#being twelve in 2015 and being twelve in 2022 are two VERY different things

[desert-anne]

kind of fascinating what seven years of unfettered internet access has done to the splatoon fanbase

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Our Story

Read the other chapters here.

Life goes on—quickly, greedily, and with a hunger that brings them to their knees. How to satiate it? How to stop it? They start journals (Claire), write more books (Jamie), do everything they can snag the veil with immortalized moments. If a memory is made concrete, they think—in writing or in a photograph—then perhaps time will have to move around it? Be forced to decelerate? (Time doesn’t care. About them, about anyone. The universal enemy.)

Claire is promoted to Chief of Staff, improves at Scrabble, develops a lump in her breast they believe to be cancer (it isn’t). Jamie learns how to sail without puking, gets a teaching job at Chapel Hill. He is less motivated by the idea of tenure—stability, money—than by the opportunity to stoke creative sparks in others just like him. In the fourth row sits a girl whose essays are colored by the loss of her mother, the grief of it found even in the gray eraser clouds. The boy behind her writes poems of spun sugar, overly romantic but endearing in their sincerity, and Jamie remembers this boy whenever he looks in the mirror.

Jamie grows a beard specifically to impress them. All of his professors concealed their weakening chins in thickets of hair, so why not him? The new aesthetic receives a positive response: Claire loves its tickle between her legs, his classes seem to find him wiser and mind less when his memory suddenly fails. (A common occurrence as of late, damn it all.) But when Jamie shaves for the summer, he feels strangely guilty—Bree’s expression, a scowl of disappointment in the reclaimed smoothness of his face. (The source of her sadness is revealed a few days later: she’d believed her father was Santa Claus.)

Jamie and Claire watch their bodies sag, widen. They watch their cholesterol, their caloric intake. There is the month-long agony of a shared paleo diet, an experiment which, come July, they decide is the dumbest thing they’ve ever done.

“No carbs!” Jamie crows in disbelief.

“No alcohol!” Claire hoots.

“Did I tell ye I cheated one day?”

“Jamie, you didn’t!”

“Aye, I ate Bree’s leftover macaroni,” he says. “Gobbled it right up, didna even use a fork.”

“Bloody traitor,” Claire says, and they laugh and laugh. Clink hearty glasses of wine as a toast to the old-age blessing of letting go and getting fat. (Jamie will repay Claire under the full moon, to redeem himself.)

For a while, it seems everyone they know gets divorced: a beloved colleague, a woman in Claire’s book club. When they hear the news, they praise their own luck, secretively locking hands before offering their sympathies. Such announcements inspire extra enthusiasm for the “Married” boxes on government forms. And saying things like, “My wife, Claire” or, “Have you met Jamie, my husband?” gives them a heart-swelling high.  (Belatedly, they realize this shouldn’t be considered luck at all—but a given. This, their lasting marriage.)

It’s only after the Abernathy’s separation that worry niggles its way between them. They watch each other carefully, sousing out possible itches: a desire to flee to a foreign country, a lust for someone whose faults are more expertly hidden. (No marriage, even Jamie and Claire’s, is without its itches. The difference here is that they never want to scratch them.) Jamie is careful about putting the toilet seat down, and he allots himself just an hour of self-pity for every negative book review. Claire does not organize his messy office, respects the calculated disorganization of his shelves, even though the clutter makes her skin crawl. She keeps the AC off every night that summer, just so she can feel Jamie’s heat next to hers. A way of ensuring that he is still there, sweating himself into their sheets, which will remain unwashed for several days.

Their biggest fight is in September of 2014. One of Jamie’s students begins to show more interest in her professor than in her studies. There are bold advances, firm rejections, a vengeful letter that describes their trysts in explicit detail (strangely, Claire finds the Dear Mrs. Fraser and Xoxo Malva to be the cruelest things of all). All lies, of course, but still Jamie and Claire fight. Feelings of betrayal stew overnight, and Jamie is exiled from their bed like a misbehaving dog, Claire watching from the doorway as Jamie whimpers to the couch. Two days of silence pass—the dean notified, apologies made, and tears shed—before he finally barges into the bathroom, uninvited.

