MickyG's (Slow) VF-25G Build

[miriya]

Great work! It looks beautiful!

[Flakpanzer]

I really liked your work, it is nice and clean. Good work.

Regards,

Flak

[wm cheng]

Bravo! It looks fantastic. See, all that hard work did pay off... and given a few months later, you might even be able to look at it without seeing all the flaws first (not to say that there are any glaring flaws, but from following your thread - I guess you're a bit like me, I tend to see all the flaws of my work first when I look at my own models - just trying to say that given time and a little forgetfulness, it will dull the pain of the build a little ;-)

Great job! Are you planning on a little light weathering?

[mickyg]

Thanks for the feedback and kind words people!

I am planning some light weathering but am holding off a bit for a few reasons. I'm a perfectionist and a natural procrastinator. In model building, that's a mixed blessing. It means I want the very best result but also means I'm easily discouraged and can put things off indefinitely because I'm afraid I won't get the result I want (or in some cases need).

So on that note, any advice others can give on how to do said light weathering would be most appreciated. It will be my first attempt ever. I've got the airbrush but I've also got a Tamiya weathering kit. It looks like a makeup kit to me and has black, brown and white. I'm guessing I can mix the colours up a bit like I do with the oils but I'll have to experiment to see how it's all going to work.

Anyway, things like where to apply weathering (corners, edges, burn marks, etc...) and technique to get the sort of result I want would be where I'm most lacking in knowledge. So any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, and W M, no need to tip toe around my feelings! Speak your mind, my friend. Any time! I know exactly what you mean and trust me, there are glaring flaws! But yes, the time factor has definitely dulled the annoyance. I'm still trying to figure out the legs but for now, they're staying up and I'm not too concerned about them.

Edited July 27, 2010 by mickyg

[GU-11]

Wow, impressive! Not that I'm a modeling expert or anything, but if there's a flaw in this kit, I haven't found it.

Great work, MickyG!

[mickyg]

Thanks! Trust me, there are plenty! It's all trick photography.

[ae_productions]

I've had a rough week and need to post something to make me feel like I've actually accomplished something. This isn't really "finished" yet but it's close. So here's some Pics:

...Oh, and I'm still experimenting with cameras and perspectives. This is a Canon S60 point and shoot that does raw and full control over all settings. I can go wide angle and get really close. This is supposed to give the effect of this thing being life sized. Not sure I've pulled that off and since the photography experts don't normally comment on such things in these (model) threads - now's your chance!

You should be proud of yourself. This is one fantastic piece. Great job.

[Thom]

That is inspiring. Great work.

[mickyg]

Thanks everyone! Not completely done yet but it's so close that motivation to actually finish it, is lacking lately. To finish it, I really just need to do some subtle weathering. Only, I'm not sure where to begin or how to not ruin what I've done so far. Dark colours are really hard for me to visualise how they'd look worn. I don't want to overdo it because in my head, this fighter doesn't see a lot of action that would cause it to wear, and as it's configured, it's a space craft and there's not much dirt or grime to be had in that environment.

I think I want to concentrate on oxidation effects for the engine nozzles, and perhaps some subtle shading in other areas. Just something that will add some realism.

As previously mentioned, any tips?

[Smegalot]

It looks great, and all that work payed off.

the tamiya weathring kit is more for tanks and ground vehicles. It is a powder not a paint. It helps to simulate mud and the such

I find that a little bit of dry brushing can produce some great weathing results. It can be used to hight light wear. Say silver/metal at commonly used joints and a sandy type colour to show that it has been in a desert. I do that on my Gundams to give it the worn look.

Just buy a matchbox car and experiment on it, It's not expensive and it doesn't really matter what happens to it. Unless you collect them.

I hope this helps. And thanks for the tips for Airbrushing to.

[mickyg]

Apparently the Tamiya weathering kit is meant to allow dry brush effects without actually dry brushing. But I'm certain it wouldn't be durable in the slightest. I bought my kit because I saw how good Shinagami's RVF turned out and he mentioned he'd used the weathering master set. So it's possible but that doesn't mean I can achieve those results!

It's also worth noting that the RVF is relatively light in colour, compared to my dark blue scheme. I think the darker colour presents its own difficulties.

And just to clarify, I'm not sure I'm wanting a worn look, so much as a more realistic subtle shading look. You can have variations in colour for something like, say a Blue Angels F-18. Those don't necessarily look "worn" as they're show aircraft. But they do have subtle weathering and the colours do acquire some shades (or start out that way). Does that make sense? I don't know but I don't imagine the VF-25G would see a whole lot of abuse and wear the way a grotty fighter jet would. It's maintained fairly well, and since it's a covert sniper sort of role, I just think of it as being out of harm's way and not right in the thick of it (yes, I know Michael does get up close and personal occasionally). And couple the energy converting armour into the mix and do any of these newer valks actually wear at all?

