MickyG's (Slow) VF-25G Build

[mickyg]

I've painted the booster nozzles but not much else this week. I did manage to get a DSLR though and that's exciting! I've got no idea what I'm doing yet but the close up photos of my progress are a lot easier to capture now and lighting is nowhere near as picky!

Colours for the nozzle are Tamiya's "Titanium Gold" and I think I'll do Iron for the inside, possibly mixed with a bit of the same gold colour (similar to what I did on the leg armour patches). I'll clearcoat the nozzles with gloss, apply a brown wash on the outside and black on the inside, then do a clear gloss satin to seal it all in.

Pics:

[Lolicon]

I was about to ask where the heck all those little nozzles came from, but I remembered the super packs. Nice paint job, especially the gold section of the ankle armor. No wrinkles!

[mickyg]

Yeah, there was no way I was going to use that decal on that section! I don't know if the colour is right, based on what it is but I think it'll do.

[mickyg]

Not a whole lot to report. The weekend was a complete bust in terms of getting anything done. I had planned several things - clear gloss coating the super parts, painting a darker colour on the inside of the nozzles, possibly some making on some areas that still need it (the portion under the nose that always seems to get missed - needs to be painted blue, in my case).

Anyway, I managed 40 minutes last night. That allowed painting the insides of the nozzles. I mixed 2 parts Steel to 1 part titanium gold. The Steel is Gunze (GSI Aqueous) and the Titanium Gold is Tamiya. They mix fine. These nozzles are totally brush painted. I've been too lazy to get the airbrush out for them. Plus, just haven't had time to work on them at home so brush painting at the office is the only option.

I took several photos of the these things, because I'm still playing around with my new SLR (well, new to me - it's a camera my friend had that he's taken very good care of). I love it but it's got a learning curve that I'm going to have to come to terms with.

Best photo of the bunch:

And some playing with settings on my SV-51 test subject. My next hurtle is trying to get the whole valk in focus instead of just parts of it.

Sorry for the off topic-ness of Nora's bird.

[mickyg]

Some Minor Updates:

• I got the super parts gloss clear coated. So now the decals and wash are protected.

  

• I've started on the masking for the darker parts on the boosters. I don't know of any other areas that need to be masked off. This covers the missile openings and insides of the nozzle openings on the boosters.

  

Yep, that's 3 different cameras for those photos! I was experimenting with DOF (Depth of field) with the top one, using my DSLR. Not great but at least it's all sort of in focus. The masking ones (first and second) were done when I had forgotten to bring a camera to work, so that's my Nokia phone and it's been [poorly] colour corrected. The last one was this morning on my little point and shoot digicam.

I'm using a slightly different method of masking the openings on the boosters. I don't know if it'll work or not but here's the plan. Since the surfaces are all recessed, and the "walls" of the details aren't sharply separated from the top layer, getting masking tape to conform to the outside edge of the opening is next to impossible. And for the missile doors, I really don't even want the inside walls to be painted. So anyway, I figured if I overlapped the masking a small amount over the hole, I'd get paint into the hole, and on to the inside detail, without it completely covering all the way to the top surface. Any paint that does make it up that close to the surface will be overspray and should end up looking like shadow, which is OK by me.

Let me know if that made no sense and I'll try to explain a bit better.

[mickyg]

Probably the first time I've ever posted in the morning, did work on the model, then had time to post in the evening!

I managed to get the rest of the booster masked and painted. Everything went pretty smoothly and this was by far the fastest I've ever been able to prep a part for painting and then actually paint it (not counting all the masking I've done in the last week). For the black, I actually used a 2:1 mix of black to neutral grey. It's pretty dark but not as stark as I though Black would be.

I did say everything went smoothly, right? Well nearly... The gloss acrylic clear is nice but it has a hard time with fingerprints. This has been on for over a week now and fingerprints are a real issue. Knowing that, I thought I'd handle the part with a T-shirt while I was removing the masking tape. So we're talking a few minutes tops. Anyway, big mistake. I now have fine fabric fingerprints and likely some fuzz as well! Wonderful. So I'll have to sand that out somehow or hope that it self levels (yeah right).

Anyway, pics (and we're back to my "good" camera, the EOS 300D):

All masked and ready to paint:

After painting:

After removing the masking:

You can actually make out the fabric/fingerprints in the rear part of the booster (after the wing slot). It looks like dust or glare from the camera lense but it's actually the rough surface picking up the flash. Fan-freaking-tastic!

