MickyG's Yamato VF-1S Unpainted, Unassembled Kit Build

[Jasonc]

I haven't screwed anything together yet. Just loosely assembled to get an idea of what covers what and where the camo lines begin/end.

Hot/humid is 6 months awayfor me. Can't quite wait that long!

Yeah, I hear ya on that. It's rained and has been colder than usual here in socal, which has ruined, or rather put off some other projects. They can be so tempermental.

[mickyg]

I'm finding the cold weather doesn't seem to bother the acrylics I'm using nearly as much as I thought it would. They still go on well and dry fine (as long as I don't spray it on too thick, which seems to be happening on at least one part I paint these days).

More progress over the last few days! Managed to paint the darker gray on all the top surfaces. It looks only just a touch darker than the under side (it's dark ghost gray on top and light ghost on the bottom). In fact, unless they're butted up against each other, you'd think it was the same colour. Kinda not what I was hoping for but I guess it's somewhat accurate.

Anyway, got the gray done a few days ago (yesterday, maybe?) and the light blue today. The blue is much lighter than I'd expected, while the grays are a lot darker it seems. As this isn't an F-14 aggressor, I'm sure there won't be too many people criticizing my lack of accuracy.

As expected, my "paint each colour with a different masking cutout" had its problems. Even though I cut these out with a scalpel, somehow the painted areas didn't exactly match the masking. So in some areas, I've got hard paint edges with light blue on them (and a noticeable "step" in the paint) and in others, I'm sure I'll have a white line after I remove the masking. Oh well, nothing another pass after I finish the three colours won't fix.

Because I suspected this would be the case, I decided to be smart on the light blue and just paint everything remaining. The dark blue will then go over the light, with a seperate mask.

Pics (no descriptions this time, as I'm getting lazy! Please ask if there are any questions though):

[mickyg]

Got more masking done at the end of a weekend. And that's pretty much it. Ready for the last dark blue now. Hen it'll be lots of remaskin adn touch up painting. Kids: this is why you go base colour, then mask out the next batches instead of what I did!

I also discovered a few areas I thought weren't visible that I'll have to go back and paint (I'm looking at you, backpack).

[mickyg]

Finally got the final dark blue on. I was a bit worried because I didn't actually have FS 35109 when I bought my paints and got something close instead. Only after looking at the paint in the bottle, I decided it was much too gray and potentially greenish to really go with the other colours I'd already put on. I figured I'd do one small patch to see what I thought, just in case. And overall, I'm actually happy with it. As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm pretty particular when it comes to getting things "right" and that goes for colours too. Just look at the pattern of the camo if you need convincing - I could easily have just made my own scheme but I worked stupidly hard getting the pattern to look like the actual NSAWC Tomcat. And as I've also said, who cares! It's an aircraft no one's ever seen in this scheme!

Anyway, I'm happy with how it turned out but there are a lot of corrections I'm going to need to make in the coming weeks. Lots of results of not doing an overal base coat, some masking issues (not making sure the masking tape was fully stuck down before painting, creating leakage or feathering on some areas), and some evidence of paint running here and there. But nothing I can't fix up later. Just a bit annoying that I have to all.

Look at the wing to see what I mean about some mistakes that'll have to be fixed. The black "outline" in some areas is another concern. It's not an outline actually, it's just the preshading showing through and a small area where one mask overlapped another so the area didn't get any paint at all. But instead of seeing the white plastic, you see the black preshading.

There's still a LOT to do yet!

Edited May 28, 2011 by mickyg

[valhary]

looks nice

[mickyg]

Thanks! It's coming together, finally!

