2009 by Kyp Durron
Chronocidal Posted December 6, 2009 Posted December 6, 2009 Looks really good to me. What'd you do to get the legs to stay up that high? The legs on my VF-25G stay up solidly thanks to the tabs I added (funnily enough in roughly the same place Bandai added tabs to the VF-27 ), but the little vents on the back of the thighs don't pop up quite that high, and there's a noticeable gap ahead of them. Did you file down the pieces to allow the legs to move higher?
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