[mickyg]

I forgot to mention the tape marks too. Does anyone know how to prevent this? This isn't tape pulling the clearcoat up/off, it's the tape leaving an impression in the clearcoat. It's also not sticky, so it's not like the adhesive is pulling from the tape. Very annoying! And the Tamiya stuff seems to be worse than the generic tape I'm using around it.

[Lolicon]

What kind of impressions are they leaving? I use Tamiya masking tape as well, but haven't had any issues except the adhesive coming off a little because I'm such a lousy masker and have to shift the tape so much. Though now that I think about it, I don't believe I've ever used masking tape over clearcoat. I usually do all painting first before applying any clearcoat.

[mickyg]

Check that last pic - you can make them out around the hole for the nozzle (top one over the wing slot). It's like the clearcoat is still semi viscous and it conforms to the shape of the masking tape after a few days (that's about how long I left it on there). That or the masking is pulling the clearcoat in an irregular pattern as I remove it. It's definitely not pulling the clear off though.

[Lolicon]

Wowzers! Now that you point them out, they really stand out. It really does look like the clearcoat is still a little soft, as I get problems like that if I don't leave it out to dry long enough. I dunno if you're anything like me, but I press and rub the tape down pretty hard around where I'm masking to prevent paint leaks, so that might be why the Tamiya tape leaves more of an impression than the standard tape. I forgot what brand of clearcoat you were using. Can you apply another coat to eliminate the impressions?

[mickyg]

I'm using Gunze (Mr Hobby Aqueous) clear. Another coat is one option. I'm afraid it won't really fill in the "bumps" left behind by the tape though. I suppose it's worth a try though.

The plan here was to protect the decals for masking, but probably more importantly, to "hide" the outlines of the decals as well. The last coat is going to be a flat clear and I want everything as close to uniform as possible before that goes on (I know it won't be perfect but getting rid of that obvious step from plastic to decal would be nice).

EDIT:

I'm not sure if it matters, but I saw these same marks on the gloss blue I used on the rest of the model. So I don't think this is clearcoat specific.

Edited December 4, 2009 by mickyg

[Newtype78]

This is a great thread! I just want to thank mickyg for taking us along on the journey of assembling and painting the VF-25G. Big thanks also goes to all the folks who have contributed to the thread. I can't wait for the next post on the progress of the model.

[mickyg]

Thanks Newtype! I love having something to contribute. If you read through the years of posts here, you'll see a lot of people who have done lots of contributing and people like me have reaped the benefits. This is just my way of giving back! And I love learning along the way too.

Oh, welcome to the forums, by the way! Hope you find us all hospitable and decide to stick around.

Edited December 6, 2009 by mickyg

[Wicked Ace]

I believe brushing or spraying on some Future will hide the tape marks. Make sure to apply a flat clear to take away the gloss. Next time, I suggest painting all the details before applying the decals and clear coat. Your pictures with the masking tape and decals applied made me nervous!

[mickyg]

Good point there Wicked. However, I didn't want to run the risk of pulling up the wash from the panel lines, so I applied the gloss to protect it. If I went in this order:

1. prime/putty
2. sand
3. paint colour
4. paint second coat if needed
5. paint details
6. first gloss coat to give a good surface for decals
7. decal
8. oil wash for panel lines
9. second gloss coat to seal in decals and wash
10. possible 3rd coat, depending on how hidden the decal edges are
11. final flat clear

Perhaps that would have been safer.

It doesn't address the most annoying factor in all this though - how am I going to handle this thing at all, without getting fingerprints on it? It seems the acrylic clear is always going to be "soft" and so not appropriate to handle. It's a hard coating, don't get me wrong but if you press on it for more than a few seconds (even lightly), it seems it is easy to distort.

I wasn't at all worried about pulling the decals up with the tape though! I can't believe how difficult these are to remove once they've set. I've tried solvents and even they don't make a mark on the decals! The only option in places where I've screwed up, for these decals at least, has been to carefully scrape them off with my hobby knife.

I'll give the future a try. I got a friend to bring some back from the states on a recent trip. I've got a close equivalent here in Australia but I've found it cracks when it dries so I'm hesitant to use it until I figure out why that happens.