I've still got some concerns about what I'm painting and how durable things will be when it's all together. For instance, the vertical stabilizers and their hinge mechanism-that joint is so tight that paint has to scrape off in order for it to work. How is white going to look on that joint? I'll post pics of what I mean at some point. The other item is the LERX assembly. That's a diecast part, along with the hip swingbar mechanism. It's painted white, and a fairly glossy white. I don't really trust any of my (acrylic) paints to adhere to the white paint already there. But I'm starting to think it'll look pretty stupid white. I also don't know what'd it'd take to resurface the paint in order to get anything else to stick to it (sandblasting?). I was hoping it'd be ok because of all the other white things that are meant to be that way (radome, leading edge of the left vstab, top of both vstabs, inside of landing gear bays). So I'm still undecided. I guess I could go with some lacquer paints but I don't have them and don't want to shell out more for them. Plus, I've then got to deal with some pretty nasty chemicals for cleanup. Lots to consider.

Still open to thoughts and suggestions.

Here's some quick snaps I grabbed on my iPhone tonight to illustrate what I mean:

This shows the LERX (but not the nosecone so no other white references).

And here you can see the white that is actually a result of the paint rubbing off as I put the stabs onto the backpack to prep for lining the camo pattern up. I suppose I could sand down the edges just enough to allow the pain thickness, but that'd be nuts!

Edited May 29, 2011 by mickyg

[valhary]

I like to see the battroid mode you really intrigued me about the aplication of the paint in the head

[mickyg]

You and me both! I haven't assembled the toy in that mode yet and I'm not at all sure how I want to tackle the head. I'd thought about doing the visor in camo to match the top, but then it'll stick out in fighter mode. So maybe the face "mask" will get the camo treatment instead? Same thing for the arms-since they're not terribly visible, I could camo the whole things or do the upper camo, lower gray scheme like the rest of the aircraft. Lots to decide still.

You might have noticed I'm not sold on where to start the white on the nosecone too.

Edited May 30, 2011 by mickyg

[mickyg]

I have a few days off from work this week so I'll be trying to get more done. Today I spent the better part of the day fixing up the mistakes I made on my first painting attempt.

I cut out the masks previously, and while convenient, it required exact placement to get the next colour down. Something I wasn't quite able to do. And since the base colour was white, missing the lineup, even by a smidge, meant ugly white lines between the patterns (some of which are visible below). Not good. I sanded the parts in preperation for masking and painting (they're still wet here).

So this time around, I used the good old fashioned method of cutting strips and carefully placing them where I wanted them. You then have to use larger pieces to box in the patterns. Bear in mind, this method is great for straight edges. It won't do squat for curves, which most camo patterns are made up from.

I went a bit easier on the paint this time. I thinned a bit less than previous and didn't change the pressure, which I think made for a bit less paint coming out. The result was a finer mist of paint and a few more passes required for coverage. And less paint build up. My previous attempts left a hard edge between colours, which I then had to sand off.

I also found a nasty little "gotcha" on the v stabs-the shorter hinged one has a nasty tendency to scratch the backpack. I don't know of any way to prevent this. I've played around with it but I think it's just how it is.

Edited June 15, 2011 by mickyg

[mickyg]

Pics uploaded...

By the way, I didn't show the painted pieces with masking removed, though there are some (pieces, not photos). I also didn't show the stabs masked or painted (and they were). Hoping to get more done tomorrow and will take some fresh pics then.

Edited June 15, 2011 by mickyg

[valhary]

looks great youre thinking in a red visor I ask because for the paint scheme in the traditional green maybe not highlight

[mickyg]

I'm not sure. I'm actually leaning more towards a blue visor. I think red would look a little out of place with all the other blue tones. I can experiment a bit. With acrylics, if I don't like it, windex to the rescue!

[EXO]

I think you're right. A deep blue visor would look good. Maybe with some future it'll shine. Looking good!

[mickyg]

Thanks! It's certainly a challenge to get it to look the way I want it.

I had some more progress today, managed to get the nose painted (airbrush) and I think I like the look of it. I also realised I hadn't fixed the rest of the masking mishap mistakes so decided to tackle it with a normal brush. I've found flat acrylics seem to behave quite well when hand brushed so figured in the very small spots that needed attention, it was at least worth a shot. I had a cold day today and the thought of getting out the airbrush for another three colours sorta turned me off the idea!

