Macross Tactical Pod REGULT - Bandai 1:72

[Mike]

I've been watching some of the Macross animé for a bit of light relief, and pulled this old(ish) Bandai kit out of the baddies' standard cannon fodder one-man assault pod. It's a traditional styrene kit with no softer plastic parts to give it friction posability, so I'll probably end up gluing it in a suitably aggressive pose somewhere along the line.

I've got no real problem building the kit, but the painting guide is all in Japanese, so totally out of my comfort-zone. There's a helpful visual reference for the colours with proportions to mix them, which I think are Gunze, but the colours are either referred to by name or written numbers. Who knows? I speak about 5-10 phrases in Japanese that I learned long ago, and don't read a single one!

I'd be interested to hear from anyone about tips & pitfalls for the kit, but in the meantime I'm just working through the assemblies, building up the legs in stages to allow the glue to cure so I can deal with the seams & mis-matches caused by tooling errors. There always seems to be a bit of an overhang with one part or other, and you can actually see some of the tooling marks from construction of the masters in places. Bandai have come on a long way since then

Incidentally, I built a Valkyrie in Gerwalk mode and a Battroid version too when I was a young 'un, and they're still in my loft somewhere. Those were bought from the late, lamented Arts & Crafts when it was in the catacombs beneath the main shop. They just appealed to young me for whatever reason, who had never even seen the cartoons/animé back then. I guess 'planes with arms & giant robots with guns are a universal constant for lads of a certain age

[JamesP]

Hi Mike, having been captivated as a kid by these kits when they first hit the shelves in the UK back in the 80's I've been steadily re-buying and building the original IMAI kits (later re-propped by Bandai). Back then we had no idea what Macross was, unlike the US we didn't even get the mish-mash that was Robotech, I finally got to watch all of Macross and some of the later series 10 years ago.

I built an IMAI Regult a few years ago, of the kits released at the time by ARII, Bandai etc the IMAI are generally the best.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/gregersfr/james-macross-regult-tactical-pod-finished-t11984-s20.html

Colours were Humbrol mixes, brush painted apart from the GS white.

Edited January 9, 2018 by JamesP
fixed PB link

[Mike]

Looks good James Some horrible seams, steps & such to clean up, and the plastic is as soft as it comes. The seam lines are re-appearing later on after they've been glued, which is a pain, and CA is just too hard to use as a filler

[JamesP]

The IMAI plastic was fortunately quite hard like Tamiya.

[Mike]

The Bandai plactic marrs if you so much as look at it funny

Anyway - I've cracked on and done a bit here and there over the last few days, and finally have some assemblies that actually look a bit like a model, rather than some randomly shaped styrene nubbin. The legs still need a lot of clean-up, although I have done round one on the smaller sections and the "toes". There are lots of mis-matching shapes and panel lines where the parts meet, so it's a case of doing the best you can with fettling and fit, then working on the rest. I've been using the UMM scriber a bit, and lots of Ultimate sanding sticks, the skinny ones being great for getting into the small areas. Sanding and scraping dust has been deep on the desk, but assemblies such as the engine pods (on the far left and right), the rear hatch (in the middle) and the cannons are starting to near their final form.

The big cannons aren't too bad, and I cleaned up the seams with the arc scriber reviewed the other week, which I'm starting to get to grips with properly now. it's superb for cylindrical things, but you have to be careful with parts such as the toes, where the curve continues, as there's a likelihood of you catching the part with the corners of the arc if you're not careful. The cannons have all been drilled out too, and I replaced the grips on the "handles" of the rear hatch, which were a little insipid, as well as straddling a horribly mis-aligned and sink-mark infested part. I sanded the detail off, filled the sink marks, and added short lengths of 0.5mm square strip all around the four sides. These were cut to shape, sanded to remove and rough edges, and then rounded slightly with a sanding sponge.

I've still to get the great big skull-like hull together, but I can't do that until the engine-pod are installed. I'm not sure whether I'm going to leave things mobile, or glue it all together rigidly. The latter might well be the way to go, as it will allow me to prepare the hull with the legs off, as well as sort the seams on the large toothed joint between the hull and legs.

[Dazzio]

Oo a Tactical Pod, I didn't know you could buy these over here. But thank God it says Macross on it not Robotech. I know the Bandai kit instructions reference Gunze paints, but that's for the Gundams. I'm not so sure on the Macross stuff, then again the Hasegawa Macross kits reference Gunze as well. Either way Mike, I like what I see thus far, looking forward to more

Kind Regards,

Dazz

[Pete in Lincs]

I've always liked the look of this thing.

But only ever seen it going for silly

prices on the bay.
I have seen one painted up with red

sections. Never before in blue.

With all the faults it doesn't sound

as relaxing to build as it looks.

[Mike]

Aye... It's available on eBay for sensible sums, so there's probably been a re-pop. I'm sure I saw one t'other day for around £20 from Japan, including postage. Certainly under £30 anyway

It's a bit agricultural in places, but the original copyright is 1982, so it's pretty much what you'd expect. I'll knock it into shape somehow though

[Hunter Rose]

Cool, looks like our off to a good start Mike, if I were you I'd just glue the legs rigid. Makes life easier (not that a modellers life is easy too often!)

