Print

[Jer]

So, I have a confession to make... I've been cheating on the band.

Ever since I finished watching Macross Frontier about a month and a half ago, I've become pretty obsessed with it.  The beautiful animation, the absolutely awesome music composed by Yoko Kanno, and just the simple fact that it's Macross, one of my all-time favorite anime series... All of it, combined has become pretty overwhelming and exciting to actually get absorbed into an anime series since... I think the last one I really got into was freakin'...Beck?  I'd like to say that was 2005.

At Anime Central, I couldn't get my eye off of this die-cast transforming figurine of Michael Blanc's ship.  For those who don't know, Macross fighter jets / ships / whatever, have three modes: Valkyrie, Gerwalk, and Battroid.  That translates into common tongue as "airplane" "airplane with legs" and "robot".  Unfortunately, it was $250, and that turns out to be more or less the price for that sort of thing...so, instead, I went the cheap route and bought two Bandai model kits for about $50 a piece, one of Michael's VF-25G and Ozma's VF-25S (the blue one and the grey/yellow one (based off of Skull One from Macross)).

I first started working on the VF-25G, (I wouldn't dare touch the VF-25S until I had acquired more modeling experience!) and I did a pretty good job putting it together...although, once it came to detailing, it pretty much fell apart.  Most of the decals had ripped because I didn't know you were supposed to clear-coat them...when I did get some clear-coat, I didn't have spray cans so I hand-brushed everything and you could see every stroke line because the coats were too thick and dried quickly...when I finally did acquire spray cans, whatever was left of any decals ended up being covered by paint and I didn't even have all the right shades... ANYWAY, after the first few giant screw-ups, I turned it into my test dummy and decided to test how to spray paint (I had never spray painted anything before), various solutions that make decals adhere to the surface better, metallic paints for the inner skeleton... anyway, what was supposed to be the descendant of my favorite Macross ship (Maximillian Sterling / Jenius's VF-1J from Robotech / Macross) ended up turning into this:




For the record, I paid my brother to paint Michael (the pilot) by buying him a Shinji Ikari figure on eBay.

I guess it doesn't look that bad in the picture, but there are lots of stickers that're messed up and the paint job isn't consistent, but the biggest mistake I actually made was thinking that lubricating the joints was a good idea (I used rollerblading grease!) but what it did instead was make it near impossible to pose the model.  Yeah.

So, as my penance to make up for this unacceptable job, I decided to order a second VF-25G as well as Alto's ship, the VF-25F (based off of Rick Hunter) since I knew I needed a lot more practice before tackling the VF-25S (Skull Leader/Ozma).

I decided to work on the VF-1A VF-25F next, as Alto is probably my least favorite main character in the show.  The process went a lot smoother - I primed, painted, and coated all the pieces before I cut them off of the plastic frame, sanded down plastic nubs, used setting solution for a lot of the decals before putting it together and applying a protective layer of clear coat one top of them...and because of work and helping my girlfriend move and get adjusted to Chicago (!), took well over 3 weeks as opposed to the 4 days I spent putting the blue one together.  I still need to panel line it, actually (using a mix of oil paint and turpenoid (odor-free turpentine) to bring out the panel lines).  Overall, I think it looks tons better!  There are mistakes, but they're not noticable at all unless you are looking at it up close.  Here she is:






I still need to find the right color paint for the rifle, by the way.  I would transform it and take pictures of Gerwalk (plane with legs) and Valkyrie (airplane) modes, but I'm waiting on a shipment of some clear coat to arrive so that I can spray it on the decals so they don't rip or anything heartbreaking like that during transformation.  But anyway!  I think I have sufficient practice to build another one now... after I start arranging some new music for the band, because I've neglected playing piano outside of rehearsal for a good month!

Oh, and here's the VF-25F along with a miniature Skull One and a bunch of other figurines I have!

[Tom!]

I dunno anything about models, but this actually makes me wanna try it! Though, I'm not really into giant robots or anything else that has much model potential

Scratch that, just remembered Zoids. Hm. From the sounds of it, it's pretty tough, though. Maybe I should just stick to my metalworking for now. XD

Good job by the way! They both look great.

[Jer]

Haha, I remember Zoids!  My brother was really into those.

Model building is definitely a lot of fun, but requires a ridiculous amount of patience when you're doing the final touches.  I screwed up quite a few things that I don't even really want to get into... Some of it required a lot of sanding down and repainting.

I was definitely inspired by this guy's work on Macross World's forums - http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=28142&st=160&start=160 and he's got a ridiculously awesome looking model of what I've got here.  Definitely puts mine to shame, haha.

By the way, here is the VF-25F with super parts on!  (rocket booster add-ons for speed!)

With Quick-Reply you can write a post when viewing a topic without loading a new page. You can still use bulletin board code and smileys as you would in a normal post.

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Name: Email:
Verification: