1/48 VF-19A Excalibur [VF-X RAVENS]

[Rock]

First up Macross build for 2023. The VF-19A Excalibur! This kit is the 2020 re-re-release by Hasegawa. The kit itself is identical to the other VF-19/YF-19 releases with a unique decal set. I originally planned to build this as SV-440 from the VF-19 Master Files but over the few years I've now had the kit, the Macross VF-X2 scheme grew on me.  The build itself will be fairly straight forward with only some minor changes and detailing to make it less of a lazy recolor and more fitting to my tastes. 

For those not initiated... This VF-19A debuted in the Playstation game Macross VF-X2 Digital Missions. The new story follows the 727th Independent Squadron, the VF-X Ravens' missions a year after Macross 7. This unit was piloted by the Alpha Squadron's newly appointed leader, Aegis Focker.

 

VF-X mission standby... VF-X mission standby... Good luck!

Reference images:
 

[Rock]

In typical fighter fashion the cockpit is first. I ended up having to test fit the 2 halves of the main body together just to glue the rear seat delete panels into the correct position. Hasegawa really sucks for not including a rear passenger/RIO. A full cockpit would have been way more interesting to detail!

The pilot took a bit of work. I have to keep reminding myself this is just a repop of the older YF-19... which is why the 1 included pilot is Isamu Dyson instead of Aegis Focker. With the first challenge found, we can begin modifying the Macross Plus pilot suit into something that resembles the the very complex VF-X design! Stay tuned. [Also the paint has arrived!]

 

Using some of Hase's own YF-19 photo etch parts for the pedals. They look great but, unfortunately they fit like most aftermarket sets I've worked with a good 3mm away from the pilot's feet. Copper wire was twisted and bent to make the overhead ejection handles. They were shown in some of the scenes/art such as the cover for Macross Plus Movie Edition.

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by Rock

[Rock]

Pilot makeover. I learned on my YF-29 not to spent too much time chasing perfection and to use suggestion to make the pilots look the part. Keep moving. Added some basic detailing to the ejection seat to break up the large spaces, a PE emergency handle and some color. After reviewing the photo's it appears I got some touchup work to still do.


To get Isamu Dyson looking more like Aegis Focker I started with some knife work. Followed with drills and wire.

-Shave down the shoulder pads and round off. I then drilled into the, letting me install a pair of leftover 3mm Hi-Q Parts metal detail bits. A single strand of copper wire was tied around a drill-bit to create the loop on the shoulders and glued down.  
-Make the breast plate armor conform to the chest more and look closer to the game's design. Putty, and pla-plate were used to get the shape closer.
-Trim the helmet 'beak' rounding it off and revealing more of the shield/visor. I drilled the sides of the helmet for the circle details and used pla-plate for the main forehead body-cam.
-Remove some of the bagginess in the clothing, mostly around the wrists and ankles.

I simply painted a lot of the fine details such as the yellow stripes on the helmet and the rings around the biceps and thighs. This is what I meant by using suggestion to make the conversion convincing. Most colors were just quick mixes with AK Color paints. For the green, blue and black lenses I used Testors Aluminum enamel followed with a drop of Tamiya's clear acrylic colors (green, blue and smoke.) The lenses came out a bit darker than I hoped. A gloss varnish was then applied over everything followed with a simple black wash.

Looking through the art books and video game cut scenes, colors on the uniforms varied greatly. The official character sketches even featured red details/lining which was completely absent in the game. I choose to follow the game's less toon-ish look, however I ended up not liking the black on slightly darker black look and sprung for some purple highlights. Sadly, the purple/blue/grey mix kind of wiped out the shading work I had going. Once the rest of the cockpit is further along and things are flat topcoated I'll try to reintroduce them using some weathering pencils, dry brushing and pastels. I gave up trying to make Aegis' blue glasses show up through the visor and just blacked it all out. After topcoat I may try to do a black/blue chrome to make it pop more.