Edited December 6, 2009 by mickyg

[mickyg]

Worth noting, if anyone's following this as a guide - probably not worth painting the nozzle "holes" in the boosters black like I did. Once the nozzles are in place, the black is moot. The shadows from the nozzles make the walls of the holes black anyway. Good to know for the next booster as this undoubtedly took me an extra hour to mask properly!

[Newtype78]

Thanks Newtype! I love having something to contribute. If you read through the years of posts here, you'll see a lot of people who have done lots of contributing and people like me have reaped the benefits. This is just my way of giving back! And I love learning along the way too.

Oh, welcome to the forums, by the way! Hope you find us all hospitable and decide to stick around.

Thank you for the warm welcome! I just recently found this forum and it's looking good here.

I'm a long time Macross fan(big fan of mecha in general) and I've only gotten into model kits a couple of months ago so this thread of yours and some of the others I've found here are great education for a novice like me.

It's good to read that the decals are pretty difficult to remove once they're set.

[Lolicon]

I really like the way the grey recesses turned out. Definitely gonna include that on a future super pack build.

Don't know what else to suggest regarding the clearcoat impressions other than saving the clearcoat step for after all painting has been done. I have a bottle of Model Master acrylic clearcoat that I only use to touch up or reinforce certain sections; majority of my clearcoat is lacquer.

The one time I attempted to hand brush the acrylic clearcoat over acrylic paint was to protect it against the lacquer clearcoat I was going to spray over it, but ironically it was the allegedly "gentler" acrylic clear that started stripping the acrylic paint off.

For the insides of the nozzles, I recommend just a wash. It's black most of the time from lack of light, but it's nice to see details in there if there happens to be light.

Keep up the great work! I'm eager to see this thing assembled!

[mickyg]

Heh! So am I! This thing is going so slow!

I got the missile doors painted on the other booster yesterday (only did one with the airbrush because masking took so long and I was really just wanting to experiment). I actually just brush painted the second one - no masking at all. Took me all of 10 minutes from prep to cleanup. Now that's better! It looks great and was so much less hassle. I didn't do recesses in the booster (behind the nozzles) as I did on the other one, you just can't see in there unless you're shining a bright light and looking at exactly the right angle.

[mickyg]

Lolicon, would you mind providing a bit more detail for the following bold items:

I really like the way the grey recesses turned out. Definitely gonna include that on a future super pack build.

For the insides of the nozzles, I recommend just a wash. It's black most of the time from lack of light, but it's nice to see details in there if there happens to be light.

For the first item, did you mean the holes the nozzles go into, or the rest of the stuff that I used the grey wash on?

On the second, did you mean the insides of the nozzle (yes, I know, that's exactly what you said) or where you by chance referring to the holes the nozzles go into (yeah, second time I've mentioned those)?

Reason I ask is that I've just taken a few photos tonight to compare the "holes behind the nozzles" painted and not painted effect. You can just barely make out a difference and that's with a long exposure with a flash at the beginning, in very bright halogen lights. Something that your eye will never be able to do unless you're closely inspecting the model. I'll post those in a sec.

You might also be referring to the lack of surface detail I have in the actual nozzles, since they're metalic painted, but nothing else. I think I mentioned a few posts back that I was planning on washing these with brown on the outside and black on the inside. I guess I probably still will, although I was entertaining the idea of being lazy and leaving them!

I also think a flat clear on the inside of the nozzles would be appropriate. I don't know about the outsides yet either. They'd probably be best a satiny sort of clear. Anyone have any opinions?

Pics:

Edited December 10, 2009 by mickyg

[mickyg]

Very quick update:

I brush painted a coat of flat clear (gunze acrylic type) over my finger/cloth prints and it smoothed right over, didn't dissolve the underlying paint (I was very concerned about that) and looks great! I'll airbrush a coat or two of flat later on but at least it's smooth now!

[Lolicon]

I was talking about the grey recesses that the nozzles are inserted into and the ones at the front of the boosters. The ones you masked and sprayed grey. From the new photos you took, yeah you can't really tell once you attach the nozzles, but the other sections look good. Now that I've seen what they look like with nozzles attached, it'd probably be best if I just filled it in with a black Gundam marker. Quick and easy.