Way too much thinking...

No problem at all about the airbrush tips. I'm happy to pass on whatever tips I learn along the way!

[wm cheng]

Weathering on a dark surface is a tough one! Much easier to weather on light surfaces. I've tried those Tamiya kits too and it does need some getting used to. It's essentially makeup powder or oil pastels that have been ground up to powder form. As such, it has a bit of an oily texture to the powders and does not work well on glossy or even semi-glossy finishes. It works best on matte/flat finishes. I used them on my Atmospheric Booster and Launcher - you can take a look at that as it was a darker grey, but was all matte finish. It wears remarkably well, I thought I had to clear coat it afterwards, but it didn't come off the flat surfaces, however some of the semi-gloss surfaces did eventually come off on my fingers, but I don't handle my models too much. You can always clear-coat them to protect it afterwards.

I find that lightening the edges of the panel lines work best with dark coloured planes. Almost a reverse Post-shading technique. Look at some of the dark grey naval aircraft for reference (tactical grey scheme I think its called) especially late era Tomcats, they are very dirty and patchy (way too far weathered but it may give you ideas on what to do in a much more subtle way).

Good luck!

[cool8or]

Damn! How I could missed this thread? Great build and perfect finish!! Congratulations!!

Edited August 23, 2010 by cool8or

[mickyg]

Thanks cool8or! You build some great stuff yourself so I'm humbled by your compliments!

I think perhaps my decision to put this in the building/customizing section has made it less visible to others. Not sure why but I see there are just as many build threads in the regular models section. Oh well.

WM - I'll look at your booster build again. That hadn't occurred to me actually, it's been a long time since I read that build. It's very similar to the super parts in finish though so should be a perfect reference! As for lightening the edges of the panel lines, would you suggest dry brushing? I must admit, I'm a bit nervous about the technique and since it's not exactly easy to undo, like we can with acrylics, I'm hesitant to jump into it without knowing what I'm in for. I've got several brushes, but my small ones are expensive and I don't want to ruin them. I've also got some really cheap ones but I'm not sure if they're suited to dry brushing. I'll do some reading on the technique.

If there are any other tips, I'm all ears! And thanks for your comments.

[wm cheng]

Hey MickyG,

There's not really enough raised surfaces/details to really catch dry-brushing techniques on planes. It works best on armor and robot and such. I'd do a "reverse" post-shading with a lighter colour with the airbrush. First I'd seal in the paint finish you have with something different from the post-shading colour so that if you don't like what you did, just take some solvent and wipe if off, the shading comes off easily since its sprayed lightly and different in solvent base from your clear-coat underneath (I always wipe off unsuccessful weathering tries and only keep the stuff I like). However I did dry brush the fast packs, but Hasegawa packs have more corners/edges and raised details to them.

Good luck!

[mickyg]

Thanks a ton! So just use a slightly lighter colour than the base? That makes sense and I must admit, I'm stuck in this "weathering is only made from black, white and combinations thereof" mindset. It didn't occur to me to use a lighter base colour. Although, if I thin out some white, I suppose that would serve to lighten up the base also. Hmmm... I'll see what I can do.

As for the wiping it off, since everything I'm using is acrylic, that might not go real well. My base coat is GSI Acrylic, the clear is also GSI gloss, the wash is oil, and then another gloss clear, then followed up with a hand mixed satin acrylic. So if I go another acrylic, diluted with clear or otherwise, it's likely to be hard to get off if I make a mistake. It's times like these I wish I had been able to mix up the paint types a bit!

[wm cheng]

I paint with Tamiya Acrylic, but clear coat with ModelMaster Acryl - the ModelMaster has a different solvent base than the Tamiya (don't know what it is), but when I use Windex (deadly solvent for Tamiya Acrylics) to wipe off the undesired weathering post shading on top of the clear coat in Tamiya, the Tamiya weathering wipes off just fine leaving the ModelMaster Acryl clear-coat to protect the underlying Tamiya Acrylic basecoats.

[mickyg]

Yep, I know your technique well! And I'd use it to the letter except that I can't find model master acrylics here in Australia. They really sound like the ultimate paints for this purpose alone - to be able to seal your hard work in with a layer that won't react to the one it coats, and also be able to use a solvent that would normally disolve that sort of paint, on top of it, that would be fantastic!