The results were pretty good actually. In fact, the bit that pops open to allow the head to come through, well I'd forgotten to paint the light blue on that one entirely. I tackled it with a brush and I was pretty impressed with the results. Granted, you end up with much more paint than with an airbrush but the convenience was a good tradeoff. Bear in mind, I airbrush in the garage, have a really loud compressor and it's almost never convenient to do it. So any chance to stay indoors and get acceptable results is very much welcomed! I also decided to bite the bullet and paint the LERX (brush painted as well). The edges were masked off just like for airbrushing and to my surprise, there was no running or leakage under the (tamiya) tape. Even though it's now been used about 3 times in different spots! Great stuff!

[mickyg]

I got sick of dry fitting parts, only to find I'd missed some painting somewhere or scraped it off somewhere else. So today I (mostly) assembled the valk, so I could take photos and get an idea of what needs to be which colour and where. Plus, I was dying to see what this is going to look like and impatience has once again won out!

I have to say, the pins on these kits are a major pain! I have needle nose pliers and that's about the only thing that seems to work to get the pins in. And only with some marring and scuffing of the opposite side of what you're trying to press the pin into. The factory must have some great tools to work with to protect the parts while pushing the pins in.

Another interesting tidbit - there are two sets of pins in this kit, one with knurling, the other smooth. The instructions never tell you which one to use where (or if they do, it's in Japanese), only the length and diameter. I found the infamous shoulder pins had one of each type, smooth or knurled and both the exact same dimensions. So the solution for the shoulder issue on the kits? Use the smooth in the shoulders and the knurled in the other place (can't remember where it is now but it wasn't on any sort of weak plastic).

Makes me wonder if the smooth pin was always meant to be in the shoulder and someone just swapped the pins on the first build run and the routine stuck! I guess we'll probably never know. But suffice to say, you can have non splitting shoulders on the VF-1S kit if you swap the smooth one in.

Quick (as in non-tripod, non colour corrected) photos:

[Froy]

Wow this is turning out very good, keep it up!

Congrats!

Edited June 17, 2011 by Froy

[mickyg]

Thanks! I still feel like there's a long, long way to go.

Hopefully I'll have the chance to eyeball everything sufficiently while it's together, so that I can be pretty efficient when I get it all painted up finally. Then it's a clearcoat, decals, panel line wash, matte coat, some drybrushing here and there, and a semi gloss final coat. By semi, I mean a slightly less than matte coat. I might mix matte and semi together to get the result I'm after. Matte (flat) is too flat to my eye at this scale. I think semi is more scale appropriate.

I'll have to make doubly sure everything still mates up well and fits with all this painting. There's already some areas scuffing and taking some abuse and I'm only a third of the way there in terms of paint thickness!

Most importantly, I'll need to make sure I don't get burnt out. There were some times yesterday where I definitely started having second thoughts!

[miriya]

Looking great! Thanks for documenting the process! It is fun to watch.

[Kanedas Bike]

Looking great! Thanks for documenting the process! It is fun to watch.

Agreed! One day when I grow up I might try to build one of my Yamato kits. Until then I'll enjoy watching fans like MickyG build theirs.

-b.

[mickyg]

It is definitely far safer this way (on your sanity at least), that's for sure!

Thanks for the comments everyone. Please keep 'em coming!

Edited June 19, 2011 by mickyg

[Dobber]

Wow! she looks fantastic! Too bad we live on opposite sides of the planet, would be nice to get some formation pictures of our planes.

Chris

Edited June 21, 2011 by Dobber

[mojacko]

its looking great...a few more sprays and its up for display.....

[mickyg]

I certainly hope so! I plan to do some more work on it this afternoon. Hoping to get all the colours finally done at least. Need to paint all the insides too so you're not staring at ugly white on the inside of things. Some things will be left white, to accent the nose and tail white parts. I'm thinking the upper arms, where they rotate.