“Are ye going to leave me?” he asks Claire, very quiet for someone who nearly ripped the door from its hinges.

“Jamie, now is not a good time.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m peeing.”

“So ye canna pee in front of me now?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

But Jamie stays there, waiting, fetches toilet paper when Claire’s hand lights on the used-up cardboard roll. She flushes and stands. A child is born and dies a man in the minute it takes his wife to wash up.  

“So?” he asks. “Are ye?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says.

They throw themselves into parenthood. Bree learns her ABCs, then her multiplication tables, then how to weep so that the dinosaur coloring book secures a spot in their shopping cart. Some innocence is lost after a public mounting: two petting zoo goats, vigorous thrusts, shameless bleats of ovine ecstasy. On the way home, “Where do babies come from?” is asked loudly from the backseat, though Jamie and Claire’s discomfort speaks louder from the front.

“From…from love,” Jamie stutters. “It’s something very special,” Claire adds—though a child is neither the guaranteed result, nor always the aim. They glance at each other, wondering if their daughter’s newfound awareness will require more discretion in the night. (There’s an element of danger to sex now, and the sneaky, moan-suppressing game of it reminds them of being young again.)

When they revisit the subject a few years later, they add such parental wisdom as: Trust is key; you must trust the person you consider doing It with. (Boy or girl, it doesn’t matter, they will love her anyways, does she know that?)

Actually, there needs to be trust and there needs to be protection. A rubber. A condom? Has Bree ever heard of a condom? (Yes.) What? How? Why is she aware of condoms if she is only eleven years old?

She is twelve years old, she is fourteen, she is sixteen going on thirty. Jamie and Claire spend hours looking for an elusive Pause button, the world moving at the same rapid-fire pace. 2015 becomes 2019, then 2022 in the blink of an eye. 

They watch Bree join the volleyball team, break her wrist, break her heart. They watch her pinch whiteheads, lust after jocks and platinum hair dye, suck in her stomach before full-length mirrors (sometimes, this makes them want to cry; sometimes they do). They watch her as she descends the staircase in a pair of towering heels, a vision of silk and emerald and such astounding loveliness that they cannot fathom how their bodies made her.

This is the night of Bree’s senior prom, the winds of change in the air. It is ten hours before she will lose her virginity—a three-minute fumble inside a Toyota—to the boy now standing on the porch. (There will be trust and a condom and the first delirious onslaught of love.) The boy, named Roger, looks utterly stunned as Bree pins his boutonniere to his lapel, as if she has driven the needle straight through his tux, directly into his heart.

The couple is herded to stand beneath the sycamore, and to say, “Cheese!” (“Or gouda,” Jamie jokes, having settled quite comfortably into the routine of bad Dad humor.) Jamie cannot get a picture that isn’t blurry, and so it is Claire, with her steady surgeon’s hands, who manages the perfect shot. This is the photo that will hang on the fridge door, while the other—the one taken mid-parental transition—will make the family album. Roger laughing, Bree rolling her eyes at her father’s incompetence. It is a photo that will make Claire misty whenever she sees it. Even ten years later, when she glues their wedding photo beside it.

Still—life goes on. Birthdays, high school graduation, anniversaries. Bree gets into Harvard, Claire becomes addicted to RuPaul’s Drag Race, Jamie chops off his finger while julienning vegetables. Their Cocker Spaniel, Adso, lunges at the pinkish nub, mistaking it for a discarded bit of hot dog. (Thankfully, Claire rescues the finger, and it is transported in a baggy of ice—along with its owner—to the ER.) 

Bree spends freshman winter term in Spain and calls home speaking the language, which only Jamie understands. They make it a joke to mislead Claire with outlandish stories, until she eventually catches on:

“Brianna got a tattoo of Roger’s face in Barcelona,” Jamie translates. “Full color, and at a verra reasonable price.”

“I know for a fact that the word ‘tattoo’ has not been used in this conversation,” Claire replies. “I’ve been watching Rosetta Stone, just FYI.”

“Weel, you’ll just have to see the proof of it, then.” 

Doubt flickers across Claire’s face.

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes, he’s lying, Mama,” Bree chimes over the speakerphone, and they both start laughing.