The insides of the nozzles themselves is what I meant. I just did a wash on mine, inside and out. On most of the previous photos I took, they appeared silver, but they're actually a dull silver-gold color. Hard to get a good photo of the underside of the model, but this is what they look like.

[shinagami]

great job so far, got to respect your handbrush painting technique, very clean n clear. nice overall ...cant wait to see the finished product.

Edited December 11, 2009 by shinagami

[shinagami]

great job so far, got to respect your handbrush painting technique, very clean n clear. nice overall ...cant wait to see the finished product.

[mickyg]

great job so far, got to respect your handbrush painting technique, very clean n clear. nice overall ...cant wait to see the finished product.

Thanks! Although the parts I've hand brushed are very, very few. Most of this has been airbrushed. I only painted the missile covers on one of the boosters by hand brushing. And the most recent use of hand brushing was the clear I did over a very small section that I'd fingerprinted. So I'm nowhere near the level of a lot of guys who are hand brushing!

[mickyg]

I was talking about the grey recesses that the nozzles are inserted into and the ones at the front of the boosters. The ones you masked and sprayed grey. From the new photos you took, yeah you can't really tell once you attach the nozzles, but the other sections look good. Now that I've seen what they look like with nozzles attached, it'd probably be best if I just filled it in with a black Gundam marker. Quick and easy.

The insides of the nozzles themselves is what I meant. I just did a wash on mine, inside and out. On most of the previous photos I took, they appeared silver, but they're actually a dull silver-gold color. Hard to get a good photo of the underside of the model, but this is what they look like.

Thanks for clarifying - and clarification with pictures is always a winner!

I love how yours turned out. I think a wash on the nozzles is a no brainer, having seen the effect on yours. Still not sure I'll put any effort into darkening the recesses on the other nozzle recesses though. We'll see how things go this week. I've got a whole week off so I might actually get something accomplished.

[mickyg]

Happy New Year!

One week off, no progress. That was before Christmas though. I had another week off after Christmas and finally managed to get some things done.

The good: I scored a small(ish) air compressor for Christmas that actually works (small 1hp, 6 liter tank, home use type - noisy though!). This means I no longer have any excuse to paint and so far, it's so much more convenient than my portable air tank/12v compressor setup. It is loud though so I've got to be careful during late night sessions.

Now, for the bad: I broke my pride and joy camera, not a month into having it! My little boy knocked it over on the tripod. The lens was damaged and something internally as well. I fixed the lens and thought that was it but then discovered the Auto Focus system wasn't working. So I figured I'd open it up and repair it. I couldn't find any broken parts inside so decided to break on of the fragile connecting ribbon cables, just to make life interesting!

So the camera is off to be repaired (if it's cost effective) and I'm back to the little point and shoot for now.

So, I think I mentioned progress. I managed to get a bit more decaling done and finally got a flat coat on to the super parts. I think the coat soaked into the underlying gloss coat because the flat is somewhat closer to semi-gloss. So another flat coat should flatten it out.

The decals were very challenging - I decided to use the super booster "tips" just for a bit of a challenge. These are two parts, one for the wrap around section, the other for the flat surface on the top, or front of the part. I haven't decided yet which is the proper order to put these one, as they're pros and cons for each. If you put the wrap around part on first, you might have better luck sanding any wrinkles off after the decal dries. But if you put the top on first, you might be able to see the line were the decal ends, under the wrap around part. In the end, I did one of each and can't really say either was better. I managed to get the top part on first with the second part and it went on so smoothly I though my eyes were deceiving me! Chalk that up to the Mr Mark Softer/Setter combo I used I guess. A word of advice on the wrap around decal: trim the ends about a mm or 2, as there's tons of overlap otherwise. I've marked where to trim in the pic below.

The next tricky decal (again, doing this more because I was being lazy and didn't want to mask and paint these) was the top of the fuselage armor. There's a triangular color piece for each variant and mine is blue. This is a very tricky decal because of its size and shape, and the notches that need to be cut out to get it to conform correctly. Again, the Mr Mark Softer/Setter combo worked great here. I'm glad I've used this enough to be comfortable with it now, as it's an invaluable tool for getting decals to fit correctly. The rule is to apply it, let it soak in, and then blot away any excess with a damp cotton swab. You want it to be damp with the solution, not wet. If it's wet it reacts with the acrylic paint a bit too much and can really break down the decal as well.