Maybe I should get some of my relatives in the States to send me a bottle of clear and flat. Does it thin with windex when it's still a liquid or do you use the Testors thinner on it?

[regult]

Thanks! That little diorama would be sweet! I saw the new Klan and thought it was pretty cool. Even cooler that it's 1/72 scale!

must have had a brain fart or sth, but what 1/72 Klan are we talking about here? the one with Superpack and is worth a body part?

[mickyg]

Yep, that's the one. Here's a link from hobbysearch.

[wm cheng]

Yep, I know your technique well! And I'd use it to the letter except that I can't find model master acrylics here in Australia. They really sound like the ultimate paints for this purpose alone - to be able to seal your hard work in with a layer that won't react to the one it coats, and also be able to use a solvent that would normally disolve that sort of paint, on top of it, that would be fantastic!

Maybe I should get some of my relatives in the States to send me a bottle of clear and flat. Does it thin with windex when it's still a liquid or do you use the Testors thinner on it?

Don't use Windex as a thinner (its too powerful) it should only be used as a solvent for Tamiya Acrylics. Nope, the ModelMaster stuff has its own thinner (used to thin for airbrushing) and solvent (used to clean out the airbrush).

[mickyg]

I think I'll try to source some. There has to be somewhere that will sell and ship it internationally. It sounds like the best possible barrier to use for this sort of thing.

One last question, is it as soft or fingerprint prone as the Tamiya clearcoats? I haven't had any issues with the flat coat but the gloss is incredibly soft in my experience.

[wm cheng]

I think I'll try to source some. There has to be somewhere that will sell and ship it internationally. It sounds like the best possible barrier to use for this sort of thing.

One last question, is it as soft or fingerprint prone as the Tamiya clearcoats? I haven't had any issues with the flat coat but the gloss is incredibly soft in my experience.

I don't ever use the straight gloss, it's always semi-gloss or I use the straight gloss to tone up the semi-gloss or mix it with the flat/matte - but I would imagine the straight gloss to be "soft" and prone to fingerprints the same as everything else including Future. I think it has something to do with the fact that to get the glossy surface, you have to have an ultra-smooth (microscopically so) surface, and your finger oils contribute to making the surface bumpy and thus seeing the imprint even more so. I haven't had the need since I don't model cars (yet, although Tamiya has a Aston Martin DBS which might be my first foray if I ever get the time!) so I never need that really glossy sheen - it makes the models "toylike" IMHO.

[regult]

Yep, that's the one. Here's a link from hobbysearch.

Thanks mickyg, I wasn't sure that was 1/72...but I think my valks will have to do w/o the statue: too expensive for me.

I keep coming back to this thread because it gives me hope that someday my 5 kits will be assembled. They've been piled up for years now.

[mickyg]

Hah! I know what you mean. And to think, I was planning on getting all of them prior to building this one! I've got the VF-27 (Brera) that I'm seriously considering NOT building. I've got 4 Hasegawa kits that I really want to get started on, plus my custom Yamato VF-1 paint scheme I'm (slowly) working. And in my spare time lately, I'm decaling and panel lining my other 1/60 VF-1 valks. So that Bandai kit is getting farther and farther on the back burner!

This kit (the VF-25G) will get some attention and hopefully get finished first, though.

[mickyg]

So I found a LHS that can get the Testors MM Acryl range in for me! Only it sounds like they'll be close to $10 per bottle! Ouch!!! I'll likely pay it with a smile on my face though, knowing that at least this will do what I want it to. And it's $30 as a one off. Most of what I've purchased has been expensive but not terribly frequent so this is not going to kill me. It'll be a few days before it's in stock.

I also got a chance to get some experience with the Tamiya weathering kit. I was actually quite surprised by how it went. The material is quite hard and I wasn't able to get it to stick to the "brush" side of the applicator. The sponge side though, was great! It went on very lightly and I was able to have a few passes to get it as dark (or light) as I wanted it. My experience and "feel" for where shading needs to be is definitely needing some work though.

There are pics but they're all pretty lousy so it might be a few days before there's any progress posted.

[mickyg]

Took some better pics tonight. I'll explain what I've been trying to accomplish with all the different cameras and focal lengths and distances, blah, blah, blah... I wanted to try to approximate what something real of this size would look like if I were there, in scale, taking a picture.

The little point and shoot I recently acquired is super old (2003, perhaps?) and it's pretty noisy. But it does have full manual controls, and a real aperture, with real depth of field adjustments. And I can get really close with it. It also shoots in raw format, so I can apply noise reduction and do lens distortion correction in post production, to clean things up.