[GU-11]

Awesome cammo paint job, MickyG!

One question, though; why's the canopy painted up as well? Sorry, I just skipped to the latest page.

[mickyg]

That's masking tape.

I've left it on because I plan to overcoat it the same as everything else (gloss, followed by not quite matte) but don't want to screw up my glossy, future dipped canopy work underneath. Only, I'm a bit concerned that because I've left it on so long, the tape's gonna stick and leave behind marks. I don't have the stomach to remove it to see how it's holding up!

Awesome cammo paint job, MickyG!

One question, though; why's the canopy painted up as well? Sorry, I just skipped to the latest page.

[mickyg]

Seems I only get things done on this when I'm home from work by myself. That's when I'm on leave, or when when I'm sick. Yesterday and today, I'm sick. Seems like the year from hell for colds! I think I've been sick about 3 times in 6 months. I blame my 3 year old and the other kids he hangs out with.

I got lots painted and did a bit of fact finding with the paint applications while I was at it. There are lots of parts that will rub and Yamato did a great job on their factory toys to apply very durable paint or simply mold the plastic in the correct colour so scratching and chipping are absent. Since the kit is molded in white, I don't really have that option.

I've got lots of pictures but the uploader only allows 10 per post. So this first one is just a "here's what I did" post. The second will be more detailed.

First a quick look at the bottom - why? Because it shows some items I'll point out in the next post. And also because it provides a quick look at the stuff I'll likely keep white. As you can see, with the "legs" on, you won't see any of this. Also, the "posts" that fit into the intakes are on the wrong sides. Proof that you have to follow the instructions very closely! I found out they were wrong after I pushed the assempbled legs on. They were a pain to get back off, let me tell you!

The backpack engine nozzles. These are very complicated parts to mask. I'll paint these some sort of steel colour and the crappy job I did with masking will be (hopefully) covered by the black wash I'll do around the nozzles. Perfect masking would be better but I just couldn't get tape or a toothpick to push it down properly in these gaps!

The nose/fuselage. The fresh masking tape is a "bandaid" for where it scraped on the cockpit shield for battroid mode. I had all kinds of issues getting things to sit correctly, and luckily the tape was scratched but not the paint on the frame for the canopy. The other item of note is the landing gear light. The toy has a molded "bump" that I've never been happy with. I was going to paint it silver and call it done but the perfectionist in me decided to make it difficult. So I've drilled out the bump (not perfectly on center either) and will pait it silver, then dab on a drop of future, let it dry, then do it again until I've built up some semblance to a lens effect. I may be barking up the wrong tree with this approach and might have to use some canopy glue instead. I just don't know if it'll dry clear enough.

Backpack section and other minor parts that needed painting. The "back" of the backpack is hidden in fighter mode so I can camo it up as much as I want and it won't break up the light ghost grey scheme on the bottom. The blast shield for the canopy will be grey with dark blue splinter camo over it (which looks like very dark grey no matter what I do with the lighting correction in my photos). The head will be light ghost grey on the visor part, since that's what you see in fighter mode, and the rest of the "face" will be camo'd.

I had decided to call it a day and had already cleaned the airbrush when I figured, what the heck, why not do the last bit of masking and painting for the darker blue. Here are the results:

The masking on the face came out a bit soft but I'm not sure it'll be that obvious when it's all built. Then again, I'll probably end up fixing it now that I've seen it and proclaimed it to the world!

Edited July 1, 2011 by mickyg

[mickyg]

Now, for the "problem areas" I mentioned before.

These areas are all prone to rubbing and chipping of the paint. It's mostly areas that you'd expect, like where the legs clip into the LERX, or where the arms clip into place.

But then there are other places that you wouldn't expect to rub. Hopefully I've identified the most common ones for people to watch out for.