“You two are the worst.”

“But you’re the best, Sassenach,”

“Damn right,” she mutters.

November 2028. The year, somehow, is almost over. In one week Bree will come home for Thanksgiving, wearing a Harvard sweatshirt and a promise ring from Roger. Roger himself will tag along, and in the manner of all nervous boyfriends, he will stutter through Jamie’s questions, be all-too-grateful for the distraction of clearing plates. (“Don’t worry about that, I’ll get it!”)

Claire, away on a 3-week conference, will be back as well. She will serve the turkey with a glint in her eye, daring someone to note how the side dishes seem suspiciously store-bought. The table will only offer their effusive praise, lubricating the dry turkey with the chemical-laden gravy, feeding Adso the scraps they couldn’t get down themselves.

Until then, Jamie has the house to himself. He has not been alone like this since the early 2000′s, and his mind becomes unsettlingly untethered by the solitude. He goes hunting, fishing, hiking. He leaves the front door wide open, pours Adso too much food. He forgets his tackle box in the woods and doesn’t realize it’s missing until the sun has sunk. Tomorrow, he thinks.

He attempts to write his story for The New Yorker, but he can’t seem to parse his thoughts into sentences. They buzz around his head like aimless bees, and he almost wishes for a sting, a pricking back to his eloquent senses. (Where is that damn outline he made a month ago?)

Like a teenager, he goes to his bedroom at 3PM, intending to jack off his loneliness. He tries to summon an image of Claire from the last time they fucked (18 days ago!), but there’s nothing clear enough to get him hard. Just a pale throat, the vaguest suggestion of a flower. He resits his phone—he’s called three times in the past six hours—and watches a football game instead.

The days go on. Adso watches him, alert, as if he’s waiting for the final unraveling, the arrival of a ghost. Jamie starts five books, returns them to shelves before he finishes. He prepares extravagant meals, stores the bulk of them in tupperware. He eats, he drinks, he sleeps.

Then, in the middle of the night—a smell. It sits on him, pressing down like an angry fist. He sits up. A searing pain that keeps his eyes closed. A sudden constriction of his lungs. An alarm going off and a dog’s yip, the roar of them traveling through a fog, a—smoke?

There is smoke. Jamie falls out of bed and runs, blindly, but there is only heat where the door should be. He feels heavy; he feels light. He feels as if he is rising high above the house and that he is falling down, far down, beneath it. He plans an escape, but there is no synergy between his mind and his movements. He pauses.

Claire. Where is Claire? If he could just open his eyes, if could just breathe properly, then he would call for her, and—

He is on the floor now. When did he get here? How did he get here? The carpet is soft under his cheek, a pillow to go with the blanket that suffocates him. Perhaps he’ll simply sleep and wait for the nightmare—for that is surely what this is—to end. A dream, only a dream.

But he can’t just lie still! There was someone else, right? That name from a few minutes (hours?) ago is on the very tip of his tongue. He wants to yell it into the screen of smoke, but a surge of memory tells him to conserve his breath. Whoever it is, isn’t here. Whoever it is, wouldn’t hear. (How frustrating it is to feel such desperation for an unknown.)

It’s so hot now, unbearably hot. It reminds him of something. Stories. A boy who sucked the spirit right out of his mother, entered the world in a stolen blaze of fire. Another woman whose hands licked him up and down, the most exquisite burning.

There are sirens. There are shouts. Bright beams flash through the black cloud around him. He raises an arm to admire their light on his skin, deceptively playful in their colorful dance and silent song. Pretty, Jamie thinks, and because the familiarity is a comfort, he lets it take him under.

And just like that, in a wash of red and blue—life stops.

[makeover-blog1]

Macross +++ 1:72 Stonewell/Belcom VF-4A “Lightning III”, aircraft “(7)01 Red” of the VAT-127 “Zentraedi Busters” aggressor squadron; personal mount of Flight Leader Maxim Dadashov; Choir Flight Academy, Mongolia, 2016 (WAVE kit)

Some background: ]The VF-4 Lightning III began development in 2005 under the initial designation of the VF-X-4. Developed as a successor craft to the VF-1 Valkyrie, the VF-4 Lightning III was designed as a variable fighter that emphasized mobility in outer space.