[Rock]

With the cockpit further along, my attention was turned to the fuselage. In typical 90's kit fashion the cockpit and various other parts all get sandwiched between the 2 halves. Before committing, I had to get the vents installed. This is the main area I wanted to improve and the main reason for buying Hase's photo etch set. You replace the big bulky plastic bits with some sleek metal vents/mesh! The vents are multiple pieces, right now I only have the backers installed as I worry about damaging the 'fins' in the process to come. Sadly I couldn't quite get the front vents to fit right. Both of them ended up slightly crooked. I attempted to remedy this by shaving down the mounting surface but, all this did was add a gap that I had to fill with CA Glue. If I ever try again with another build of this kit of the YF-19, I'd remove all the inside mounting surfaces and add my own to ensure flush fitment.

The kit really shows it's age with bad fitment, sink holes and injector pin marks everywhere. A bit of Mr. Surfacer and sanding got most of them. The entire fuselage seam from behind the cockpit to the wings required a few rounds of CA glue and 2 coats with Mr. Surfacer 500 brushed over them. I got them fixed but, it wasn't very fun. After around of Black Mr. Surfacer 1500 to verify my repair I'll have to rescribe all the panel lines around them. 😕 Today I got to use my new model kit paint booth, aka an iVation food dehydrator! Removes moisture, blows/recirculates air and heats up to 160F! I was able to 'bake' everything for about 20 minutes and then move onto the next layer. It took about 1 hour to get 3 layers of Mr Surfacer (unthinned and brushed on) fully cured and ready for sanding. I can't wait to try this with more difficult paint jobs in the future!

[Bolt]

Nice progress 👍🏼 I really like the seat and pilot work. 

[Urashiman]

Really awesome man!

[Rock]

Took a break from seamlines plauging the guns and landing gears to get some color started. Typical black base followed by some grey pre-shading and then an over thinned color coat. One more coat to go and it should be quite evened out.

I really wanted to start with the topside's blue/purple but I accidentally grabbed Bright Blue instead of Light Blue so I wasn't able to get the mix I wanted. Feels weird spraying Mr. Color after the past year being mostly AK's offerings.  I love AK and they are still my 'real world fighter' go-to but, the durability of Gaia and Mr. Color is still superior.

 

I had a mistake and somehow missed a bit of excess CA glue just below the cockpit section's seam as well as some misc. fingerprints. Rinse and repeat as it goes.

 

Moving on to the 'arms' I quickly found more mold defects. I can ignore some but the sides of the arms need to be straight. A lot of sanding with some 320g got the majority of it. A dab of Mr. Surfacer 500 in the low spots and another round should finish the job.

 

Moving on down... A bit of an upgrade for the wrists. I really enjoy how the hands tuck away on this design and Hase's PE parts do a great job or adding more detail to the covers. Not only that but, the PE part is much thinner than the plastic bits included allowing much more depth to be achieved. After some light sharpening/sanding, a small dab of CA Glue was applied with a toothpick to get the photo-etch secured. 

[Rock]

Oh the joys of annoying, no bad fitment.

In todays episode we tackle bad fitment, mismatched seams, and ugly mold marks.

But first PE engine details!

With the one joys out of the way onto the feet. After spending a few minutes trying to get the heel lined up I know I was in for some fun. Starting with 220g and working to 400g the halves were matched and the edges sharpened up. Before all hints of detail were removed, I transfered the details to a piece of masking tape and then to some styrene.

 

Following that the engines were up. The same affair. Unfortunatly, a round or two of putty will be required. Even worse all the lines will need re engraved. 

 

Last up but, not forgotten are the intakes which also need a lot of love with the added bonus of round mold marks plagued all along the insides. The details were masked up and a sanding sponge held by some tweaser were used to attack the marks.

 

Another day of work is expected before primer.

[Thom]

Effectively beating that into submission!

[Bolt]

Good job @Rock !

[Urashiman]

ah yeah ... sanding and getting rid of seams is so much fun

[VF-1A Grunt]

Wow, great work so far!

I had no idea that some of these Hasegawa kits had so many parts fit issues. That shows how little work I’ve done with mine so far, I guess. I have plenty of sanding sticks, putty, Mr. Surfacer, and a couple panel line tools, so I’ll prepare myself!

