Trio of Hasegawa VF-1 Valkyries (Macross)

[Lysus]

I've been waiting for this one since I signed up...there's no words to describe how eager I am to build my eggies.



I decided to do a VF-1 Valkyrie from Macross (an animation from Japan, 1982, and movie in 1986--better known in the US as 1/3 of the series "ROBOTECH").



Then I remembered a scene from the 1986 film:



Three members of Skull Squadron on patrol in the Pacific, each with a unique paint scheme, and three egg kits:





Oh hey, there's decals for each pilot in the scene, what luck! I was thinking I'd have to paint them all and source up the numbering (nothing I love more than matching fonts on decal sheets). Though, maybe I will paint them anyway, decals and I are not good friends yet.



Just a few bits. I could assembly line build them up, but I think I'll do one on its own first just to see if there's any funny business.



Time to get to work!

[Lysus]

I wanted to finish off my two ships in the Great Imperial Garmillas Fleet I've been working on today, so I didn't get a lot more done.

Starting the build on the first plane I found that the exhausts and the gun pods will need to be painted up before assembly as they'll be too difficult to do up once it's all put together. So I opened up the other two bags and set about getting them ready for the booth.







So that's it for now, or at least until the kiddos are in bed tonight. I suspect I'll be at the bench after dark with this one...

[privatepete]

Can I borrow some of your storm troopers

[Lysus]

Can I borrow some of your storm troopers

I have three planes to build, but when I'm done, sure! Be aware that they're prone to hypnotic suggestion and can't shoot worth a damn.

[privatepete]

I will fit right in with them then

[Lysus]

At this point I took a few minutes to consider how these will be displayed. Obviously if I wanted to do the scene above, I can't have them wheels down. So I ordered some stands from Kotobukiya (Flying Base R x3). They have three options for grippers and of course a peg if you just want to drill into the kit. They're almost like little kits themselves:



(Sorry for the blur)



Three points of articulation and 360 swivel at the base and at the mounting peg:



I grabbed a gunpod off the clamp and popped it into the fuselage to test it out:



Perfect! That done, I can set the other two stands aside with this completed one and get back to work on the Valkyries since I know now I won't have to drill into them to mount them.

[privatepete]

Arrgh the force is strong in this one Pete with all the help he getting I think you should ask the Jedi high council for some help from the Jedi Masters or may be turn to the dark side

[Twokidsnosleep]

Awesome
I didn't see anything in the guidelines about helpers, so you are probably ok there.
Their boss might be a bit miffed when he finds them missing
Don't use Trooper Gary, he is a bit of a goof
[youtube]ll-paoQXRSA[/youtube]

[Lysus]

Awesome
I didn't see anything in the guidelines about helpers, so you are probably ok there.
Their boss might be a bit miffed when he finds them missing
Don't use Trooper Gary, he is a bit of a goof

Strangely the Empire has a great health plan and Gary is on mandatory two week reconditioning...err...vacation.

Little more time with the eggs today after some work on the GTi. I got the exhausts, gunpods, and pilots primed and then shot the exhausts with some Tamiya XF-56 Metalic Grey, adding a touch of XF-84 Burnt Iron to give it some depth. The gunpods will get a shot of some darker gunmetal or just plain black later, haven't decided which yet. I'll paint the pilots by brush.



With that out of the way, I can resume the build.



These things go together really quickly, it's more fun than I thought it would be for something so fast.



I did encounter one more complication. The turret (which becomes the head of the jet in robot mode) sits in a recess under the fuselage. This means if I want any detail on it I'll need to spray it separately and then pop it on once it's all done. No big deal, just hadn't thought of it until it came time to put it in place.



And it's together...mostly! I'll slap the other two together and get down to the painting, my favorite part. Just need to clean up some sprues, do some seam line filling/sanding and I'm well on my way.



Easy-peasy.

[Lysus]

Arrgh the force is strong in this one Pete with all the help he getting I think you should ask the Jedi high council for some help from the Jedi Masters or may be turn to the dark side

Well, the dark side is quicker. Yoda said so, himself.

[SergioSolo]

It surely looks like fun! Cute little planes

[Lysus]

Got home an hour early, so time enough to finish up the build phase:



On to painting, if I'm lucky that could be soon. I'll need to start with pilots and prepping those canopies, and thankfully that doesn't require solid bench time with the airbrush. Never hurts to get set up, though. Just in case...

[Twokidsnosleep]

I am loving the stormtrooper assistants....my favourite part of the egg builds so far
You trust them with paint and airbrushes??
Man your workspace is gonna be messy, they MISS EVERYTHING!!