The VF-4’s development began with the prototype VF-X-4 and the VF-X-3. However, when Earth was devastated in Space War I the loss of military facilities also resulted in loss of the VF-X-3. Amongst the airframes under development exist prototype No. 1 craft, VF-X-4V1 and the trial manufactured VF-4A-0 and thus the surviving VF-X-4 was developed and completed as the VF-4 Lightning III. A trial-produced variable fighter, designated the VF-4A-0, was also built using 25% VF-1 Valkyrie parts.

VF-X-4 underwent flight tests, including being test piloted by Space War I veteran Hikaru Ichijo. Once successful operational models were ready, the VF-4 began mass production on February 2012. Initial deployment began on the SDF-2 Megaroad-01 in VF-1 Skull and SVF-184 Iron Chiefs Squadrons on September 2012. When the SDF-2 Megaroad launched in the same month, Hikaru Ichijō flew a VF-4 alongside the new colonization vessel as the ship lifted from Earth and began exploration outside of the Sol system.

As a result of integrating existing Overtechnology and Zentradi-series technology, the VF-4 had a characteristic three-hulled-type airframe structure remarkably different from the conservative VF-1 Valkyrie design. The three-hulled style of the VF-4 increased fuselage volume, propellant capacity and armament load capability that all resulted in a 40% improved combat ability over the VF-1. Fully transformable, the VF-4 could shift into Battroid and Gerwalk modes like previous variable fighters.

However, the VF-4 did suffer minor mobility problems within an atmosphere and the new type was primarily deployed to the Space Air Corps of emigrant fleets to serve as the main fighter craft of the UN Forces in the 2020s. It was because flight performance within the atmosphere was not as good as the VF-1 that the VF-5000 Star Mirage became the main combat craft within atmosphere, while the VF-4 operated mainly in outer space.

Built as a space fighter, the VF-4 primary weapons became two large beam cannons, though the craft was capable of carrying a GU-11 gun pod in Gerwalk and Battroid modes. In addition to the powerful primary beam guns, the Lightning III also featured twelve semi-recessed long-range missiles, as well as underwing pylons for additional missiles and other stores. The VF-4 was only slightly heavier than the VF-1, but featured considerably more powerful engines, making the craft ideal for operations deeper out in space. The Lightning III was also much faster in the atmosphere than the older VF-1, although the VF-4’s flight mobility performance was not as great.

The VF-4 was also notable as the first production variable fighter to utilize a HOTAS system (Hands On Throttle And Stick) for the cockpit HMI (Human-Machine Interface). Furthermore, the VF-4’s cockpit was laid out as a single hexagonal MFD (Multi-Function Display) that proved so successful that it was retrofitted into "Block 6" VF-1 fighters, as well as providing the template for all future variable fighter cockpits.

By the end of 2015, mass production of the VF-1 series at last had come to an end. From 2020 onward, the VF-4 Lightning III officially replaced the VF-1 to become the main variable fighter of U.N. Forces. Production of the VF-4 continued for a decade and ceased in 2022, with a total of 8,245 Lightning III variable fighters produced. The VF-4 variable fighter remained in active service into the late 2040’s but was complemented or substituted in many branches of the UN Forces by the cheaper and more atmospherically maneuverable VF-5000 Star Mirage. The VF-4 Lightning III was eventually replaced as the main variable fighter of U.N. Spacy in the later half of the 2030s by the VF-11 Thunderbolt.

General characteristics: Manufacturer: Stonewell/Bellcom Equipment Type: Variable fighter Government: U.N. Spacy, U.N. Space Marines Introduction: 2012 Operational Deployment: September 2012

Dimensions: Accommodation: pilot only Fighter Mode: wingspan 12.65 meters; height 5.31 meters; length 16.8 meters Mass: empty 13.95 metric tons Structure: space metal frame, SWAG energy conversion armor

Powerplant: 2x Shinnakasu/P&W/Roice FF-2011 thermonuclear turbine engines, rated at 14,000 kg (137.34 kN) each 2x dorsal rocket engines (mounted on top of the main thermonuclear turbine engines) 2x ramjet engines (embedded into the inner wing sections) P&W HMM-1A high-maneuverability vernier thrusters

