The Unknown Valkyrie in 1/200 (?) Scale

Above: The old bird flies again! This is the finished form of the 1/200 (?) VF-1S, which I converted to a VF-1A-0 pre-production flight test article. This small kit is a real throwback to the early days of mech modeling. While short on decals and 'fiddly bits', this little guy is well detailed and makes a nice decoration for the old FROG stand I had lying around!

Just like real tanks, planes and ships, there are some mecha that are world famous, while others seem to pass unnoticed into the shadows. Shoji Kawamori's classic VF-1 Valkyrie, from the anime series Super Dimensional Fortress Macross, is certainly one of the former. For anyone growing up in the early to mid 1980's, the Valkyrie (Veritech in English) fighter is an instantly recognizable piece of nostalgia.

Because of Macross' popularity, the basic VF-1 Valkyrie has been made into a wide variety of kits covering a large number of scales. The production of VF-1 kits also spans more than two decades, and even now new models of Kawamori's masterpiece and its progeny are being kitted.

Of course, I wouldn't go for one of those nice, new kits. I prefer the old kits, with their poorer fit and sometimes questionable proportioning. While not as nice as the new 1/72 Hasegawa Valkyries, these older kits are truly relics of a bygone era. For me, building them brings back a lot of the excitement I remember feeling in the heady days of 1985, when I first discovered what anime really was, thanks to Robotech, and in particular, the Macross part of it!

The Kit:

Let me start by saying I don't really know much about this kit. I got it out of a Box-of-Junk (TM) that Dave Guertin brought to one of our meetings. It was chock full of all kinds of old, already assembled stuff, including a number of small scale Macross kits. This was the only conventional fighter mode Valk in the box, and I was glad to get a hold of it. (I don't have any fighter-mode, unarmoured VF-1s, you see.)

This kit is very small, and is smaller than the Arii 1/170 Valk kits by a goodly amount. Thus, I'm making the assumption that the kit is roughly 1/200. I was surprised by a few things when I really got looking at the kit:

1.) The kit's detail is very good. Like all anime kits, it has recessed panel lines everywhere.

2.) The kit's proportioning is also quite good. The nose lacks the pointiness generally associated with the VF-1 fighter, but does droop slightly, adding a nice touch of realism.

3.) While there was some gluing on the kit, the major assemblies were SCREWED together. There was a screw in each leg, to hold the legs to the body, and there was a screw that held the body halves together. Some Bandai kits (like Char's Counterattack kits, for example) used screws in the late 1980's/early 1990's, but I'd never seen them on such a small kit.

4.) The kit has originally been moulded in white or very light beige, but had since discoloured to an almost Afrika Korps Mustard colour. This was indelible proof that the kit was definitely a curiosity from the dawning of the Macross era.

Above: This is what the Valk looked like when I got it. Much of the original Skull Squadron paint has dirtied or rubbed off, and the unpainted plastic has turned a very, VERY ugly yellow colour. One thing I did like was the blue inside the engines: it really made the engines look like they were in afterburner. I wasn't able to recreate this effect, unfortunately. P.S. That's not a wash - that's real dirt in those panel lines!

There's no ID on the outside of the kit at all to indicate who made it or when, and I got a 'candy toy' feel from the kit. That was until I started noticing some interesting breakage patterns on the plane's underside.

My guess is that this kit was originally exceptionally well detailed as far as 'fiddly bits' go. There were clear mounting points for underwing stores (long since broken off) as well as landing gear. I even got the impression that the Valk's gun pod could have been attached to the underside of the plane. These are details normally seen at 1/100 and larger scales, but not on something this small. In addition, it looked like there might have been provision for a stand, if the builder wanted an 'in flight' VF-1. I was really impressed, but I was saddened too: none of these things were in the aforementioned junk box! All I could salvage was the fighter itself, although I was still very pleased with that.

This model was originally supposed to be a VF-1S; I could tell by the head mounted between the intakes. However, this head was poorly done, and the laser cannons/aerials were all busted, so I really wanted to find a way to leave it off. I came up with the idea of making the plane a pre-production type, and painting it in a test scheme. I needed a guinea pig for some new white paints and techniques anyway, and this little guy seemed perfect for the job. Thus, I prepared to go to work on my "test Valk."

Building the Kit:

There's really not a lot of 'building' that had to be done on this kit. I unscrewed the parts and separated the upper/lower fuselage halves. The Valk is a VG (i.e., Swing Wing) fighter, and like all VG kits, the wings have to be completed and 'sandwiched' into the fuselage. This means lots of masking come painting time, and that's not something I like to do. Thus, I decided to try a little modification.

I wanted to be able to slip the wings in when I was done the fuselage, and that meant that the pins that were on the wings had to go. I drilled out the wing's pivot pins using the smallest drill I could find, and then drilled a hole in the lower fuselage with the same drill. I then searched desperately for a pin I could use to hold the whole thing in place. I found the pins I needed in an unlikely place: the unused passenger seats of the Airfix Trimotor! Long live the spares box!

After a bit of wheedling and shaping, I had two tapering hinge pins that would allow me to insert the wings at my leisure. To my happy surprise, I also found that the legs (which form the engine pods) cover up the pins when all is said and done, so I didn't even have to worry if the pins were a bit short. I love it when a plan comes together!

The biggest job was filling the holes left by the screws. I used the body screws to hold the VF-1 together, but the leg screws were left out completely. I used Tamiya Filler and CA to cover all the screw holes, and once I sanded them flat, you'd never know there were screws holding this thing together. There was some Tamiya putty needed on the legs to smooth things out, and I did break off the rear stabilizer block to make painting and re-etching of the tail fins easier..