[Lysus]

I am loving the stormtrooper assistants....my favourite part of the egg builds so far
You trust them with paint and airbrushes??
Man your workspace is gonna be messy, they MISS EVERYTHING!!

Yeah, hadn't thought of that.

Maybe should have hired some clone troopers instead, they seem to do alright in the accuracy department.

[Lysus]

Side note: I wish I had seen these sooner, alas...

Cockpit detail kit from RetroKit: https://retrokitonline.net/product/macr ... etail-set/

[Lysus]

Finally, a little time today to work on these.

First, got my three pilots painted up:



Primed:



And then pilots into the cockpits and canopies for some white base color.



The decals for the pilot helmets are quite thick, and this has me worried for the rest of the planes. I might be doing a lot of masking instead...

[Twokidsnosleep]

I like the pilots, kind of a Halo helmet vibe
I am darn positive that the Trooper on the right is Gary....the one with the masking on his face

[privatepete]

Hi coming along nicely could not wait for you to finish with your stormtroopers, had some help from Sparky & friend's and finally got it finished good luck with the rest of the build I'm a bit worried, do they know what they are doing they look a bit lost

[Lysus]

Hi coming along nicely could not wait for you to finish with your stormtroopers, had some help from Sparky & friend's and finally got it finished good luck with the rest of the build I'm a bit worried, do they know what they are doing they look a bit lost

Yeah, Sparky seemed much more competent than my troopers. Of course on a 30 day build I'm getting hammered with obligations, but I might try and burn the midnight oil over the next 10 days to make the deadline.

Here's to hoping!

[privatepete]

Hi I have some candles if that's any help

[Lysus]

Just a tiny update today. I managed to get a couple coats of Tamiya XF-2 White down on all three planes and the turrets. The gunpods were given a coat of Tamiya XF-1 Black, but only enough to darken the gunmetal without losing the sparkles. The turrets were trimmed by hairbrush and the lenses given a simple X-15 Light Green atop the white (they won't be too visible anyway).



I then unwrapped the thrusters and dotted up the red sensor pods with some Citadel Blood Red. Honestly, when it comes to brushing tiny details, Citadel paints are my favorite so far. I used them in years gone by for mini figures and was glad I held onto them. I only filled in one plane's cleats (little round holes with a crossbar for hoisting them around their carrier hangars) and decided it was a) too laborious and b) my Tamiya paint fought me off the brush at every step. I decided to bag the other two and try to give them a generous wash after the gloss coat (they aren't black holes after all).



Afterwards I shot a gloss coat of Alclad Aqua Gloss over al the bits and pieces so I can commence with the decal madness that awaits me...

Only 5 days remain...

[Lysus]

Yay, more time to work on these! The Aqua Gloss has had 24 hours to cure.

I started in on those cleats from last night. After some experimenting with Tamiya Panel Line Accent (Black) I found two applications seemed to do the trick nicely. In between I'd swipe away slop with some mineral spirits on a paper towel (dip the cotton bud, scrape cotton bud onto towel), and after the second dollop of wash I used some Tamiya pointed cotton buds for close-up slop cleaning. Here's some after second application shots:







Not bad, and it bypasses my lack of a quality fine tipped brush.

Unfortunately, it was decal time...and there's a few to do...



That's...that's...



No time to waste, and I should look at it as good decal practice. Though, as I said, the decals for these are really thick and don't like to conform. The anti-glare patch on the nose and large red circles on the sides of the nose cone in particular would not lay down without some poking and even snipping.

I quickly discovered that the decals are meant to be applied BEFORE assembly. This caused a problem with the wing stripes since they extend into the body of the jet along the wing. This meant I had to lay down the decal then cut the excess off while it set. In addition, many decals are meant to be placed atop another, or even two others. Here's unit 012, I didn't pin wash this one, and the horribad brush-work is taunting me. I'll fix this somehow soon:

1:


2:


3:


Mind you, there's TWO MORE decals that overlap those, one stripe and one canopy outline. Sigh. At least it's making things interesting.

Knowing this now, I wish I had done masking and painting for the stripes and coloration, but it's too late for a do-over. The first one about 65% decalled, I called it a day.

[privatepete]

No wonder you are a bit behind, just look at that trooper laying down on the job and playing with Bunny kin's, hopeless. I would have that man up on a charge quicker than you could say Cumberlayne Aresko,and the mess I've got a good mind to blow up my air bed paddle across the pound and give you a helping hand.My heart goes out to you sir good luck.

[Lysus]

Final stretch, clock is ticking...decals decals decals. I've breathed in so much MicroSet and MicroSol everything tastes like decals. Just as an example, here's 012 with about 75% on, and 011 behind it with no decals. Crazy?