Performance: Fighter Mode: Mach 3.02 at 10,000 m Mach 5.15 at 30,000+ m Thrust-to-weight ratio: (empty) 2.01 (rating for turbine engine thrust ONLY) g limit: unknown

[Armament: 2 x large beam cannons in forward engine nacelles 12x semi-recessed long range missiles (mounted on engine nacelles and ventral fuselage) 8x underwing pylons for missiles, gun pods an/or drop tanks

The kit and its assembly: Well, this build has been lingering for almost 25 years in the back of my mind. It just took so long that a suitable IP kit (with a reasonable price tag) would materialize! The original inspiration struck me with a VF-4 profile in the source book "This is animation special: Macross PLUS" from 1994, which accidently fell into my hands in a local Japanese book store. Among others, a side and top view profile of an aggressor VF-4 in an all-brown, Soviet-style paint scheme was featured. At that time I found the idea and the scheme pretty cool, so much that I even built a modified 1:100 VF-1 as a ground attack aircraft in this paint scheme.

However, the original VF-4 profile from the source book had always been present, but for years there had been no affordable kit. There have been garage/resin kits, but prices would start at EUR 250,-, and these things were and are extraordinarily rare. Things changed for the better when WAVE announced an 1:72 VF-4 kit in late 2016, and it eventually materialized in late 2017. I immediately pre-ordered one from Japan (in a smart move, this even saved money) and it eventually turned up here in Germany in early 2018. Patience pays out, it seems… I had preferred a 1:100 kit, though, due to space issues and since almost any other Macross variable fighter model in my collection is in this small scale, but I am happy that a decent VF-4 kit at all appeared after so many years!

Concerning the WAVE kit, there’s light and shadow. First of all, you have to know that you get a VF-4A. This is mentioned nowhere on the box, but might be a vital information for hardcore modelers. The early VF-4A is a rather different aircraft than the later VF-4G, with so fundamental differences that it would warrant a completely new kit! On the other side, with a look at the kit’s parts, I could imagine that a VF-4B two-seater could be easily realized in the future, too.

The kit is a solid construction, a snap-fit kit molded in different colors so that it can be built without painting. This sounds toy-like, but – like many small scale Bandai Valkyrie kits – anything you ask for is actually there. When you use glue and put some effort into the kit and some donor parts, you can make a very good model from it.

The kit’s box is pretty oversized, though (any sprue is shrink-wrapped, horrendous garbage pile and wasted space!), and the kit offers just a single decal (water-slide decals, not stickers) option for a Skull Squadron VF-4A – AFAIK it’s Hikaru Ichijoe’s machine that appears in one of the Macross Flash Back 2012 music videos, as it escorts the SDF-02 “Megaroad” colonial ship after launch from Earth towards the center of our Galaxy.

The parts are crisply molded, and I actually like the fact that the kit is not as uber-engineered as the Hasegawa Valkyries. You can actually call the WAVE kit simple – but in a positive sense, because the parts number is reduced to a minimum, material strength is solid and the kit’s construction is straightforward. Fit is excellent – I just used some putty along the engine gondolas due to their complex shape, but almost anything else would either fit almost perfectly or just call for some sanding. Impressive!

Surface details etc. are rather basic, but very crisp and emphasized enough that anything remains visible after adding some paint. However, after all, this aircraft is just a fictional animation mecha, and from this perspective the kit is really O.K..

After building the kit I most say that it’s nothing that leaves you in awe, and for a retail price of currently roundabout EUR 50-70,- (I was lucky to get it for an early bird deal at EUR 40,-, but still pricey for what I got) the kit is pretty expensive and has some weaknesses:

The model comes with a decent (= simple) cockpit and a very nice and large pilot figure, but with no ordnance except for the semi-recessed long-range missiles (see below). The cockpit lacks any side consoles, floor or side wall details. If you put the pilot into the cockpit as intended, this is not a big issue, since the figure blocks any sight into the cockpit’s lower regions. However, the side sticks are molded into the pilot’s hands, so that you have to scratch a lot if you want to present the cockpit open and with an empty seat.

