Imai/Arii Macross Aqueous Paints

[Shawn]

Just recently, after many many many years, I was finally able to complete my Macross Aqueous Paint collection.
My missing element, the elusive #12 VF-1S, just never shows up.
With pure luck I found a #12, and also discovered that is has a variation! (All Macross fans are deeply aware of the dreaded 'variation')

Lets go back into time-1982, Imai and Arii are releasing all their Macross kits. Gunze Sangyo is the recommended paint resource for Macross model makers, with their safer water based Acrylic Aqueous paint line. 
Since these are sci-fi kits, we are going to need some non-standard custom colors, as the the standard Navy Blue or Gunmetal Gray aren't going to cut it. So working with Imai and Arii, they all come up with the Macross color palette. To make these custom Macross colors, it involved Mixing the paints yourself, using standard Aqueous colors as your bases.

In the Plastic Models Manual Part #1 book, we can see the basic stock/base Aqueous color line up pictured here.
Look for the H with a white box and a number, such as H1 for white, and H2 for black.
Anytime we have an H with a white square and a number, it means a standard Aqueous color.
(In this chart the smaller numbers on the bottom in black are cross referencing their Mr Color line up, but just completely ignore that for now)

 

Lets build a Queadluun Rau!
Ok-I see a bunch of H-# colors, that are standard colors. On the left is H8..silver. Ok this is easy.
What about those numbers on the top though-they are circular and in black, what are those?
Those are the Macross custom colors! Lets look at the #32 in the upper far corner for the upper legs on the Quead, it is Middle Purple.
What is Middle Purple??

 

Lets go to Macross custom color Mixing chart!
The left hand black column is the Macross Color name. 
Lets jump to #32 towards the bottom. It says Middle Purple. That is our Queadluun Rau color for the upper legs.
To make this custom color your ratio would be to use 88% of H39 (remember H and a white square with a number are stock colors), then mix 10% of H2 Black, and lastly 2% of H40 Flat Base. You could make this concoction using your Mr Mix color kit, with little ladles/spoons for the proper amounts(pictured in the upper right hand corner)

 

 

For the Q-Rau kit they also show you in the instructions the proper ratios to use. They do cheat a little bit and say 'you could probably just use the standard #39 purple', but if you wanted to be anime perfect you'd want to use the mixture in the previous chart for the true Middle Purple.
It seems for Macross models we need to mix mix mix, I sure wish there was an easier method!!

 

 

There is!!
For just a small 250 yen purchase price (and advertised in the instructions above), you could get some pre-mixed paints for those special colors packaged in a neat box, and then just grab your standard H colors for the rest of the build! Go grab color set #15!
Here is the Q-Rau paint box. It, along with all the other paint kits, contain 3 custom colors.
And here is our #32 Middle Purple-ready to use! If you used the standard H-39 purple then SHAME on you. 

 

Inside each paint box are 3 small containers of custom colors (its 2025 now, and these have all dried out decades ago)
They even include a little sticker you can attach to the paint, so you can use it for other kits (the custom colors are shared frequently across kits)

 

 

 

Here, in all their magnificent glory, is the full complete set of 17 Macross Paints! (technically 18 unique-since we have 2x #12s) 

 

 

 

The standard 'other sides of the boxes' which are shared across the entire lineup.

 

 

Here is the infamous "Could Never Find it" #12 and the variant. I suspect the top one with all 3 modes show is the variant, as all the earlier numbered series just feature a single art piece.

 

Looking back through the Model Manuals we can see the paints were mocked up for advertisements, with what looks like the darker gray VF-1J head color as also seen on the Ohasato Kite. This mocked up #1 art and coloring is different than what was actually released. Compare this version to the one above. We also lost the colored caps and the white lettering on the tops of the bottles.

 

Another shot of the mocked up set. Originally it looks like we were starting off with 10 unique color sets. 
Check out the dark head on the vf-1j!

 

Which later grew to 14, then ending at 17(I've not found a pic of the listing for all 17 yet if it was published)

 

And that about wraps it up for the Macross Aqueous paint collection. Happy to finally have the completed set, with the bonus #12 variation!
As a extra bonus I'm including the shipping box for the #2 set (Tomahawk), from old MW member Samurai Monkey, who found it in his closet 20+years ago and gifted it to me  Who would ever want an old box for dried up paints!?? ME!

 

 

[Shawn]

One extra thing about the Gunze Sangyo paints and that reference chart at the top-those same H-##s are used for the Macross Paint Your Own Cel kits!

 

[Gabe Q]

I usually don't chime in much but for some reason, I'm filled with a sense of joy when reading this. That is a monumental!