[Mike]

I'm pretty much coming to that conclusion too... just can't be doing with it flopping about while I'm handling it, and exposing un-painted joints when it moves. It'll also help me paint & mask it in assemblies, rather than have to try to handle this floppy mess. It's decided... off comes the turret rotation collar, and on go the sanding trousers!

[Madmonk]

I'm pretty much coming to that conclusion too... just can't be doing with it flopping about while I'm handling it, and exposing un-painted joints when it moves.

Are you sure you're talking about modelling here!

Great start Mike, there are some nice mech units available at the moment, if Bandai would just stop issuing new SW kits I might get one!! (Who am I kidding!)

Cheers,

Warren

[Mike]

I most definitely am talking about the model, you filthy-minded individual!

I did toy with the idea of installing a red LED behind the main "eye", but decided not to, mainly because I couldn't be bothered There's an openable door on the back of the body though, which would make installing a battery a synch, so why haven't I?

[Mike]

I've been fiddling about doing minor assemblies and working on seams, but still have a way to go, both in terms of removing the seams themselves and returning the correct shape to the parts afterward. A coat of Alclad grey primer this avo proved that, although some of the work I've done tidying up parts and sharpening areas of detail is now paying off.

I've also been talking to Warren (Madmonk) about lighting the main "eye" with a throbbing red light, and with the aid of my Arduino Nano, one of the tutorial sketches (which is what you call the programs), and a bit of breadboard, I've got a satisfactory Gort-like slow fade up and down, whilst remaining lit. it's subtle, but if you're staring at it, should show after a few seconds. The code is as follows:

/*
 Fade

 This example shows how to fade an LED on pin 9
 using the analogWrite() function.

 This example code is in the public domain.
 */

int led = 9;           // the pin that the LED is attached to
int brightness = 50;    // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 1;    // how many points to fade the LED by
int baseBrightness = brightness;

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
  // declare pin 9 to be an output:
  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
  // set the brightness of pin 9:
  analogWrite(led, brightness);

  // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
  brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;

  // reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
  if (brightness == baseBrightness || brightness == 255) {
    fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
  }
  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
  delay(10);
}

Warren's going to transfer that little sketch to a chip & add a few wires for me. It'll be powered by a CR2025 coin cell, and I've sourced some tiny switches on eBay that I'll mount somewhere inconspicuous

[Kallisti]

Well done that man, always nice to see electronics going into a model!

[Mike]

All good fun, with no likelihood of eye loss I don't yet know the language of the Arduino (a variant of C+), so I've had to do a bit of guesstimation of what to do, but as the tasks I'm looking at are pretty simple, my decades old knowledge of BASIC and JavaScript are going to come in handy... if I can remember any of it!

[Madmonk]

Mike,

Programme, sorry sketch, loaded on to a Attiny85 chip and run at 3V with a 56R resistor in line with the LED. Only thing I changed on the sketch was the starting value of the fade, made it 25 instead of 50 as I thought it looked better fading slightly further down.

https://youtu.be/csW6p88HqhU

Enjoy!

Warren

[Pete in Lincs]

Shiny.

[Mike]

Looks good Warren - Shiny, as Pete says How does it look with a red LED, as they put out fewer of them there Lumens

[Madmonk]

Mike,

I tried it with a red LED and as you say the lumen output is not as high so not as shiny!

I would be tempted to use the white LED and paint the clear plastic with clear red.

Where would you like the invoice sending!

Cheers,

Warren

[Mike]

I'm not so sure about a white light with red filter/paint. If the shading is inconsistent, it'll look a bit carp. I'm quite happy with the lower output of the red LED TBH, so let's go with that

I'll PM you my PayPal addy for the invoice

[Mike]

Much sanding/priming and repeating going on today. It's surprising how many little niggles pitch up when you start to apply paint to a seemingly innocent surface. The pic would look about the same as yesterday's if you don't look too closely, so I won't bother

Meanwhile, Warren has even offered to give up his Corrie fix to get the electronicals done in time!

[Madmonk]

'Well I don't really know, Rita'

One for the older fan!

Circuit built and tested, in post tomorrow.

Cheers,

Warren

[Mike]

thanks very much Warren I've had to break tonight to make an Angry Birds face for the Boy, so by the time the postie has had a play with it, I'll be ready!

[brolyss4]

I have used white light LEDs and clear paint on transparent pieces, I will never do that again, I should have used colored LEDs, I really didn´t liked how it looks, the white LED is just too bright for the clear paint.

Here is a picture of my 1/72 Hasegawa Battroid with LEDs, maybe it looks interesting in the photo, but in person, it doesn´t.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/VF-1J-Battroid-testing-LEDs-2-279894772

You should use a red LED for the eye.

I will follow your progress, I have a Regult half built, abandoned somewhere at my room.

Edited April 7, 2015 by brolyss4

[Mike]

You're right, it does look interesting I eventually used a red LED thanks to Warren, but I then remembered that it would also need to look red when switched off. I used matt varnish inside the part, then painted the outer with transparent red, and with the red LED set back in a reflector (the domed end of a cigar tube), it looks great!

I'll post some pics when I've got it all glued together