stevethefishdotnet

[stevethefishdotnet]

Sega merchandise store at night Nanjing Road, Shanghai

Photo by my friend SuperGenki. Check out his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@SUPERGENKI

[stevethefishdotnet]

Argo Nauts 1:72 Y-Wing sofubi model kit photoset May 2, 2025

I started this kit about a year ago. This kit is soft vinyl with some pewter, resin, and metal parts. I posted about the build last August here. All of the vinyl parts were painted with V-Color paints.

[stevethefishdotnet]

12 Egg Girls Collection No.10 Claire Frost (Pilot suit) 1:12 scale resin figure kit by Hasegawa of Eggplane girl Claire Frost

[stevethefishdotnet]

The Black Hole Japanese movie poster

[stevethefishdotnet]

My nerd cave/hobby room late at night, August 2024 I'm a nerd living in Japan. I have my own hobby room, full of plastic models, retro video games, iron beads pixel art, decorative lamps, plastic models with a hobby workbench, and my computer. I originally posted this last year on my own personal blog.

A closer look at my Pac-Man light. It’s actually LEDs, made to look like a neon sign.

My Pac-Man lamps, with a Dragon Quest Slime in between, atop my Megadrive game collection.

My blue paper lantern now lights up the far corner of the nerd cave.

My Aliens and Empire Strikes Back posters, and to the left side are my Record of Lodoss War action figures.

My video gaming pillow collection: Megadrive, Saturn, and Dreamcast cushions, pillows and tissue covers, as well as Pac-Man pillows. My daughter likes to plop on these pillows and chill out. I’ve shown the Sega stuff from Shimamura previously on my blog.

[stevethefishdotnet]

Tokyo's Shimokitazawa at night, January 2000 Fujicolor 200 slide film photography taken with a Canon AE-1 Program

[stevethefishdotnet]

Kotobukiya Ikaruga

[stevethefishdotnet]

Tokyo Tower December 21st, 2024

[stevethefishdotnet]

Image of Rei Ayanami adorning an Evangelion Pachislo machine. Photographed in Ameyoko in Ueno, Tokyo.

[stevethefishdotnet]

Arii 1:100 Macross Regult Scout-type Battlepod photoset December 2nd, 2024

I completed the Arii Heavy Missile Regult and posted that build on here a year ago. I posted the box art too.

As with the previous build, I used aftermarket parts to spruce up detail on this old kit. I used Wave’s H-Eyes parts for lenses and Kotobukiya’s MSG for the thrusters in the knees and on the engine pods. I used Mr. Color 323 Light blue and 311 Gray for the white parts. The gray was a mixture of 32 Dark Gray and 72 Intermediate Blue. For the big red sensor you see on the right side of the head, I filed it down flat, painted the surface Mr. Color Silver, and attached a big Wave lens piece that I painted in Mr. Color Clear Red, The big blue sensor on top was just painted Silver and then Clear Blue. I attached the big gray sensor dome last, because I wanted to retain its semi-gloss finish. The decals were still usable after all these years. They were a bit yellowed, but I taped them to my window for several days to bleach them. I lost one decal in the process of this build.

Unlike the top-heavy Heavy Missile Pod, the proportions on this kit are fine.

[stevethefishdotnet]

Falchion SD Devil Hunter Yohko sofubi figure build photoset December 2nd, 2024

This kit by Falchion is completely soft vinyl, including the sword. It was a quick build, painted with V-Color vinyl paints. Nothing special, no pre-shading. I airbrushed her hair black, then again with brown until it lightened up. Her eyes were painted with Tamiya and Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paints.

[stevethefishdotnet]

Gunbird (Psikyo, arcade 1994)

[stevethefishdotnet]

Sailor Moon (Banpresto, Arcade 1995)

[stevethefishdotnet]

Ramaya's magic attack Arabian Fight by Sega (Arcade, 1992)

[stevethefishdotnet]

Argo Nauts 1:72 Y-Wing sofubi build update August 7th, 2024

I had posted a scan of this kit's box a few months ago. This is a sofubi (soft vinyl) kit with some brass, pewter, and resin pieces. The main body is vinyl, the disk ventrals at the tail ends of the nacelles are resin, the nacelle beams are brass, and the guns and landing gears are pewter (I think).

This picture above is a quick dry fit of what it looks like so far. I didn't tape the pieces together or anything, but just quickly assembled it for this picture. I later realized that I had hastily attached the nacelles upside-down. I just threw this quickly together to take a photo.

The kit does not come with any decals, so I gave it my own, unique paint scheme. This is a Blue Squadron Y-Wing and I am happy with the stripes I fashioned on my own with masking tape. I painted the vinyl parts with V-Color paints, which are made specifically for painting sofubi kits and toys. This paint is great because when applied properly to vinyl, you cannot scratch it off. It's extremely durable and flexible paint.

