These decals are crap. They slide off the paper very easily, even in cold water, but once they go down, they do NOT want to slide around on the model. Mr. Mark Setter seems to have no effect on their ability to be repositioned once on the model’s surface. I had to get them exactly right the first time, otherwise they’d be a PITA to move around. Not only that, but they broke easily and I’d have lots of air bubbles under them. I’m using Tamiya Mark Fit Super Strong and these decals do NOT want to conform. I’m having to make cuts with my hobby knife and even then they still do not want to cooperate. Driving me nuts.
The paint job is Testors Model Master Acryl Camouflage Gray, and the reflector dish, impulse engines, nacelle Bussards, and flux chillers were done with Gaia Notes’ Arpeggio line of glow-in-the-dark fluorescent lacquer paints. This should look pretty cool once I find my blacklights in my hobby closet of doom.
I’ll need to give this a Mr. Hobby semi-gloss, then paint the nav lights and such. I’ll use a black alcohol pen to color in all the windows to add that detail.
I posted before about how the Nadia movie was a real dud, especially since it reset the characters and failed to feature Jean and Nadia’s wedding in this post here although it was featured in a doujinshi manga I included scans of here. Well, I recently learned of this novel published by Tokuma Shoten called “Jean and Nadia’s Longest Day,” written by Hirotoshi Kobayashi and illustrated by Kazuhiro Miyake. I bought it from Rakuten rather cheaply. There are novelizations of the TV series in three books, but this one is under the “Nadia Stories vol. 1” category. Vol. 2 in this series apparently involves an older Marie and Samson. Maybe it’s a story about how they get married? It’s the same writer and artist team.
In this book’s prologue, it says that Jean and Nadia were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. I’ve only read the first page so far. It’s pretty easy to understand so far, with only a few kanji I had to look up. I’m sure the reading level will become more difficult though as this is an adventure story after all. By the looks of it, the antagonist in this story is some weird non-human with some weird Illuminati-style horns growing out of his forehead. Anyhow, it’s neat seeing Nadia a bit older. Aside from the full color images I’ve scanned below, there are some occasional black and white illustrations interspersed through the pages of the novel.
An older Nadia, apparently sewing her wedding dress?
Nadia as a happy bride. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto did not do the artwork for this book, but as I mentioned above it was done by Kazuhiko MIyake. Not bad. So now I’ll show you some of the black and white pictures from the book, namely the ones featuring Nadia.
The only nice thing about the Nadia movie were the older character designs, and the art i this book remains faithful to that image of an older Nadia.
OK, so apparently Nadia makes a re-appearance at the circus she was once the star of? She’s wearing the same clothes, but they’re getting a bit small since she’s no longer 14 years old. Her top barely fits her tits now.
Looks like Nadia’s not having a good day. She got attached to yet another Y-shape, although this time it’s some sort of wall recession. The guy at the bottom is the villain of the story.
I’ll give the book a shot, but I’ve no idea how far I can get into it as I am not fluent enough, even for this novel aimed at adolescents. Nearly 10 years ago, I got to the point where every new kanji started looking the same, and all the pronunciations started sounding the same.
Here they are. I had to buy more 2mm brass rod because the length I had in Asuka’s leg wasn’t long enough and she began leaning forward. I removed it and put in a longer segment and now there’s no more problem. I’m still thinking that I might paint the base and print out a custom decal for it.
On the last Friday of June, after dinner in Maebashi we went to Bookman’s Academy, a nice two-story bookstore on the road straight south from the sushi restaurant we ate at. This bookstore not only has a great selection of modeling magazines, but upstairs in the “subculture” category, there are many books about modeling. First I’ll show you the magazine section.
Here you’ll see Armour Modelling with Umi Shinonome gracing the cover with her own color of paint (as shown above), Artpla, a Model Art mook on painting, Model Cars, a mook on modeling tools (I believe by Model Art), Figure King (covering pre-painted figures as well as kits), Macross Mechanics (a mook devoted to Macross modeling), a mook on painting techniques for WWII camouflage patterns from various countries, and something about the Yamato. To the far right you’ll see a couple of magazines about firearm replicas, which I am really not into. Looking down, you’ll see this:
Here are issues of Hobby Japan, Model Graphix, Scale Aviation, and Model Art. Oh, but that’s not all. I actually didn’t show you the row of modeling mooks on the shelf between these two pictures.
Here is a look at the Macross Mechanics modeling mook. This is the summer issue. Alright, now let’s head upstairs to the subculture section. This should blow you away.
Here are the magazines along the top. Gundam Archives is put out by Model Graphix magazine. These are mooks that are collections of Gunpla builds featured in the magazine. They also have Macross Archives and Votoms Archives that I’ve seen. In the middle is the SD Gundam Perfect Modeling Manual, and to the right is one on Ultraman models.
Look at all of these Gunpla modeling books! Here they have the Gundam Sentinel book, a compilation of the Sentinel articles once featured in Model Graphix magazine. Lots of other stuff too, like Hobby Japan Vintage, Hobby Japan Extra (these are mooks focusing on different subjects), more Gundam Archives issues, a book on Gundam MSV, and I spot a Scope Dog Votoms book. Looks like it might come with a model, the way it’s in a box like that.
Lots of other stuff, too! Model lighting, AFV, a book on building an F-14 Tomcat which actually covers the work of an American modeler building Tamiya’s Tomcat, various 72nd scale plane modeling books, and so on. This is the store where I bought the book showcasing modeling workbenches of several famous modelers, as well as the model lighting book by Dorobou Hige.
Here’s the Votoms Archives mook I mentioned, with a look inside. I love the paint scraping detail on the legs, from the armored skirt. Fantastic detail.
Here’s a book called “Soul of the 1/72 Scale” (ナナニイの魂) which covers multiple plane subjects in that scale.
Bookman’s Academy has such a fantastic selection of modeling books. I always enjoy going to this store with my family.
I made this for a teacher I work with. Evangelion is his favorite anime. He suffers from epilepsy, and the stress from work is once again keeping him from doing his job. He came back last year and did well, but this year has taken a toll on him again, unfortunately.
I used Perler Nano and Iron de Beads (local Japanese iron beads company) mini beads for this. Shinji’s fleshtone is Perler Nano Sand, Rei’s is Nano Cream, and Askua’s is Iron de Beads Fleshtone. Rei’s hair is two tone Iron de Beads Aqua. These colors matched her hair perfectly. Iron de Beads are slightly taller, but they melt well and I like them way better than Hama Minis, which are too small and cause problems.
This is where I got the pattern from. It was done in Lego! I found this image on Pinterest.