The landing gear is simple, too, and the wells are very shallow (even though they feature interior details). As a special feature, you can switch with some extra parts between an extended or retracted landing gear, and there are extra parts that allow the air intakes and some vectoring nozzles to be closed/extended for orbital operations. However, detail fetishists might replace the OOB parts with the landing gear from an 1:72 F-18 for an overall better look.

Provisions for underwing hardpoints are actually molded into the lower fuselage part (and could be punched/drilled open – another indication that more VF-4 boxings with extra sprues might follow?), but the kit does not come with any pylons or other ordnance than the dozen fuselage-mounted AAMs. Furthermore, the semi-recessed missiles are just that: you only get the visible halves of the only provided ordnance, which are simply stuck into slits on the model’s surface. As a consequence, you have to mount them at any rate – building a VF-4 for a diorama in which the missiles are about to be loaded would require massive scratch-building efforts and modifications.

Another problem indirectly arises when you put some effort into the kit and want to clean and pre-paint the missiles before assembly: every missile is different and has its allocated place on the VF-4 hull. The missiles are numbered – but only on the sprue! Once you cut them out, you either have to keep them painstakingly in order, or you will spend a long evening figuring out where which missile belongs! This could be easily avoided if the part number would be engraved on the missiles’ back sides – and that’s what I actually did (with a water-proof pen, though) in order to avoid trouble.

The clear canopy is another issue. The two parts are crystal-clear, but, being a snap-fit kit, the canopy parts have to be clipped into the fuselage (rear part) and onto a separate canopy frame (front part). In order to fit, the clear parts have cramps molded into their bases – and due to the excellent transparency and a magnifier effect, you can see them easily from the outside – and on the inside, when you leave the cockpit open. It’s not a pretty solution, despite the perfect fit of the parts. One option I can think of is to carefully sand the cramps and the attachment points away, but I deem this a hazardous stunt. I eventually hid the cramps behind a thin line of paint, which simulates a yellow-ish canopy seal. The extra windscreen framing is not accurate, but the simplest solution that hides this weak point.

The kit itself was built OOB, because it goes together so well. I also refrained from adding pylons and ordnance – even though you can easily hang anything from Hasegawa’s VF-1 weapon set under the VF-4’s wings and fuselage. A final, small addition was a scratched, ventral adapter for a 3.5 mm steel rod, as a display for the flight scene beauty pic.

Painting and markings: As mentioned above, the livery is based on an official profile which I deem authentic and canonical. My aircraft depicts a different machine from VFT-127, though, since I could not (and did not really want to) 100% replicate the profile’s machine from the Macross PLUS source book, "13 Red". Especially the squadron’s emblem on the fin would create massive problems.

For the two-tone wrap-around scheme I used Humbrol 72 (Khaki Drill) and 98 (Chocolate Brown), based on the printed colors in the source book where I found the scheme. The pattern is kept close to the benchmark profile, and, lacking an underside view, I just mirrored the upper scheme. The starboard side pattern was guesstimated. As a second-line aggressor aircraft, I weathered the VF-4 with a black ink wash, some post-shading with various lighter tones (including Humbrol 160, 168, 170 and 187) and did some wet-sanding treatment for an uneven and worn look.

Interior surfaces were painted according to visual references from various sources: the landing gear and the air intakes became white, while the cockpit was painted in RAF Dark Sea Grey.

In order to add some color to the overall brown aircraft I decided to paint the missiles all around the hull in white with tan tips – in the profile, the appear to be integrated into the camouflage, what I found dubious.

Most stencils come from the OOB sheet, but I added some more from the scrap box. The grey "kite" roundels come from an 1:72 Hasegawa Macross F-14 Tomcat kit sheet, which I acquired separately for a reasonable price. Even though it took four weeks to be delivered from Asia, the investment was worthwhile, since the sheet also provided some useful low-viz stencils.

The VAT-127 “Zentraedi Busters” unique tail insignia was more complicated, because these had to be printed at home. As a side note, concerning the fin marking, I recently found a translation of the benchmark profile’s text on mahq.net, which is interesting: "The Regult within the targeting reticle on the tail met with disapproval from micronized Zentraedi pilots, and so was only used for a short time." The comment also reveals that the original aircraft’s modex is "713", not just "13" as depicted, so I tried to reflect these details on my build, too.

