kyekye Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 where did you get those numbers sticker(decal) from? Thanks That one, I believe, is from old Mecha-Skunk webshop and actually not part of new parts I got . I don't think it's around anymore this year . This shop might have some from Mecha-Skunk or other alternatives. Quote
kyekye Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 Started putting masking tapes on parts for primer/Surfacer. Since this SDF-1 parts are made of a bunch of different materials (ABS, POM, Diecast Metal and other plastic types), it might be risky to use any Lacquer based paint (It might be O.K. if surfacer can protect the material ). I'll try sorting out parts by material types. I'm still waiting for the mini LED light (Beam Saber), but I was curious to see what it will look like. So i did a small test using fiber optic cables. The size is huge compare to the cars, but I think it will work out somehow. I think either I can paint the tip with clear color or put colored glass lens to get colored light I will need to glue it after painting is done. Later today or tomorrow, I'll start painting once surfacer coat is done. Below is reference image for city block painting. Quote
kyekye Posted January 25, 2011 Author Posted January 25, 2011 I did an additional light test with color marble lens to see if I can add some colors to the city lighting. It seems like it will work. Also changed the main Bridge antenna from Photo-Etched parts to metal rod - closer to original design now. Next, I designed the City background image from various screen shots from the movie based on the original city concept image and printed out/cut to fit the shape. Here are the images I used. Please feel free to use it/modify it for your own custom. I made 2 variations with small differences. Please note that these are 300DPI images - so you will need to set the printer accordingly to get correct size. Quote
derex3592 Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 DUDE-----Yamato or SOMEONE should HIRE YOU! you're badass! Quote
EXO Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 Just send that baby to me when you end up in the looney bin! Quote
Mechamaniac Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 That looks fabulous! I think I would have to remove the cars though as they really blow the scale of the buildings and the stadium. Either the stadium is more of a 20 person ampitheater or those are actually Monsters lumbering down the streets of Mac city. If anything, the city just shows you how grossly out of proportion the real life Macross would be compared to the supposed dimensions from the show.series. Less than a mile long? Give me a break. Quote
kyekye Posted January 26, 2011 Author Posted January 26, 2011 (edited) DUDE-----Yamato or SOMEONE should HIRE YOU! you're badass! That will be better than going in the looney bin!! Just send that baby to me when you end up in the looney bin! Thanks for your kind(?) words I'll re-write that on my will Your name and address please.. That looks fabulous! I think I would have to remove the cars though as they really blow the scale of the buildings and the stadium. Either the stadium is more of a 20 person ampitheater or those are actually Monsters lumbering down the streets of Mac city. If anything, the city just shows you how grossly out of proportion the real life Macross would be compared to the supposed dimensions from the show.series. Less than a mile long? Give me a break. The cars are about 1.2- 1.3mm on the part - which makes it about 4m in real life - so it kinda makes sense? Though in the Anime, Hikaru's VF-1 flew from one end to the other to rescue Minmay for 25 sec! Even with less than half speed, he flew like about 5km! So, I believe the buildings and Stadium are out of scale, but..it's Anime... Also I received 2 more detail up parts. Below is fitting test. They are a Miracle fit!!! I'm impressed! They are very shiny machined aluminum parts, but I'm gonna paint it like burned metal and it will end up looking like the sample pic on top-right corner Edited January 26, 2011 by kyekye Quote
Mechamaniac Posted January 26, 2011 Posted January 26, 2011 The cars are about 1.2- 1.3mm on the part - which makes it about 4m in real life - so it kinda makes sense? Though in the Anime, Hikaru's VF-1 flew from one end to the other to rescue Minmay for 25 sec! Even with less than half speed, he flew like about 5km! So, I believe the buildings and Stadium are out of scale, but..it's Anime... Yeah, EXO and I brainstormed this out one night and if you take the scale of the city as shown in the anime into account, based on the size of the stadium, the Macross would be more like 5 MILES long. EXO has a pretty good graphic he whipped up showing the dimensions. Quote
kyekye Posted January 27, 2011 Author Posted January 27, 2011 (edited) Another crazy day at work ..still squeezing out some night time to work on SDF-1... (A Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do ) Before surface work, I wanted to add some details on the city block using photo-etched parts and various metal parts. Also I tried to figure out which part of screen shot I should use for which part on the city block. * added bridge steps detail, added traffic signal on the side of bridges * added window and shop front details * detail up the concert hall * added random city details here and there I would say back half is done. Front half is for tomorrow. Hopefully the painting will bring out these details later! Edited January 27, 2011 by kyekye Quote