[Rock]

On 1/31/2023 at 1:02 PM, VF-1A Grunt said:

Wow, great work so far!

I had no idea that some of these Hasegawa kits had so many parts fit issues. That shows how little work I’ve done with mine so far, I guess. I have plenty of sanding sticks, putty, Mr. Surfacer, and a couple panel line tools, so I’ll prepare myself!

I'm like to say it depends on the age and release. This kit's first run was back in 2009 (YF-19), then re-released in 2010 (VF-19A Lightnings) and again 11 years later in 2021 (VF-19A Ravens.) Same kit in different colors except for the decals. I do wonder if it is simply an issue of the molds being worked over/well used someone with the first run of the YF_19 would need to chime in as I've only built the even older 1/72 Hase one.

 

The heels are shaping up. I missed some bubbles in my 1st primer (brush on Mr. Surfacer 500) that I though wouldn't show. Black reveals all! A pass with some 400 should fix things up before a respray!


Got the legs rescribed! A little sloppy and another round of filler is needed. Trying out a few new scribing tools from WAVE and HiQparts with much success. A bit costly at around 20/each but nicely machined and easy to use. Also grabbed the Hasegawa Tri-Tools Photo-Etched line scribing saws but, wasn't very impressed. They are so fine that I was clogging the blades up before having a meaningful amount of material removed. I also feel they are a bit awkward to hold. So happy to be past the major seam work. I've also been playing with using Mr. Leveling thinner with my black Mr. Surfacer 1500. I'm really enjoying the results as I feel some of the dry spray I'm getting on the larger parts has been solved. Still need to adjust for the lower paint build thickness of my mix. 2nd coat here we go!

[Thom]

The work on the feet and the seams on the legs have turned out very good!

[Big s]

It’s too bad that there’s not really a company that hits the middle ground between Hasegawa’s way too shallow and thin panels and Bandai’s too wide panels. But looks like you did a good job there. 

[Rock]

Working on my main color. Following Hase's mix of 60/40/3. Light blue / Cobalt Blue / Red.

The color turned out quite different than what I was expecting. Far from the plastic's and the box art's color. Quite a bit muddier, grayer, and reddish looking than I expected.  On one hand less cartoonish might be a good look. On the other the color will look even worse over a black base. More adjustment seems needed.

 

[Bolt]

Ya , definitely looks different. It will probably look different , again, when it's applied and dry. 

[electric indigo]

Red is the culprit here, as it contains yellow (it's a mix of magenta and yellow) and will de-saturate your mix and push into the grey-brown area. If you want a redder hue of blue, add purple (it's yellow-free) to the mix.

If you're using Tamiya acrylics, you can mix a wide range of blues from Sky Blue X-14 and Purple X-16.

[Rock]

On 2/7/2023 at 6:28 AM, electric indigo said:

Red is the culprit here, as it contains yellow (it's a mix of magenta and yellow) and will de-saturate your mix and push into the grey-brown area. If you want a redder hue of blue, add purple (it's yellow-free) to the mix.

If you're using Tamiya acrylics, you can mix a wide range of blues from Sky Blue X-14 and Purple X-16.

R, the mix is of Mr. Color (#80,110, and 3.)  I'm 100% the mix is right or what Hase wants as I'm mixing by weight. It's just not what I expected from what I've had seen.

----‐-

After doing some testing I ended up leaning into the gray tones by adding some more cobalt blue and light gull gray. I guess real world aviation tones are rubbing off on me. I wasn't too sure on its own but next to the light gray... well, I rather like the result!

 

[Bolt]

Looks cool 👍🏼

[Urashiman]

8 hours ago, Rock said:

R, the mix is of Mr. Color (#80,110, and 3.)  I'm 100% the mix is right or what Hase wants as I'm mixing by weight. It's just not what I expected from what I've had seen.

----‐-

After doing some testing I ended up leaning into the gray tones by adding some more cobalt blue and light gull gray. I guess real world aviation tones are rubbing off on me. I wasn't too sure on its own but next to the light gray... well, I rather like the result!