An example of the layers of decals I mentioned, the little numbers weren't printed on the color decal...it's another decal placed atop the black one...



Not sure what to do about that blue circle (a decal not connected to the black stripe decal, naturally). The mold underneath has a cog pattern that, if painted, would have the cogs white with a blue field. Alas, I didn't paint, so...bubbles? I dunno. I'm afraid if I split them a little and apply more MicroSol they'll just come apart.

After getting 012 about 80% done, I started in on 011 and 013 in assembly line fashion. It went a little faster. At this point, I need to get them shot with a seal coat of Aqua Gloss tonight if I'm to finish them by the deadline so I'll look at the decals left to go and decide if I want to put them on or not. As much as I appreciate the tiny "Jet Intake" decals, a lot of these seem superfluous. Footnote, it's not just a red stripe where the warning would be, you can actually read the words they're so detailed. Surprising for egg planes.



Um, fellas we have a LOT of work to do...leave the bunny alone. Maybe I need to find a new way to motivate them...

[Twokidsnosleep]

Ya no rush or anything
Life is much easier when you bail out of starting a sig and just sit back and be a smart ass on other people's threads
Trooper Gary has been the downfall, sacrifice him if anyone

[Lysus]

Yeah, but Gary has a kid.

[privatepete]

You know what has to be done,just do it

[privatepete]

Help's on it's way ,he's got a absolutely brilliant mind ,two machine like hand's, yes you've got it's JAR JAR BINKS to the rescue no you don't have to thank me it was no trouble at all ,but money.always nice ,good luck

[Lysus]

No Jar-Jar! No!

Ok, so it's come down to this, the last dash to the finish line. I have to fit all the tiny decals now, the small numbers and whatnot. The kit gives you three options to choose from, and being that these kits are done up to match the movie, I went with the ARMD-1 posting instead of the SDF-1 or Prometheus as the TV versions would have had.



The second MircoSol application did help these color rounds conform more, but not all the way. I have to say, it worked really well most of the time, but in a couple places it caused the decal to retreat a little, creating some annoying gaps. Live and learn. After sealing in the decals I've done so far, I need to unwrap the canopies to (sigh) decal the canopy trim and pilot name stencils. Making good progress now.



I had something great planned for unit 012 (Hayao Kakizaki/Ben Dixon). You see, I was actually going for this moment from the clip way back at the start of this WIP:



Considering the compressed time I have left and the fact that I bought cotton pom-poms and not cotton bolls ( ) I needed to alter my plans (and pray I didn't alter them further).

Plasticard:



Stencil:



Scoring:



Outline/guide:



I remembered I had an old Tamiya primer rattle can, so rather than set up the booth again, I used it. And of course I handled the card too early, because I'm an idiot sometimes.



My flair was airbrushed for the text with a thick, black outline done in Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black and some silver Gundam marker to look like a chintzy cartoon. Some fireball effects were also done, but by hand to let the brush strokes look like some roiling flames (sorta). I wanted it to look like rushed animation to match my rushed fabrication. Back to the eggs, naturally the canopy trim was in three pieces. The longest one was, as the Brits here say, a real pig. Thankfully I only broke them all during application.



Time to modify Kakizaki's unit 012:



With a styrene tube attached to my flair, I inserted it into the hole and it was a perfect fit. Onward, time is fleeting! Amazing how much is getting done now... We need two more stands:



A little help getting the planes in place...



And done! Time to post the reveal. Thanks for watching

[Twokidsnosleep]

Vader put to good use
Nice

[Lysus]

Vader put to good use
Nice

Yeah, sometimes you just need a dark lord to get results.

Looks like I forgot the last pic:

[youngtiger1]

Just read this old thread and fully enjoyed it. Glad to see the six extra help you received during the build. It's always nice to have extra hands when you need one, two, four, or six...in this case Also, I like your idea of using cardboard inserts into those small blue boxes to hold parts while being assembled. I don't know what you call them but they seem very useful on the bench. I hope the dark lord won't mind me borrowing it Thanks for sharing

Mike

[Lysus]

Just read this old thread and fully enjoyed it. Glad to see the six extra help you received during the build. It's always nice to have extra hands when you need one, two, four, or six...in this case Also, I like your idea of using cardboard inserts into those small blue boxes to hold parts while being assembled. I don't know what you call them but they seem very useful on the bench. I hope the dark lord won't mind me borrowing it Thanks for sharing

Mike

Dunno if you're still around, but for whatever reason I was never notified of this comment (or I missed it). They're just Mr Hobby PaintStations: http://hlj.com/product/GNZGT68

Thanks for the comment!