That hinge for the backpack was another one I suspected would be a problem. I ended up sanding a lot of the plastic down so I could replace the lost bulk with paint. Hopefully that ends up working. The second item in the pic is more surprising. The back fo the fuselage rubs up against those two white pieces on either side in fighter (and I suspect battroid) mode. Since these aren't seen in either mode, I just sanded the paint away. It's not terribly bad to look at.

That backs of the "shoulder light posts" since I don't know what else to call them are another trouble spot. They rub on the little fingers on the part that becomes the chest in battroid mode. Owners of the M&M VF-1J sets will know this is a problem even with the factory paint. My solution is the second pic.

The insides of the folding areas on the back of the fighter are another area that surprised me. I didn't expect these to really rub. But since the parts are so tight, any added paint is going to rub. I don't know what I'll do for this yet. Maybe I'll sand it all off and try painting with an airbrush instead of hand brushing like I did before. I think the paint was just too thick.

And the last one is another obvious one, the backpack hook. It fits tight and when it's used (I must admit to never using mine on my factory toys) it naturally scrapes along the parts it comes into contact with. The solution is probably to paint it in the closed position and never mess with it.

That's all for now!

[miriya]

Love the progress. If they had moulded this in gray then the chipping would not be so pronounced or problematic.

[mickyg]

You don't know how many times I've thought that! I've even considered buying a low vis Roy but they're hard to find and way more expensive. Oh well...

I don't know what I had intended on doing today, but here's what I ended up doing:

That's my first experience with alclad and I love it! I probably didn't put it on quite heavily enough for the feet but I was afriad I'd cover up the preshaded black a bit too much. I think it looks like convincing steel as it is though and I doubt I'll go over it again. The fan blades are not at all appropriate for steel but I wanted them to have some sort of colour. I have some lighter silver that I might lightly put on. I don't know. Most fan blades I've seen on commercial aircraft are a dark, completely non-metallic grey sort of colour. So maybe the steel isn't so bad after all. Doesn't really matter as I'm likely to leave the intake covers on, such is my hatred for the fan faces being so close to the intake openings!

That last pic is just a quick shot of my other on the go projects. An F-16 (GE) nozzle on the left, a VF-1D cockpit, which is almost ready to seal up, and the instrument cluster for the F-16 on the right (Eduard photo-etch). I have most definitely been bitten by the model bug - I'm a sick, sick individual!

Edited July 1, 2011 by mickyg

[peter]

Wow, looks friggen awesome man, great work so far! I always wondered about these painted toys....I guess you'll never really be able to play with it too much without shredding up the paint right? Basically, pose and display right? I can't imagine even just a single transformation without scratching it up someplace.

[regult]

I wish I could get bitten by the same bug Micky! I simply cannot afford to have an airbrush sitting in my bird-cage apartment here. Without proper tools, the model kits are just wasted IMO.

Thanks for documenting the process and congratulations on pursuing the modeling hobby even further!

[mickyg]

Thanks guys!

The project is currently sleeping. Just a lot on my plate at the moment and no free time to devote to this. I'll pick it up again in a few weeks. The whole start/stop thing annoys me but it's probably for the best. If I go too hard with it, I get frustrated and tend to rush.

Regult: I totally understand your situation! I was thinking the other day how great it'd be to get a proper spray booth so I could paint inside the house instead of the garage. Then I remembered I have a very noisy air compressor! I can't imagine doing any of this in an apartment!

Peter: I'm hoping to rectify the pain chipping issue. We'll see if it's possible. As I've probably mentioned before, some of the factory schemes (Max and Millia's VF-1J) have paint issues as well. So some is to be expected. Hopefully my approach works. Otherwise, I could have saved the money and bought a hasegawa kit!

[maxi]

just a quick question....were can I find one of these beauties?????

[ae_productions]

just a quick question....were can I find one of these beauties?????

They're getting pretty hard to find.

Next year is Macross' 30th. I'm sure many of the Yammie Valks will be reissued.

[EXO]

Looks great! Cockpit is looking awesome!