eugimon Posted January 27, 2011 Posted January 27, 2011 Omg, that's incredible... Fantastic work! Quote
Major Focker Posted January 28, 2011 Posted January 28, 2011 Also I received 2 more detail up parts. Below is fitting test. They are a Miracle fit!!! I'm impressed! They are very shiny machined aluminum parts, but I'm gonna paint it like burned metal and it will end up looking like the sample pic on top-right corner there's a version of those thrusters with built in LEDs Quote
kyekye Posted January 29, 2011 Author Posted January 29, 2011 there's a version of those thrusters with built in LEDs Thanks for the info! I think I've seen them from AKO website as well. Those are very nice and reasonably priced, but that will make the thruster nozzle a bit taller, I think. Since this is my first time using LEDs (or any electronic parts) on my build, I'll just settle with city lights for now. Foot Thrusters are something that can be added easily later since those have batteries installed inside already. Quote
kyekye Posted January 30, 2011 Author Posted January 30, 2011 (edited) Finally it's weekend! I can spend some extra time on this slow process! I needed to set up the lighting unit before going any further, so I went to RadioShack and bought a battery pack, new LED and an on/off switch. The first place I was going to put the switch didn't work (you can see the empty hole ) . The only place i can put it was outside center area where the cover parts has some space. So, I cut out to fit the switch shape and it fitted nicely. Also painted the thruster nozzle parts with dark silver and airbrushed clear orange on top to give it a burned metal feel. Since I had some extra time today, I went ahead and finished surfacer/primer painting on all parts (except for ARMD main parts). I used Mr Surfacer (Grey for most parts, black for darker parts) After sanding/re-surfacing, I went to the next step - pre-shading. This will bring out the metal panel feel after painting colors on top later. These are parts that went through the process. (Boy! that took a lot more time than I thought! ) Parts Group A (Mostly upper torso/main body + Nozzle parts) Parts Group B (Mostly Legs and Feet + City) Parts Group C (ARMD + Diecast main frame. A bunch of other parts) Tomorrow will be Masking/Color Painting on City! That probably will take me 3-4 days Edited January 30, 2011 by kyekye Quote
UN Spacy Posted January 30, 2011 Posted January 30, 2011 Amazing progress. If you can bring this to MWCON that might be enough for my to head down there. Quote
kyekye Posted January 31, 2011 Author Posted January 31, 2011 Amazing progress. If you can bring this to MWCON that might be enough for my to head down there. Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not really a convention guy Also, every time I bring Toys/model kits outside, I end up lose some parts or break someting Typical butter finger.... Quote
kyekye Posted January 31, 2011 Author Posted January 31, 2011 Spent almost all day on 5" X 1" City block most of the painting on the city block is done. Still need some touch up here and there. Added some trees Connected Fiber-optic cables on various spots Added some color lenses (0.3mm marble or beads) at the tip of some Fiber-optic cables Added some giant LCD display feel to the 'Transform Warning' background print out. The blue light shows up on the photo, but orange and red lights look like white light in the photo. They are actually pretty nice Working on these tiny pieces all day is seriously doing some damage to my eyes. I need to NOT look at this for a couple of days Quote
wm cheng Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 You are the crazy master! Wow, I love that you've taken the toy and transformed it into a model - a worthy replica! It looks absolutely fantastic, keep it up and keep going. I wish I had your patience, but all the hard work is really paying off. I love following your thread. Can't wait for the next installment. Quote
eugimon Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) For anyone who doesn't own or have access to the 1/3000 Macross, a pic so that we can all see the scale that kyekye is working at and how amazing his attention to detail is Edited January 31, 2011 by eugimon Quote
KiriK Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 City Details are amazing dude! And thanks for sharing the background images of the city for us other non-talented folk to steal and make our SDF-1's nicer! Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not really a convention guy Also, every time I bring Toys/model kits outside, I end up lose some parts or break someting Typical butter finger.... We'd love to have you come out to MW Con if we do one this year. (not sure about me hosting it again) BUT... If we do have another convention this year and you submit this into our Annual Customs contest and you would be the favorite to win 1st prize hands down... We've gotten some great sponsors these past few years with some fantastic prizes that you could win for free just by sharing your awesome work Think about it. Quote