I first mixed Light Gray in with Black to make my own German Gray color which I used as an undercoat. I splotched Mr. Masking Neo in areas with a sponge for paint chipping, then went over it with Light Gray. I used Blue and Pastel Blue for the trim, and Orange Yellow to have one panel be a replacement. For the non-sofubi parts, I used Mr. Color 325 (JASDF Gray, IIRC) which is a good match for the V-Color Light Gray. The engine cans were painted a mixture of V-Color Gloss Black and Silver, resulting in a nice gunmetal color.

I later decided to not go with the pastel blue trim for the nacelle tips and re-masked and re-painted them with the matching medium blue I'd used on the cockpit fuselage, which you can see in the photo below. It was a bit tricky, but I also added a small ring of Flesh 1 color on the sensor domes. V-Color has its own clear Smoke color. I made sure to use the Smoke to stain the area around the proton torpedo launchers on the underside. After applying that and a clear gloss top coat, I applied a wash. You cannot use enamel paints on vinyl since they do not react well to each other. Instead I used some Turner Acryl Goache paints, some black with a bit of gray mixed in. Turner paints can be found at any stationery store here in Japan and elementary students use these paints for their classroom art projects. (The jibungous Tsutaya mega bookstore in Maebashi has a great hobby section that has a wide selection of these paints as well as artist oils, pastel chalks, and plenty of other hobby supplies.) I thinned it with Mr. Hobby's Weathering Paint Goache Solvent. (I don't know what "goache" means because I forget... Go look it up if you care.) This is made for making a wash out of acrylic paints. Simple water or acrylic thinner can cause the paint to dry in splotches, but this solvent is made to help the paint run into contours and stay still instead of spreading into splotches.

There is no flat clear V-Color paint, so I had to create my own with Clear and Flat Base and tested it out on some spare vinyl until it looked right. I think maybe it might be a bit too flat, but I'm alright. After this flat coat, the blue looks considerably subdued and blends in better with the light gray.

The photo above is just another sloppy dry fit. Thus, it doesn't look straight. So far I have only glued the nose cannons to the cockpit pod, the sensor array domes to the nacelle tips, the engine cans and the exhaust shrouds that cover them to the engine pods, and I have glued the disk vectrals to the support pylons at the ends of the nacelles. I have yet to secure these beams to the engine pods, which are also not glued to the engine pylons. Nor have I glued the fuselage, cockpit, canopy, and such.

To quote Han Solo, "Here's where the fun begins." While this kit provides brass rods for the support pylons, you have to provide your own wires for the piping and bend them all into shape. If I don't get this part right, the model won't look good. So, I am a bit nervous. I am using Wave's C-Line brass rods. Since I have seen some Y-Wing builds in which the pipes were painted a metallic color, I think I might just leave mine unpainted. A viewer on YouTube suggested to me to paint the wires a metallic color for scale, but I think it looks fine as it is. What do you think? They look a bit too shiny since the fluorescent light is shining directly onto them in this picture. I will apply a wash on the brass rods and I was thinking that I will hand-brush Mr. Metal Primer since it is clear and the enamel or whatever should stick to it better after that. Maybe I'll use that Games Workshop Nuln Oil as a wash over the pipes. The pipes should add the bonus value of acting like pins to keep the pieces together. 

So far, my only complaint is the cockpit canopy. It was difficult to cut out the windows and I think it really should have been molded in resin. The Astromech was painted V-Color Gloss Black and masked off. I will paint its trim with Mr. Hobby Aqueous Gloss White. I also need to paint the cockpit instrumentation with various colors too.

I'm really enjoying this build and as a result I'm getting back into the three Nadia sofubi kits by Tsukuda that have been languishing for years as shelf queens. I've made good progress with those and I will post an update on those soon. I've also begun working on a Deedlit sofubi kit by Kaiyodo.

[stevethefishdotnet]

E2046 Evangelion Asuka in a yellow dress resin garage kit photoset June 9th, 2024

Very few complications with this build. Her skintones were standard Mr. Color 111 and 112 Character Flesh paints. Her hair has a base coat of Mr. Color 29 Hull Red and the main hair color is a combination of Mr. Color 39 Dark Yellow and 59 Orange. I then did highlights with straight 59 Orange. Her dress is Mr. Color 4 Yellow with 59 Orange for shading. Her eyes are Delta Ceramcoat acrylics, particularly Mediterranean Blue. For all the recessed areas of her hair, I used Tamiya enamel XF-9, Hull Red. For the darker shading for her cleavage and armpits, I used a combination of Tamiya Figure Accent Color Pink Brown, Mr. Hobby Lascius powders, and Faber Castell pencil called Pompeian Red.

I'm pleased with how her eyes came out. I can't do justice to Sadamoto's signature eye style, but it's passable. I see some people who can pull off gradations and I could do that just a bit, but I cannot do the seamless blending that some can. The thing about doing figure garage kits is that it doesn't matter how well you did painting a figure if you screw the eyes up. If the eyes look like crap, the whole figure is gonna look bad.

[stevethefishdotnet]

Argo Nauts 1:72 Y-Wing sofubi model kit box art

Contains soft vinyl (sofubi), metal, and resin parts.