Some pics showing the decal before it was cut out completely, and various stages of drying after applying solvent (last shot is flat coated):

And a couple of shots after flat clear coating the super parts. I used about 2.6ml of gunze flat klear (as they call it) acrylic, along with 1.3ml of Tamiya Acrylic Thinner. I use a 2:1 ratio of paint to thinner and it seems to work pretty well. This was a surprisingly large amount of paint based on the area I estimated.

Again, it's amazing how much more detail a camera captures, compared to my eyes. Some of the dot patterns on the decals look awful in the pictures (well, all of them actually!) but they look fine with the naked eye. I keep having to remind myself that this is a model that is actually quite small, and the likelihood that I'm going to notice all the imperfections in it when it's sitting on my desk are pretty slim. Not that I'm advocating doing a crappy build, mind you.

Edited January 4, 2010 by mickyg

[Wicked Ace]

Keep up the good work! There comes a point where one has to let go of the imperfections -- I still struggle with this and have to remind myself fixing everything isn't worth it in the majority of cases.

[Lolicon]

Damn I'm impressed with the skill and patience you've had with these mediocre decals. I would've lost patience and just tossed them and painted some of those sections. Up close the dithering pattern is pretty awful, even with the naked eye. Still I really like the finish you have there. I like having that kind of finish on anime mecha, instead of just a plain old flat finish.

[mickyg]

Hah, thanks! It's part stubbornness, really. I did actually lose patience and toss a decal for the intake plugs on the super parts (that was a few pages/months ago)! They were so bad that I gave up. I really tried the decals this time around just to keep me from having to paint. You might recall they were painted at one point and were beautiful. That was just before my clearcoating snafu destroyed the paint job. Anyway, this should be sufficient for the size of the part. I really don't think it'll be obvious that it's a decal and not painted.

My next challenge is color co-ordinating the blue of the decals with the blue on the aforementioned intake plugs, as well as the missile covers. Just for kicks, I tried using the stickers (why Bandia didn't include decals for the missile covers is beyond me) - what a freaking joke! They don't even remotely fit! I even cut the sides off to try to ease up on the bending and folding that would otherwise be required. Not even close.

So you like the not quite super flat finish, eh? I have to admit, it's not a bad look. I keep thinking that in terms of scale, it's possible a flat finish on a part this big in real life, would probably have some reflectiveness to it. That and who's to say armor parts have to be totally flat, right?

Damn I'm impressed with the skill and patience you've had with these mediocre decals. I would've lost patience and just tossed them and painted some of those sections. Up close the dithering pattern is pretty awful, even with the naked eye. Still I really like the finish you have there. I like having that kind of finish on anime mecha, instead of just a plain old flat finish.

[mickyg]

Look what just arrived!

Goodies:

I finally got a chrome silver paint marker, after seeing the results of WM Cheng's builds. It looked like a good tool to have. That's one empty bottle for mixing paints (I was meaning to order 6 but forgot to update the quantity), more tape, a very fine brush, some fine polishing compound to compliment the very fine stuff I have (should be good for canopy seam lines and general touch ups), some glue for canopy/clear parts, stand. ...And, ta-da! Brera's VF27!

Edited January 5, 2010 by mickyg

[wm cheng]

Wow! you accomplished so much. It look great, sorry to hear about the aggravations, buts its all part of the learning process;-) Wish I was around earlier, but its been a crazy month with the holiday season. Yeah, really glossy finishes takes a while to cure, and even then I find that I leave a lot of fingerprints and fabric textures and tape residue impressions on them (been there, done that! - you're not alone!), they are really finicky - luckily there aren't a lot of really glossy military hardware! That's why I usually use a semi-gloss undercoat, I find it usually strikes a balance to hide the decal film on most light surfaces and is more handling friendly. Although I do tent to go glossier if I am decalling over a dark surface such as the grey booster packs. But I could of told ya that it should all smooth out if you spray a flat matte finish over the whole thing in the end. With all that masking, why didn't you just mask and paint the blue panels instead of using those horrible screened decals? You'd get a better match and it would save a lot of heartache (IMHO). Its a no brainer for me, I'd just paint everything to match, however I would just handbrush those little recesses in the fast packs where the nozzles go, there's such a crisp edge between the surface going down and the outside surface that you can always get a straight line. If there's some overpaint, you can wipe it off and do a dry brush of the grey fast pack colour on the surrounding edge to clean up any wiggles. It is also interesting to vary and mask your final finishes so some parts are flat/matte, some semi-gloss and some glossier, it darkens the underlying colour to go glossier and varies the overall tones without having to paint all the different colours individually (see my Yukikaze Mave model - I really liked how it turned out with only one base green coat but the different flat and gloss finishes).