After a bit of sanding (which revealed that the kit was indeed originally white or close to it), the Valk was ready to go. Thanks to the modular nature of the plane, I painted the arms, fuselage, legs and wings as separate pieces. No masking was used on this kit at all! Happy day!

Above: These two views show the plane with all the Tamiya putty in place and the bulk of the old paint sanded off. Most of the filling work was needed on the underside, although the front of the fuselage by the intakes was also a problem area. Sanding off the paint reveals the surface detail even in the cockpit and tail fins: this had to be re-etched by hand to scrape out the two decade old paint, and make it possible to outline the detail.

Painting:

Many VF-1s are white. After seeing a picture of an Edwards Air Force Base F-15 in an issue of Combat Aircraft magazine (it rocks -buy it!), I decided I'd go for something similar for my test Valkyrie. The scheme I settled on was overall white, with a grey nose and red fins.

Of course, being a Gundam builder, I'm no stranger to white. However, I really hate using it. In order for while paint to work well, it needs to be over white surfaces. Thus, in the past, I've used Rustoleum White Primer from Wal-Mart. However, this paint takes a long time to dry, is quite yellow (for a white) and really doesn't' cover that well until it's on quite thickly. I really wanted a white version of Mr. Surfacer (which apparently does exist, but I can't get it), i.e. a white lacquer. Mercifully, Flowquil makes such a thing, and I was very excited to see how the Reefer White I bought at Broughdale would work as a primer.

Having solved the primer problem, I still had the issue of getting a white for the final, hand-applied, coats. Testors Model Master Acrylic white works only so-so, and tends to yellow badly with age. Not only that, but it's not sold ANYWHERE in the city! Tamiya White is very bright, but is horrible to work with, and has nearly no covering capabilities. I wanted a paint that would cover well, touch up well, yellow minimally, and not suck to work with.

Thus, I did what I always do - mix paints that shouldn't be mixed! While at Broughdale, I found some Polyscale Reefer White acrylic paint. It is made by Testors. It's just rebadged MM acrylic! I was ecstatic! I bought a jar of it to mix with some Tamiya XF-2 Flat White.

A lot of people will say Testors and Tamiya don't mix. They're totally wrong. The Tamiya component of the final paint makes it dry fast and go on smoothly, as well as adding 'vibrance.' The Testors component adds body to the mix, making it cover better and touch up easier. In addition, it neutralizes the Tamiya, so that the final paint doesn't dissolve itself and tear during hand brushing. To improve the 'whiteness' some Tamiya X-16 purple and Badger Amtrak Blue were added (in TINY amounts). The end result is a white paint that is actually almost fun to use! It does require more stirring than most paints, because the Testors component will settle out if the paint is left for more than an hour. This small problem aside, the 'Frankenwhite' I mixed up is now my new standard for Gundam White.

Due to the 'test' nature of both the aircraft (being headless) and the paint being used, I decided to take the metaphor all the way. I painted the tails red, with black tips, but left the rudders white. This is the same as the Edwards Eagle I mentioned already. However, I didn't like the idea of red outer wings, so I decided I'd leave the wings white, and do just the flaps red - the opposite of the tails! For the red, I used Model Master Acrylic Guards Red. It covered the white fairly well, although being a glossy colour, it was more difficult to work with. Next time, I'll add some Tamiya X-21 Flat Base to it.

The nose was done in MM Acrylic Gunship Grey, and the black around the cockpit and nose was MM Acrylic Aircraft Interior Black. Of course, a kit this small and old doesn't have a glass canopy. I decided to go with the "mahogany model" affect and paint the 'glass' light blue. The colour I used was originally supposed to be Gundam White, but I literally added one drop too much blue to some Tamiya white, and it turned the entire bottle light blue. As it turns out, though, it is a great colour for this kind of work, and I was able to cover the white primer in only three coats. The exhausts were painted in MM Acrylic Jet Exhaust, with a black wash over top for burnishing.

The outlining on the plane was done using a filed down mechanical pencil, just like I do on real plane kits. (Of course, for me, 'real' is subjective, since most of what I build is Luft '46 stuff.) I chose this because even the narrowest Gundammarker makes a line that is FAR too wide for the scale of the plane. The pencil worked really well, and gives the final kit a much less toy-like appearance.

Above: You can see from this shot that the standard Gundammarker would have been too big to outline the Valk correctly. However, the old mechanical pencil trick worked great! I was surprised to find the kit even had the landing lights moulded in. I painted them yellow for contrast. What a change, before, the kit was mostly yellow with a bit of white, and now it's the other way around!

To finish off, the kit was airbrushed with Tamiya gloss coat, and several coats of Future were applied by hand. The end result was a nicely shiny plane with no smears, something I learned the hard way.

The stand was stolen from my FROG Ta-152H kit, with the neck filed down to fit the holes in the Valk's bottom. It was painted Tamiya XF-1 Flat Black, and glossed using Tamiya gloss coat.

Conclusions:

This little curiosity is certainly not something I was expecting to ever see, let alone build. It was a simple little bauble from an era when kits didn't have to have a gut-load of photoetch or take up half a coffee table's worth of display room. However, as a replica of a VF-1, it was, for the most part, very good.

Like many old kits, it is something of a Jekyll and Hyde: it is easy enough that novice modellers could build it passably, but still had enough sanding, filling and working-around to keep more advanced modellers busy.

This was a fast kit to build, and was perfect as a test bed for my new white paint. It is also a neat stroll down memory lane, and I had great fun in restoring it to a state that I feel it deserves. Many thanks to Dave Guertin and his patented 'box-of-junk' for this fun, fast and useful blast from the past!