 

This looks more purple than blue. On the original artwork and the Macross VF-X 2 game itself, it is more a cerulean blue with a slight purple tint. That is why I am doing purple as a base shade for my 1/72 VF-19A and then going to spray cerulean blue over it.

I took some screenshots from the game to show. This is the after the My Fair Lady mission, in earth orbit, fighting against a ghost V-9 prior to the battle against Macross 13.

I mean, your color looks really awesome, just not game accurate

Edited February 11, 2023 by Urashiman

[Rock]

Yeah it is on the red side. Used 'ol PS to analyze it a bit more.

The 3 dabs Were each pulled form the images shown. Using the color picker I was able to compare the RGB (Red Green Blue) that make up the colors swatches.  The blue and green values of all 3 colors were insanely close. The red was a tad higher in my mix. I don't think I'm willing to dial it back by adding a bit more blue and green though at this point. I may use this excuse as a good time to see what a green dot filter can do.

Top Right: My mix on the area's with more black showing through. (R:115)
Bottom Right: The color pulled off the wing in the screen shot. (R:98)
Left: Color pulled off the top of the leg with less black showing though. (R:106)

Weird enough the thing just looks grey in some of the pics.

[Urashiman]

On 2/14/2023 at 1:30 AM, Rock said:

Yeah it is on the red side. Used 'ol PS to analyze it a bit more.

The 3 dabs Were each pulled form the images shown. Using the color picker I was able to compare the RGB (Red Green Blue) that make up the colors swatches.  The blue and green values of all 3 colors were insanely close. The red was a tad higher in my mix. I don't think I'm willing to dial it back by adding a bit more blue and green though at this point. I may use this excuse as a good time to see what a green dot filter can do.

Top Right: My mix on the area's with more black showing through. (R:115)
Bottom Right: The color pulled off the wing in the screen shot. (R:98)
Left: Color pulled off the top of the leg with less black showing though. (R:106)

Weird enough the thing just looks grey in some of the pics.

Interesting! Well - keep up the good work!

[electric indigo]

Uhm but you don't want to use RGB for pigment colors (raising all color component values woud lead to white in RGB/additive, which of course never happens with paint). The CMYK system is your friend here. If you want to further de-saturize your mix, you could add yellow, or grey if you want to keep the more reddish hue.

[Rock]

Ohh, I'll try that going forward. Thanks for your advice.

I'm fairly happy with where I'm at but, it is a bit different than what I'm used to, which happens to be why I'm enjoying it!  I'm happy I avoided this look [-twitter.com/FUEN_FGO/status/1261594210861346816-] which is the opposite style of what I wanted to take on in this project. Save the colors for gunpla!

I'm trying to keep in mind I'll be adding some unique high-contrast striping to break it up. I haven't shared the design here (yet) but, some may have caught a glimps of it elsewhere. I'll need to play with some blacks to figure something out. I'm getting away from pure black as to create shading depth, but I'm finding both the lighter nato and tire black-ish mixes I've tried kind of ruin the crispness of the look. This is very apparent when placing a decal on top of the black. Might give something like midnight blue (5%blue/95% black a try) to keep the color palate happy.

Anywho- PROGRESS! Though I admittedly screwed up the wings. I didn't pay attention and mirrored the top pattern onto the bottom which should just be gray... whoops! A few more fins to take care of and I think it will be safe to move onto a panel wash before trying some experiments!
 

[Bolt]

Nice ! Looking forward to what you're planning next.

[derex3592]

Very nice!!! LOVING that grey and white! 

[Urashiman]

On 2/18/2023 at 7:14 PM, Rock said:

twitter.com/FUEN_FGO/status/1261594210861346816

oh man ... this looks horrible. Kinda like the VF-22 color from VF-X 1.

And regarding the wings ... I did the same to my VF-19A hahaahah.

[Rock]

Things. Many things.

 

Wing underside corrected.

More color seperation.

 

And a teaser!

[Bolt]

Coolness !

[Rock]

[Bolt]

Sweet !

[derex3592]

That's SMEXY! 

[Thom]

Oh, beautiful paint job!

[Knight26]

That is coming together beauitfully