Since you mask so much anyways, my recommendation would be to mask the major coloured areas (like those blue panels) - you may have to paint them white first to get a good undercoat, then the blue on top to match. But with the amount of masking you do, it's not a whole lot more! ;-) and the end results are worth it.

Lastly, good to see you got your VF-27r! I just got mine last week too!! Can't wait to start on it. (although I can't see where I will find the time in the foreseeable future!) I think I might do a metallic magenta scheme, kind of like my purple gunpod, I would coat the entire plane in the Alclad Silver or Steel (or different shades of metal) then do a clear mageta/rose overcoat over the metal and finish in semi-gloss in the end.

Good luck! Can't wait to see you put it all together.

[mickyg]

Hi WM - good to see you're still popping in from time to time! I know what you mean by the busy month! I had more time off than any other month this year but only manage to spend about 2 hours on the model!

Good to know the glossy finishes are something everyone gets frustrated with. Means I'm not going crazy!

Regarding why I decaled and didn't mask? Pure laziness, my friend. Pure laziness. I spent all that time masking the first time I did the blue parts of the super packs and after I destroyed it with that clear coat mishap, I just couldn't bring myself to do it again! The sad thing is that I'll probably sand off the wrinkles from the decals (on those booster tips at least, it's gonna bug me otherwise) and paint them anyway. I figure if I can get the paint somewhat close to the decal colour, the decals will provide a good guide to paint against. I might even get away with brush painting them in case the masking is too annoying. This was also a bit of an experiment to see if I could get these decals to conform to these highly curved surfaces. In the end, I proved I could do it my satisfaction (it's not great but it's better than I expected) so I can move on now. The last thing that I didn't really plan ahead for though was colour matching. The blue in the paint callout for the super parts is a great deal brighter than the blue in the decals (that it's supposed to match). So I'm going to need to get creative with my colour matching skills on the missile covers and intake plugs. There's no way I'm attempting the decal on the intake plugs and the missile covers don't have decals. Why'd I have to stuff up the painting on those things again?

I agree about the masking being worth it. But I think the above paragraph explains my reluctance to do some of this again. I'm just making excuses, I know. It's not that difficult and I do think the results are worth it. Just have to psych myself up to it again. I just have to keep telling myself, "Must not get impatient!"

Progress yesterday:

Got all four decals for the feet done with only about 30 minutes available on my lunch break. I think I'm getting faster at this, which is really sad - 30 minutes for 4 decals? I cut off the clear carrier on the tops of decal, so it wouldn't be visible on the main part of the foot. I left the film excess on the part that butts up against the bottom though. I'll apply a wash to that area and plan to shade it with smoke. Plus, now that they've set today, I can't even see the film anyway.

Pics:

The first pic shows the naked foot along with the first decal I cut. The cuts are made with a hobby knife and a metal straight edge (metal so I don't shave chunks out of it with the knife). I cut close to the black but not exactly on the line. If you cut too close or into the colour part, it can make the decal a bit fragile before it's set (tore a few that way). The second one shows it in position and maybe 20 minutes after I'd applied it. Today, they look painted on (well if you ignore that annoying dot pattern, that is). I didn't use Mr Mark Softer on this batch, just Setter.

And yes, I still need to paint the white discs! Still feels like so much left to do...

Edited January 6, 2010 by mickyg

[MechTech]

Looking Great Micky! I'm playing catch-up on some threads. Your problem with gloss coats stands out. WM Cheng is right and I had the same problem. I learned to let gloss paint cure for at least a week or two if possible. Humidity will slow the cure rate down too. I've had to refinish models before and I learned my lesson. I also paint a spare piece of plastic with the same exact paint, I paint two models sort of. Then I can mess with the spare and know for sure when the final product is cured.

Glad to see your nearly there! - MT

[EXO]

Wow... this thread is a must read... I'm gonna start all over and read from the beginning. I want to start making the 1/48 kits and have to get ready for them.