My second camera is another point and shoot, has no aperture control, no depth of field settings and no real control over quality other than jpeg compression. But it does focus close and it's newer than the first camera and also tends to have less noisy images.

Both point and shoots are 5 megapixel, which is fine for post on the web.

And my "good" camera is a DSLR - quality is really good, it works well in low light, it's got the flexibility of multiple lenses and full control over just about everything. The downside is that no lens I have will allow me to get "close" to the model. If I were a scale person, I'd be reasonably close to the "life-size" aircraft I was photographing. Probably the equivalent of a 6 inches or so? My lenses won't get that close.

So there lies the dilemna - to approximate the correct perspective, I have to use a camera that doesn't produce the best quality. If I want to use a good camera, I have to lose the whole feel of this being an accurate portrayal of scale.

So these were taken with the good camera with a 50mm lens, which approximates what your eye sees in terms of perspective. Good for viewing a model, not so good for making it look "real" in a photo.

This ends our photography lesson for the day...

So here's what I ended up with (link to the gallery with some more pics - HERE):

Edited September 2, 2010 by mickyg

[Weasel]

That really is a lovely looking build, great work!

[mickyg]

Thanks Weasel! It's a real shame there aren't any static 1/72 models for Frontier stuff yet. I'd get the whole squadron if that were ever to be released!

[Weasel]

I would kill for the standard Spacy fighter in 1:72 from Frontier, I know how you feel!

[nickster]

Great build! I like the blue tone on your model. Congratulations!!!!!

[mickyg]

Thanks very much! Haven't seen you around for a while Nickster. Been busy?

[Weasel]

That is a truly awesome build. Really inspiring paint job and construction. Can't wait to see the next one

[mickyg]

I paint with Tamiya Acrylic, but clear coat with ModelMaster Acryl - the ModelMaster has a different solvent base than the Tamiya (don't know what it is), but when I use Windex (deadly solvent for Tamiya Acrylics) to wipe off the undesired weathering post shading on top of the clear coat in Tamiya, the Tamiya weathering wipes off just fine leaving the ModelMaster Acryl clear-coat to protect the underlying Tamiya Acrylic basecoats.

I finally got some from my LHS! Nobody had it and everywhere I tried wasn't even interested in trying to find out how to get it. I finally went to the most expensive hobby shop I could think of. It's probably been around the longest in Melbourne, is located in one of the hottest tourist spots (our main, iconic train station - Flinder's Street Station) and would have to have some of the most expensive prices on hobby stuff, compared to any other shop I've been in. But man, have they got a selection! And their staff are extremely helpful. In the end, I went through their contact us website and got ahold of an email address. Contact went from there and they agreed to source some for me. The ended up getting a carton of the stuff and are now stocking in on their shelves! I hope they didn't do that based only on my recommendation...

Anyway, for any Melbourne people reading this, I'm talking about Hearns Hobby shop on Flinders Street. Yes, they're expensive but not by an unrealistic amount (imagine the rent they're paying for that location!). For example, a bottle of Tamiya paint is usually $3.50 at most stores, here it's $3.75.

So some observations:

• It's white! This is the only clear I've seen from anyone that starts out white and dries clear
• It doesn't seem to have any noticeable smell (but I've got a cold)
• It's very thin - so much so that I wonder if I'll even need to thin it before airbrushing.
• There's a lot in the bottle (almost 30ml - 3 times what comes in a Tamiya jar)
• It's expensive! These cost $8.95 each! But considering what it took to get them and the comparison to Tamiya, it's actually pretty reasonable.
• The thinner has no smell that I could detect. Is it water? Is it alcohol based? Is it glycol? Who knows... Maybe I just spent $10 on a bottle of water!

Can't wait to try them out. I don't think they'll be used on the 25 though. This project is pretty much finished. It's now sitting safely on my desk at work and everytime I look at it, I think it's pretty good for a first attempt at doing a model "right" and completely (shading, weathering, panel lining...). It's a long way from perfect, and yeah, there are things I'd do differently next time (like not be in such a hurry to assemble it and make it impossible to work out all the painting subtleties) but it's not bad and shows a lot of improvement over the last model I built, 10 years ago.

So thanks everyone for the encouragement and very helpful advice, tips, comments along the way. It's been a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to my next few projects. I doubt any of them will be as in depth or detailed as this one (commenting on every step takes a really long time!) but it's certainly been fun and a learning experience to do this and I've made some great friends along the way.

See you in the next few builds!