vf_1s Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Spent almost all day on 5" X 1" City block most of the painting on the city block is done. Still need some touch up here and there. Added some trees Connected Fiber-optic cables on various spots Added some color lenses (0.3mm marble or beads) at the tip of some Fiber-optic cables Added some giant LCD display feel to the 'Transform Warning' background print out. The blue light shows up on the photo, but orange and red lights look like white light in the photo. They are actually pretty nice Working on these tiny pieces all day is seriously doing some damage to my eyes. I need to NOT look at this for a couple of days Very Nice!!! the fiber optics is a nice touch. Can't wait to see what it looks like in the dark! Quote
kyekye Posted February 2, 2011 Author Posted February 2, 2011 (edited) It took me a while to recover my eyes.. Actually still recovering from all Sunday madness. It's amazing that my wife didn't kick my ass that day! Anyways, many thanks for keep checking my super-slow progress and many thanks for nice comments (mostly about me being sick, crazy, insane..etc ) I'm still staying away from City block. Thou i need to prepare the soldering the switch and the battery pack as well as making holes on the base parts for wires and cables. Meanwhile, I worked on the chest block details today. I totally forgot they had better close up scenes of SDF-1 in Macross Plus! Here are some nice reference images. I guess it's O.K. to use these since the same artist (Mr. Kazutaka Miyatake!!) did all designs for SDF-1. So I tried to get the details where they are more visible. Drilled some holes. Smaller ones are for the clear red lenses, and bigger ones are for 1.2mm metal tube frame for color lenses. Separated the vernier boosters to get rid of connecting pieces. Added some panel details with Plastic strips and left-over parts Carved out some vent holes (need to clean up the edges, but my tool got dull while working on these..)Time to get a new tip. I can't run airbrush compressor at night, so I'll have to wait for coming weekend for more painting Edited February 2, 2011 by kyekye Quote
Dangard Ace Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 Can't believe the amount of work you're putting into this thing. Awesome job! Quote
kyekye Posted February 4, 2011 Author Posted February 4, 2011 Work is getting crazier I'm still trying to squeeze in some time before going to bed, but it's getting difficult until the crunch is over (hopefully soon) still adding grill, hatches, metal parts details here and there I guess you know which part these are Quote
kyekye Posted February 6, 2011 Author Posted February 6, 2011 Yamato just announced that they will release a model kit version with possible photo-etching parts and decals. Now i feel really stupid going through breaking the parts apart... Probably it will be a lot cheaper as well.... Quote
wm cheng Posted February 6, 2011 Posted February 6, 2011 OOOHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!! Argh!! I really didn't see that coming!!! I can only hope maybe they'd sell the PE & decals as an option pack?! Quote
kyekye Posted February 6, 2011 Author Posted February 6, 2011 It also comes with broken main canon parts!!!! AAAaaaaaarrrrrrgggggg Quote
anime52k8 Posted February 6, 2011 Posted February 6, 2011 If it makes you guy's feel any better, we don't have any info yet as to whether this is a stand-alone model kit, or just a conversion/detail-up kit for the already released toy. We don't even know if the PE parts and the SDF-1 with busted cannons are going to be part of the same release or not. Quote
kyekye Posted February 7, 2011 Author Posted February 7, 2011 According to this link (with my little Japanese skill), It says '1/3000 kit' announcement. Contents are still under being discussed, they are planning to include (photo)etching parts, resin parts and/or 'glow' decal..etc. :( :o Oh well... What can I do.. I'm gonna go 'Anti-Yamato' mode for a while.. :ph34r: Until i finish my mod... and until they make a better YF-19... Quote
eugimon Posted February 7, 2011 Posted February 7, 2011 hopefully they release the upgrade parts separately as well. If not... well, it's kind of a dick move. It smacks of the vf-0a CF shin/not shin frak up all over again Quote
vf_1s Posted February 7, 2011 Posted February 7, 2011 (edited) I knew it was coming!!! All this detailing and modifications is too big of a market not to have a part in. In one of last year's show, one of the signs actually says possible upgrading parts for the 1/2000. I guess they switched focus to the 1/3000 for the bigger market now. Edited February 7, 2011 by vf_1s Quote
nghia59 Posted February 8, 2011 Posted February 8, 2011 Yamato just announced that they will release a model kit version with possible photo-etching parts and decals. Now i feel really stupid going through breaking the parts apart... Probably it will be a lot cheaper as well.... Uhhh.... So they're going to make a blank one like they did the Valkyrie???? Quote
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