I eventually settled for a solution that was partly inspired by the kit’s OOB fin marking and the wish for more contrast for the motif: I scanned the original Regult pod illustration from the source book and printed it on white decal sheet. This was sealed with two layers of glossy acrylic varnish (applied with a rattle can) and then cut into a white field that fills the fixed part of the fin (using the WAVE kit’s OOB fin markings as reference). Once in place and dry, two black outlines were added separately (generic decal material) which help blend the decal and the surroundings. Finally, thin strips of silver decal sheet were used for the fins’ leading edges.

This design variation, compared with the original “13 Red” illustration, led to the idea of a flight leader’s machine with slightly more prominent markings. In order to take this concept further I also gave the aircraft a white stripe around the front fuselage, placed under the kite roundel and again with black outlines for a consistent look. It’s not much different from “13 Red”, but I think that it looks conclusive and, together with the white fin markings and the missiles, livens up the VF-4’s look.

The appropriate flight leader tactical code “01 Red” was puzzled together from single digits from a Begemot Su-27 sheet, the rest of the bort numbers were taken from the OOB sheet (which incidentally feature a “01” code, too).

Concerning the OOB decal sheet, there’s much light but also some deep shadow. While the register is excellent and the carrier film flexible enough to lay down smoothly, the instructions lack information where to place the zillion of stencils (“No step” and “Beware of Blast” stuff) are to be placed! You only get references for the major markings – the rest has either to be guessed, OR you are in possession of the VF-4 source book from Softbank Publishing which was (incidentally?) released in parallel with the WAVE kit. This mecha porn offers an overview of all(!) relevant stencils on the VF-4A’s hull, and ONLY with this information the exhaustive decal sheet makes some sense…

As final steps, the VF-4 received some dry-brushing with light grey around the leading edges, some chipped paint was simulated with dry-brushed aluminum and, finally, light soot stains around the vectoring nozzles all around the hull and the weapon bays were created with graphite. Then the kit was sealed with matt acrylic varnish (Italeri).

Well, in the end, it’s not a carbon copy of the inspiring illustration, but rather another machine from the same squadron, with more creative freedom. I stayed as true to the benchmark as possible, though, and I like the result. Finally, after almost 25 years, I can tick this project off of my long ideas and inspiration list.

Considering the kit itself, I am really torn. I am happy that there finally is a VF-4 IP kit at all after so many years, but to me it’s a contradictive offer. I am not certain about the target group, because for a toy-like snap-fit kit it’s too detailed and expensive, but for the serious modeler it has some major flaws. The biggest issue is the kit’s horrendous price – even if it would be more detailed or contained some fine resin or PE parts (which I would not want, just a “good” plastic kit). Sure, you can put some effort into the kit and improve it, e .g. in the cockpit or with a donor landing gear, but weak points like the “flat” missiles and the lack of proper bays for them are IMHO poor. For the relatively huge price tag I’d hoped for a “better” OOB offer. However, the kit is easy to build and a good representation of the Lightning III, and I am curious if there are kit variants in WAVE’s pipeline?

Posted by dizzyfugu on 2018-06-09 15:34:26

Tagged: , wave , vf-4 , model , kit , wip , lightning , iii , macross , flash , back , 2012 , review , building , painting , anime , mecha , valkyrie , vat-127 , zentraedi , UN , spacy , desert , sand , brown , scheme , aggerssor , top , gun , training , fictional , aviation , vf-4a , this , is , animation , special , PLUS , choir , tschoir , mongolia , leader , flight , academy , fighter , interceptor , orbital , canard , wing , ramjet , red , star , regult , pod , emblem

The post Macross +++ 1:72 Stonewell/Belcom VF-4A “Lightning III”, aircraft “(7)01 Red” of the VAT-127 “Zentraedi Busters” aggressor squadron; personal mount of Flight Leader Maxim Dadashov; Choir Flight Academy, Mongolia, 2016 (WAVE kit) appeared first on Good Info.